Advice from a 2L About Admit Weekends Forum

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Anonymous2L

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Advice from a 2L About Admit Weekends

Post by Anonymous2L » Mon Apr 15, 2013 4:19 pm

To all of you attending admit weekends and open houses, congrats! It is a very exciting time, and I hope you found a school that is a great fit for you. As a current 2L at a T5 law school, I just wanted to make a couple of suggestions to those of you who still have admit weekends ahead of you:

1) Please do not participate in class. We know it is really exciting to finally be seeing what it will be like when you come to law school, and to maybe be in a class about something that really interests you. We share your enthusiasm. But here's the thing: if you are sitting in on a real class, this class has almost certainly been going on for several weeks/months, and is likely based on a long reading assignment that you have not done. You therefore extremely unqualified to be answering questions about the reading, or to be participating in class discussion. We understand how exciting it is to be in a law school class, but please understand that we have to get through a certain amount of reading during each class, so when you ask a question going off on a tangent about something you once heard about a criminal law case, you are truly wasting everyone's time. The professor will not remember you (we are lucky if they know our names), so you are not winning any points with them. But the more often you pipe up in class, the more likely it is that we (the future 3Ls and 2Ls) will remember you (negatively). If you have a genuine question or even if you want to get some face time in with the professor, there is time for that after class. Something you will learn in law school is that you are probably no longer the smartest person in the room. Now is a good time to embrace that and listen to what the professor and the people who have done the reading have to say.

2) If you have legitimate questions about how we feel our experiences at this law school compares to the experience of others at other law schools, we are happy to answer them. If you want to know what went into our calculus when choosing a law school, we are happy to share that. But you are not the first person by a long shot who has had to choose between HYS/Columbia/etc, so please don't try to brag that you have been accepted to all of those places. So were we. And we (quietly) made the choice we thought was best for us, which is what you should do. These weekends are fact-finding missions during which you can assess which school is the best place for you, not a forum in which to brag to us that you have been accepted to other prestigious schools. We truly do not care.

You might be surprised about how many people remember when you behave in an obnoxious manner, particularly in law school. The people you meet in here are going to be your professional colleagues for your entire career, so it might be worth taking some time now to think about how you want to be perceived by them.

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cinephile

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Re: Advice from a 2L About Admit Weekends

Post by cinephile » Mon Apr 15, 2013 4:51 pm

Anonymous2L wrote:To all of you attending admit weekends and open houses, congrats! It is a very exciting time, and I hope you found a school that is a great fit for you. As a current 2L at a T5 law school, I just wanted to make a couple of suggestions to those of you who still have admit weekends ahead of you:

1) Please do not participate in class. We know it is really exciting to finally be seeing what it will be like when you come to law school, and to maybe be in a class about something that really interests you. We share your enthusiasm. But here's the thing: if you are sitting in on a real class, this class has almost certainly been going on for several weeks/months, and is likely based on a long reading assignment that you have not done. You therefore extremely unqualified to be answering questions about the reading, or to be participating in class discussion. We understand how exciting it is to be in a law school class, but please understand that we have to get through a certain amount of reading during each class, so when you ask a question going off on a tangent about something you once heard about a criminal law case, you are truly wasting everyone's time. The professor will not remember you (we are lucky if they know our names), so you are not winning any points with them. But the more often you pipe up in class, the more likely it is that we (the future 3Ls and 2Ls) will remember you (negatively). If you have a genuine question or even if you want to get some face time in with the professor, there is time for that after class. Something you will learn in law school is that you are probably no longer the smartest person in the room. Now is a good time to embrace that and listen to what the professor and the people who have done the reading have to say.
Has this ever happened, ever? When I was a 1L, we had many visitors sit on our doctrinal classes and I can assure you, no one ever volunteered. Not even once. Because it was super boring and like you said, made no sense to someone coming in part way through the semester. Now as a 2L, I've had fewer experiences with students sitting in on our seminars, but when they do, the professor usually asks them to volunteer an opinion. Because it's a seminar, and you don't need to know anything legal to share your thoughts about what policy or whatever should be.
Anonymous2L wrote: 2) If you have legitimate questions about how we feel our experiences at this law school compares to the experience of others at other law schools, we are happy to answer them. If you want to know what went into our calculus when choosing a law school, we are happy to share that. But you are not the first person by a long shot who has had to choose between HYS/Columbia/etc, so please don't try to brag that you have been accepted to all of those places. So were we. And we (quietly) made the choice we thought was best for us, which is what you should do. These weekends are fact-finding missions during which you can assess which school is the best place for you, not a forum in which to brag to us that you have been accepted to other prestigious schools. We truly do not care.
I would have to strongly disagree with you here. I go to almost every admitted students event in order to prevent a young soul from making a terrible mistake, and I haven't ever seen the kind of behavior you're suggesting. It might be unique to your school or maybe you're just projecting your own feelings on to these prospies. When people ask me these questions, I take them at their word and assume it was meant legitimately - like I really can't decide if the better choice is the most prestigious school or the better scholarship. And I'm not so insecure about myself that I get offended by students who have better options. Learn to let things go, man. If you truly didn't care, you wouldn't have made an account just to complain about this as your one and only post.

