This is especially true for straight through people.dabigchina wrote:I'm shocked you went to law school in the first place. Your work experience positioned you well for elite MBA.
For most of the other people on this forum though, it's just not possible for them to get in. Work experience that would count as being very legit for law school would get you laughed out of town at an elite MBA.
This is why people perceive your posts as self congratulatory and not very useful.
There should be some recognition of going straight from a big state school vs elite Ivy UG. Your "2-4 years of work" options are very different at that point. One of the biggest reasons I am doing a JD/MBA (which I believe Voyager takes a couple of admittedly fair shots at earlier) is because I straight up couldn't get into a top MBA otherwise.
Applying for joint or applying as a 1L are both significantly higher chances at getting into a top MBA with a lesser resume/background. I don't want this to read as though I did nothing and a joint degree was a magic solution (I was one of the top students at my entire university and have some pretty great experience for someone who came straight through), but it is absolutely a way to leverage what you do have to offer to get the MBA. I was straight rejected from 4 of the schools anyway, made it to final round of HBS interviews, and then got into 2 MBAs (including the one I am at now). My experience absolutely shined through as evidencing that a law school acceptance made a huge difference. Admissions deans call the other admissions deans at their university. These things are real and can be used to your advantage.
The cost equation is different too. My situation (foregoing a top end of maybe 70k a year in salary pre-tax) has significantly lower opportunity costs and the burden of debt on a 22 year old is less than it is on a 30 year old purely because of the extra time to pay it back. I also get more aid because I had no assets.
TLS is great and has been super helpful to me. But a point I think Voyager gets at some and dances around a bit as well is that "special snowflakes" gets taken too far. There are significant differences in costs and benefits depending on how old somebody is and what else they can do. For blanket advice, TLS is great, but a little bit more contextual awareness in the culture would be valuable.
Tl;dr - Voyager making some great points here, but be aware that the straight through people can't necessarily take advantage. Remember your situation and read things through that lens.