How to spend summer before applications? Forum

[RamoneNudle]

I'm trying to make plans for next summer, but there seems to be little information on what kinds of experiences law schools favor or even whether they really matter that much.

A little about me: consistently scoring 175-180 on PTs, 3.65-3.7 expected GPA, econ major. Lots of other softs and good recs lined up. I plan to work on essays at the end of the sunmer and blanket the t14s as applications open.

I have the following options on the table: I can apply for REUs (a research position with another college, often abroad, studying issues in social science), an internship with Senator Rob Portman, or as an advocate for CASA. Of these, I'm most interested in the REUs, both because I love research and they're typically the most prestigious.

However, if schools honestly won't care much, I'd rather spend the summer doing the first half of the Appalachian Trail with my long-time boyfriend. It's possible that I could spin this into a "conversation piece" on my resume.

Thoughts?

[cavalier1138]

Go hiking. Stop trying to craft your life to your resume; you will burn out in record time doing that.

Better yet, don't go straight through. Take a couple of years (at least) to live in the world, work, pay for your own apartment, etc. Going K-JD means that you not only miss out on some pretty fundamental life experiences before being thrown into extremely high-pressure (and potentially high-paying) jobs, it also makes you far more likely to commit to a career path before knowing it's what you really want.

[RamoneNudle]

I appreciate the wisdom behind taking a few years in between, but it's not for me. I don't have the financial means to be a non-student, don't have the skills for a decent full-time job, and can't live with my parents. Besides, I've already taken a gap year between high school and college and the lack of forward momentum made me absolutely miserable. There's nothing for me in waiting to apply, without the money to travel or do anything. Thank you, though. For most people, I agree, it's good advice.

[Npret]

I appreciate the wisdom behind taking a few years in between, but it's not for me. I don't have the financial means to be a non-student, don't have the skills for a decent full-time job, and can't live with my parents. Besides, I've already taken a gap year between high school and college and the lack of forward momentum made me absolutely miserable. There's nothing for me in waiting to apply, without the money to travel or do anything. Thank you, though. For most people, I agree, it's good advice.

You get a job to support yourself. If you’re only a junior you have time to get some job skills. Having work experience is a huge plus in hiring when you get to that. You need to look beyond the application process. Being K-JD is not an asset when looking for jobs.
My prediction is that a person who wants to hike the Appalachian trail will hate biglaw, if that is what you’re after, though you didn’t specify. You may be much better off finding a career that allows an active lifestyle and predictable time for hobbies.

[QContinuum]

You can take the summer off - law schools won't care, nor will legal employers down the road. As you know, numbers are king in law school admissions, and while super strong softs can make a difference, I can't imagine that a summer internship in Sen. Portman's office, while really cool, would move the needle much/at all. (Same goes for the other two options you list.)

I don't think it's necessary to take a gap year, though I certainly think it's beneficial and it's become increasingly common (a supermajority of my classmates at my T14 took at least 1 year between college and law school). It's a very small fraction of folks who spend the gap year traveling - almost all worked for the lion's share of the year, with the most common jobs being (paid) BigLaw paralegal (the plurality) or some kind of (paid, though presumably less than BigLaw) PI work. I think you'd certainly be qualified to do either of those kinds of job - perhaps more qualified than my classmates were, even, given your econ major (a bit more "practice-ready" than, say, a traditional liberal-arts history/philosophy/English major!).

The main benefit to taking that gap year isn't so much general "life experience" - though that's certainly helpful too - but to get more data on whether you truly want to become a lawyer. Being a BigLaw paralegal, for instance, will give you an advance look inside the life of a BigLaw associate. Inside how firms operate. Inside whether you feel it's an environment that you could thrive in. Likewise, if you're more PI-inclined, actually working in PI, even at the entry level, will give you a look at the kinds of personalities that are common in PI orgs. 0L's the best time to figure this stuff out.

Being K-JD is not an asset when looking for jobs.

This is also quite true. One year of full-time WE may not sound like a lot, but my classmates with that WE did tend to have an easier time in the 2L summer job market than K-JDs, who faced a bit more skepticism. PI in particular likes to see a record of past dedication to PI, which tends to be harder to show for K-JDs.