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Re: Advice from a 2L About Admit Weekends

Post by tampadave » Mon Feb 17, 2014 3:30 pm

I've been a practicing lawyer since 1985. My daughter was just accepted into The University of Miami School of Law.

This post is really unnecessary. Incoming 1Ls are generally too shy, or too smart, to interject themselves in class discussions. As for discussing options among various law schools, let them ask a lot of questions. Some want to simply bask in the glow of their admission cycle success and talk about it. They worked hard to secure their offers, so let them have a little fun. They'll be thrilled to be inside the doors of a reputable law school and most simply want to enjoy the moment. Humor them.

You've heard my two cents.

Good luck to everyone entering the profession. For most of us, it has been a very rewarding career.

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Optimist Prime

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Re: Advice from a 2L About Admit Weekends

Post by Optimist Prime » Mon Feb 17, 2014 4:15 pm

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Last edited by Optimist Prime on Wed Mar 12, 2014 12:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Gary

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Re: Advice from a 2L About Admit Weekends

Post by Gary » Wed Feb 19, 2014 12:19 pm

Optimist Prime wrote:What the heck is T5?

Clearly not HYS... so you go to Columbia or Chicago and are bitter about missing out on the preftige ?
Lol that's what you got from his post.... Wow. People in the U.S. often use nice round numbers like top 5, top 10, top 50, etc. So by that convention it merely means one of the top 5 law schools. Hth.

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KatyMarie

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Re: Advice from a 2L About Admit Weekends

Post by KatyMarie » Thu Feb 20, 2014 4:08 pm

Gary wrote:
Optimist Prime wrote:What the heck is T5?

Clearly not HYS... so you go to Columbia or Chicago and are bitter about missing out on the preftige ?
Lol that's what you got from his post.... Wow. People in the U.S. often use nice round numbers like top 5, top 10, top 50, etc. So by that convention it merely means one of the top 5 law schools. Hth.
From what I understand, T5 just isn't a term that's really used in this case. HYS is T3. HYSCCN is T6. Top 14 schools are the Top 14. Beyond that it's T1 schools to some point I don't really understand, T2 to some point I don't really understand, then it's all T3/T4 crappy law schools.

So, if OP was HYS, he would write T3. Saying T5 instead of T6 just reads like a weird, unnecessary f-you to NYU (to me anyway). HTH!

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Gary

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Re: Advice from a 2L About Admit Weekends

Post by Gary » Thu Feb 20, 2014 4:19 pm

KatyMarie wrote:
Gary wrote:
Optimist Prime wrote:What the heck is T5?

Clearly not HYS... so you go to Columbia or Chicago and are bitter about missing out on the preftige ?
Lol that's what you got from his post.... Wow. People in the U.S. often use nice round numbers like top 5, top 10, top 50, etc. So by that convention it merely means one of the top 5 law schools. Hth.
From what I understand, T5 just isn't a term that's really used in this case. HYS is T3. HYSCCN is T6. Top 14 schools are the Top 14. Beyond that it's T1 schools to some point I don't really understand, T2 to some point I don't really understand, then it's all T3/T4 crappy law schools.

So, if OP was HYS, he would write T3. Saying T5 instead of T6 just reads like a weird, unnecessary f-you to NYU (to me anyway). HTH!
haha don't worry I fully understand that... i just thought it was slightly eye-roll worthy how the poster above me singled out one word (t5) that was completely irrelevant to the point of the multiple paragraph post just to ridicule the OP. :roll:

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patogordo

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Re: Advice from a 2L About Admit Weekends

Post by patogordo » Thu Feb 20, 2014 4:20 pm

great thread, OP. mods, can this be stickied?

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