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Hey folks,

I'm a piano performance major with minors in math, physics, Italian, and law, justice, and culture studies. Beyond that, I've got a variety of stuff on my resume: touring with bands, running several student orgs, assistant coaching HS mock trial, debate team, tutoring, teaching piano lessons, state and national conference presentations in my field, founding and running an arts outreach program for underprivileged kids near my school, board of directors of my school's legal services center. I'm also pursuing those fantastic UK awards (Rhodes, Marshall, Fulbright) for post-graduation, so that could both change the game and push off application by a year, depending on my success there.

How much of an oddball app will I be, and is that likely going to add to or detract from my numbers? Can softs actually affect the amount of money I could get? Which of the above are actually worth talking up, if any?

Help much appreciated! Feel free to yell at me and tell me where this post actually belongs if not here.

what do you want to do with your life? Artists are probably one of the most miserable people in biglaw. Just sayin.. you might want to think about these things before attending LS if Biglaw is your thing

mvp99 wrote:what do you want to do with your life? Artists are probably one of the most miserable people in biglaw. Just sayin.. you might want to think about these things before attending LS if Biglaw is your thing

Yeah, that's valid. I've spent my entire undergrad trying to figure out what the heck I want to do, as evidenced by the variety of things I've played around with. I won't bore you with the introspective novel of my entire thought process, but I don't really fit in as a pianist, and don't see art as something I can singly dedicate the rest of my life to. In fact, I've been much happier and more able to actually enjoy my art since deciding earlier this year to switch fields after I graduate. It's not that I couldn't make a living as an artist (I could), but that I would be more intellectually and personally fulfilled practicing law.

I'd probably try and do something cool with your life for a few years after graduation at least, you have plenty of time to be a big law drone if that is really your burning passion

On the margins that stuff might help admissions very slightly, doubt it would affect money. Being a Rhodes scholar or something would likely be a game changer. I'd list all that stuff on your application resume and maybe zero in on one of them if it's personal statement worthy. If you do decide to go the drone route you may or may not want to zero in on the more drone-y stuff (debate team, etc.), speaking as a square myself it's all kind of neat but kind of all over the place and maybe your drone overlord would think you were flighty and too artistic to truly embrace the drone lifestyle.

Just IMO

You have six minors??? And you have a 3.99/171 and are expecting your variety of interests to detract from your T14 chances? This is likely a troll, but if not, you'll do great in admissions with those numbers.

I'm curious about what you background is (we don't get many piano performance majors around here, especially with your extensive list of minors!). Are you at a university with a conservatory (e.g. Rice) or a conservatory with a connection to another school (e.g. Julliard-Columbia/NEC-Harvard)?

A 3.99/171 gives you a good shot at most of the T14 (and you just might have the special unicorn status that Yale could jump at).

(If you're not comfortable blasting out to the world, PMs work too)

EricHosmer wrote:You have six minors??? And you have a 3.99/171 and are expecting your variety of interests to detract from your T14 chances? This is likely a troll, but if not, you'll do great in admissions with those numbers.

I think it's four minors from the way it reads. "[L]aw, justice, and culture studies" seems to be the name of one of the four minors.

I think BigZuck's post is TCR.