My prediction is that a person who wants to hike the Appalachian trail will hate biglaw,

IMO that may be a bit of an overstatement here. This could simply be one of those bucket-list things OP wants to knock out now, while she's young and fit and has the time. Most of my BigLaw friends and mentors have taken extended trips in the past, particularly for their bar trip. Most of them are great fits for BigLaw - the fact that they chose to spend, say, a month backpacking in southeast Asia once upon a time doesn't mean they need or even want to do that kind of trip regularly.

[BarelyConcealedRage]

Go hiking. Stop trying to craft your life to your resume; you will burn out in record time doing that.

Better yet, don't go straight through. Take a couple of years (at least) to live in the world, work, pay for your own apartment, etc. Going K-JD means that you not only miss out on some pretty fundamental life experiences before being thrown into extremely high-pressure (and potentially high-paying) jobs, it also makes you far more likely to commit to a career path before knowing it's what you really want.

Just as a counterpoint, my gap year has been abject misery. I could not get a job that pays enough to "go hiking" or "have meaningful life experiences". Almost certain that is what people who either have high paying jobs and shouldn't go to law school anyway, or people with rich parents do.

I will agree it taught me one thing - law school seems to be the only way out. Sales is a nightmare if you didn't focus on it in college. It also taught me to never allow my children to major in the liberal arts. Anything like traveling, Appalachian trail, "living it up" requires money and really quite substantial income which is totally out of my grasp.

The only thing I gained from a gap year was a tiny income I could just barely subsist on. It was anything "fun" or "memorable" like people say gap years are supposed to be.

[Npret]

You can take the summer off - law schools won't care, nor will legal employers down the road. As you know, numbers are king in law school admissions, and while super strong softs can make a difference, I can't imagine that a summer internship in Sen. Portman's office, while really cool, would move the needle much/at all. (Same goes for the other two options you list.)

I don't think it's necessary to take a gap year, though I certainly think it's beneficial and it's become increasingly common (a supermajority of my classmates at my T14 took at least 1 year between college and law school). It's a very small fraction of folks who spend the gap year traveling - almost all worked for the lion's share of the year, with the most common jobs being (paid) BigLaw paralegal (the plurality) or some kind of (paid, though presumably less than BigLaw) PI work. I think you'd certainly be qualified to do either of those kinds of job - perhaps more qualified than my classmates were, even, given your econ major (a bit more "practice-ready" than, say, a traditional liberal-arts history/philosophy/English major!).

The main benefit to taking that gap year isn't so much general "life experience" - though that's certainly helpful too - but to get more data on whether you truly want to become a lawyer. Being a BigLaw paralegal, for instance, will give you an advance look inside the life of a BigLaw associate. Inside how firms operate. Inside whether you feel it's an environment that you could thrive in. Likewise, if you're more PI-inclined, actually working in PI, even at the entry level, will give you a look at the kinds of personalities that are common in PI orgs. 0L's the best time to figure this stuff out.

Being K-JD is not an asset when looking for jobs.

This is also quite true. One year of full-time WE may not sound like a lot, but my classmates with that WE did tend to have an easier time in the 2L summer job market than K-JDs, who faced a bit more skepticism. PI in particular likes to see a record of past dedication to PI, which tends to be harder to show for K-JDs.

My prediction is that a person who wants to hike the Appalachian trail will hate biglaw,

IMO that may be a bit of an overstatement here. This could simply be one of those bucket-list things OP wants to knock out now, while she's young and fit and has the time. Most of my BigLaw friends and mentors have taken extended trips in the past, particularly for their bar trip. Most of them are great fits for BigLaw - the fact that they chose to spend, say, a month backpacking in southeast Asia once upon a time doesn't mean they need or even want to do that kind of trip regularly.

It could be an overstatement. I’m coupling it a bit I guess with OPs aversion to getting a job.

I’ve known other people who have done these through hike trips, the great majority of them, if not all,are dedicated to spending a lot of time outdoors. Backpacking through Southeast Asia is different from the Appalachian trail, but I agree that I could be way off base.

[UVA2B]

Go hiking. Stop trying to craft your life to your resume; you will burn out in record time doing that.

Better yet, don't go straight through. Take a couple of years (at least) to live in the world, work, pay for your own apartment, etc. Going K-JD means that you not only miss out on some pretty fundamental life experiences before being thrown into extremely high-pressure (and potentially high-paying) jobs, it also makes you far more likely to commit to a career path before knowing it's what you really want.

Just as a counterpoint, my gap year has been abject misery. I could not get a job that pays enough to "go hiking" or "have meaningful life experiences". Almost certain that is what people who either have high paying jobs and shouldn't go to law school anyway, or people with rich parents do.

I will agree it taught me one thing - law school seems to be the only way out. Sales is a nightmare if you didn't focus on it in college. It also taught me to never allow my children to major in the liberal arts. Anything like traveling, Appalachian trail, "living it up" requires money and really quite substantial income which is totally out of my grasp.

The only thing I gained from a gap year was a tiny income I could just barely subsist on. It was anything "fun" or "memorable" like people say gap years are supposed to be.

I don’t know you, but I’m willing to bet there are several more beneficial lessons you’ve learned in this year and maybe you just don’t fully appreciate it now. Like budgeting/subsisting on your own, planning ahead for professional and personal stuff, fully preparing yourself to cover everything on your own in the real world without any safety net/bubble of being in the academic environment. You may not have enjoyed the experience, and maybe you didn’t even drastically open your eyes to the reality of living as an adult (if you’ve always been strapped for cash, that is), but that doesn’t automatically make it a bad experience for you to have, even if you’d never want to go through it again. Many/most? have lived through things like that in the years following college, and hopefully you’re personally better off/stronger personally because of it. And if you embrace that feeling of what it’s like to not have realistic plans for your future, it’ll make you an even more committed law student who not only wants to succeed academically, but draws out your professional plans so you don’t end up hating your job after a year in law without plan to get out (which is often a problem for K-JD, although it obviously varies from person to person).

[Npret]

Go hiking. Stop trying to craft your life to your resume; you will burn out in record time doing that.

Better yet, don't go straight through. Take a couple of years (at least) to live in the world, work, pay for your own apartment, etc. Going K-JD means that you not only miss out on some pretty fundamental life experiences before being thrown into extremely high-pressure (and potentially high-paying) jobs, it also makes you far more likely to commit to a career path before knowing it's what you really want.

Just as a counterpoint, my gap year has been abject misery. I could not get a job that pays enough to "go hiking" or "have meaningful life experiences". Almost certain that is what people who either have high paying jobs and shouldn't go to law school anyway, or people with rich parents do.

I will agree it taught me one thing - law school seems to be the only way out. Sales is a nightmare if you didn't focus on it in college. It also taught me to never allow my children to major in the liberal arts. Anything like traveling, Appalachian trail, "living it up" requires money and really quite substantial income which is totally out of my grasp.

The only thing I gained from a gap year was a tiny income I could just barely subsist on. It was anything "fun" or "memorable" like people say gap years are supposed to be.

None of this means the experience won’t benefit you more than simply going straight through K-JD. No one is saying OP has to have the best years of their life before going to school.

[RamoneNudle]

Let me clarify, since I think one of my points is being missed: I am *not* a K-JD applicant. I'm a 22 year old junior with a gap between high school and college.

I come from a lower income family and I'm the first gen college student, let alone a professional degree. I already have some unique life experiences that made me want to be a lawyer and I cleaned my life up from an absolute disaster to be one. I appreciate the advice, but I am not interested in remaining poor, trapped in a city I hate, and working in a field I don't like (straight business) for a year, just to reaffirm resolve I already have. I *hated* my other gap year as well.

Thank everyone for their opinions, and I'm sure for most people you'd be very correct. My circumstances are different.

Thanks as well to those who weighed in on my choices for next summer, since that's what I'm most interested in.

[RamoneNudle]

Also, if it helps clear anything up, I'm financially independent and I've worked all through school, so the "take a gap to learn budgeting/financial responsibility" point isn't applicable.

[QContinuum]

Go hiking. Stop trying to craft your life to your resume; you will burn out in record time doing that.

Better yet, don't go straight through. Take a couple of years (at least) to live in the world, work, pay for your own apartment, etc. Going K-JD means that you not only miss out on some pretty fundamental life experiences before being thrown into extremely high-pressure (and potentially high-paying) jobs, it also makes you far more likely to commit to a career path before knowing it's what you really want.

Just as a counterpoint, my gap year has been abject misery. I could not get a job that pays enough to "go hiking" or "have meaningful life experiences". Almost certain that is what people who either have high paying jobs and shouldn't go to law school anyway, or people with rich parents do.

I will agree it taught me one thing - law school seems to be the only way out. Sales is a nightmare if you didn't focus on it in college. It also taught me to never allow my children to major in the liberal arts. Anything like traveling, Appalachian trail, "living it up" requires money and really quite substantial income which is totally out of my grasp.

The only thing I gained from a gap year was a tiny income I could just barely subsist on. It was anything "fun" or "memorable" like people say gap years are supposed to be.

None of this means the experience won’t benefit you more than simply going straight through K-JD. No one is saying OP has to have the best years of their life before going to school.

Also, I'm really not sure why OP and BCR are both flogging the point that they don't have sufficient assets to spend a year vacationing & traveling the world or "living it up." I fear BCR went into their gap year with very unrealistic plans and expectations. I don't think a single person ITT has suggested that OP - or other 0Ls - ought to take a gap year in order to vacation. The advice is to work for a year, preferably as a BigLaw paralegal or in law-related PI work (as I pointed out in my earlier post ITT). Even my well-off friends who took a gap year spent that year working. They did not spend an entire year jetting around Europe and Asia, though their families would certainly have had the resources to pay for that.

Law school is by no means "the only way out." BCR mentions sales, but it's hardly like the only two fields in the world are law and sales. (In fact, lawyers typically need to be great at sales in order to land work...) Going to law school out of desperation is often a very, very bad life choice. Although, in fairness, majoring in the liberal arts at a non-elite college is also often a very bad life choice (i.e., a HYP English major will do just fine, but not so much an English major at an unranked state college).

[UVA2B]

Ok, we can accept your clarifications at face value, but you've glossed over things that may or may not be true. You can likely earn a living wage as a college graduate, even with a liberal arts degree that you think isn't worth enough, especially since you have the benefit of a year and a half to search for that job. So you are basically putting forth a few options for your summer that are necessarily predicated on not being able to find a job and work as a post-graduate adult, which is still different than a gap year, even if you've been financially independent throughout college. So while you'll be 24(?) at graduation, your professional experience in an office setting that could acclimate you to white collar jobs (assuming you are hoping to go into the majority of legal jobs following law school) is functionally similar to a 22 year old K-JD. You're different, in that you likely appreciate paying for groceries, utilities, or rent, but maybe (leaving open the possibility that you have here since it isn't clear unless I missed it) you haven't experienced a job where you have expected hours you're supposed to work, but those hours are more or less flexible if your bosses require you to work more (such as the most common example for liberal arts graduates who do a year or two of paralegal work at a law firm prior to law school). Those lessons and those experiences can speak to whether you're truly attuned to the profession you hope to enter (from what I've read here, you haven't outlined what your goals are with a JD, so I'm just assuming you want a fairly typical JD-required job after graduation here, feel free to expand on that if you'd like).

Those offering advice here are usually doing so without enough personal info about the person asking for advice, and usually there are some red flags that pop up in those questions because we assume the least generous interpretation of that person's posts because the best advice often seeks out more than just the questions being asked: it seeks out what might be problems in the questions being asked.

Superficially, any of your options for staying engaged in your summer are fine if that's what you want to do, and so is hiking the Appalachian Trail if you can afford it. If you're in the terminal phase of attending law school, what you do the summer prior likely won't matter much. If you insist on doing something professional, find something related to the area of law that you have set your sight on and get some experience in that field, even if it's not entirely immersive experience (such as internships, etc). You won't do demonstrable harm in whatever you do, but there is always the opportunity that you'll be exposed to [insert area of law that interests you] experiences that will feed your narrative when it comes time to interview for a job. You can't predict that and no one here can rightfully weight the likelihood of getting that kind of experience, but setting yourself up for the possibility gives you a chance of having substantive experience in the area of law that interests you. It probably won't work out that way, but it could.

[RamoneNudle]

It was maybe an overstatement that I have *no* work qualifications, but I live in a dead city in a flyover state and opportunities are few and far between. If I was motivated to make the year work I could. But, favorable to law schools or not, I am not. Please see my point about my gap year being miserable.

To your point about flexible hours, I do actually have experience being given a workload and flexible hours to complete it in. I write professionally for my university in an office setting and am used to being assigned projects and then cut loose to manage my own time, come in when I need to, etc.

It may be an unpopular response to the feedback in this thread, but while I recognize that there are advantages to taking a gap year, for me, the disadvantages outweigh them. I considered it for a long time, since they are *so* highly recommended, and I did my research, but I just don't want to repeat my gap year experience. If we're discussing what we've learned from time away from school, that's my takeaway. I never want to stagnate again, which is what it feels like to me when I'm not actively working for what I want.

[QContinuum]

It was maybe an overstatement that I have *no* work qualifications, but I live in a dead city in a flyover state and opportunities are few and far between. If I was motivated to make the year work I could. But, favorable to law schools or not, I am not. Please see my point about my gap year being miserable.

• You don't have to work in your "dead city in a flyover state". In fact, were you to pursue the types of BigLaw/PI jobs T14 0Ls commonly pursue, you would likely not be able to even find those jobs in your "dead city." Those jobs are concentrated in major legal markets, i.e., NYC, DC, CA, TX, Chicago. You'd probably be able to find something in a smaller secondary market, like Boston, but probably not in, say, Omaha.
• The main advantage of gaining WE isn't to help you in law school admissions, which are almost exclusively based on GPA and LSAT. The main advantages are in helping you land future legal positions, and, perhaps most importantly, helping you test and confirm the nature of your legal interests. Right now your main motivation for law school appears to be making lots of money, which is fine, but that could easily be a recipe for disaster if BigLaw turns out to be an awful fit for you. Every year there are folks who go to T14s, take out loans, land BigLaw, then burn out (or get nudged out) after working a year or two. That's a real risk.
• You are in a much different position as a college graduate and future law student than you were in as a high school graduate. I assume the only jobs interested in hiring HS grads are waitstaff/retail jobs. You wouldn't be pursuing those positions as a 0L.

To your point about flexible hours, I do actually have experience being given a workload and flexible hours to complete it in. I write professionally for my university in an office setting and am used to being assigned projects and then cut loose to manage my own time, come in when I need to, etc.

I don't think that's quite the kind of "flexibility" my friend had in mind. He was more referring to the "flexibility" of expecting to work 9-6 (and maybe even having firm plans with your BF/friends/family for the evening), but then being required to cancel your plans and stay in the office until 10 with essentially zero advance notice.

Would that BigLaw "cut [associates] loose" and let them come and go whenever they please! BigLaw would be the most-loved career on Earth if that were true.

It may be an unpopular response to the feedback in this thread, but while I recognize that there are advantages to taking a gap year, for me, the disadvantages outweigh them. I considered it for a long time, since they are *so* highly recommended, and I did my research, but I just don't want to repeat my gap year experience. If we're discussing what we've learned from time away from school, that's my takeaway. I never want to stagnate again, which is what it feels like to me when I'm not actively working for what I want.

Not a single person ITT has advocated for you to "repeat [your HS-college] gap year experience" or to spend a year "stagnat[ing]." That would be tragic. Paralegaling in BigLaw for a year would be the opposite of the unproductive, boring, "lost" gap year you previously had as a HS grad.

[UVA2B]

^Yup, thanks for clarifying for me.

[Npret]

It was maybe an overstatement that I have *no* work qualifications, but I live in a dead city in a flyover state and opportunities are few and far between. If I was motivated to make the year work I could. But, favorable to law schools or not, I am not. Please see my point about my gap year being miserable.

To your point about flexible hours, I do actually have experience being given a workload and flexible hours to complete it in. I write professionally for my university in an office setting and am used to being assigned projects and then cut loose to manage my own time, come in when I need to, etc.

It may be an unpopular response to the feedback in this thread, but while I recognize that there are advantages to taking a gap year, for me, the disadvantages outweigh them. I considered it for a long time, since they are *so* highly recommended, and I did my research, but I just don't want to repeat my gap year experience. If we're discussing what we've learned from time away from school, that's my takeaway. I never want to stagnate again, which is what it feels like to me when I'm not actively working for what I want.

When are you taking the LSAT? Somehow I misread that you already have a score. Your practice tests may be between 175-180, but make sure you are taking them timed, under testing conditions. Practice tests don’t always translate into a actual score, for a variety of reasons.

The other thing you can do is perfectly polish your applications, have them ready to go as soon as applications open.

Nothing else you do this summer will matter as much to law school applications as your LSAT score and creating
flawless applications.

The recommendation to get work experience was to help you further down the road, not with law school admissions. I think most 0Ls could benefit from working as a paralegal because they generally have no idea what the actual practice of law entails.

Regarding flexible time, I’m sure you realize that lawyers work to tight, usually inflexible and pressing deadlines. I think there was some misunderstanding there. Yes, you may be able to work from home, but it’s not what I would consider flexible.