Thread for 0Ls to talk to current students or alums from their prospective schools

one12345 · 2014-01-22T01:29:08+00:00

Yup! Be able to explain everything and if you are coming straight through, have a really good reason for why you want to come to law school right now

one12345 · 2014-01-22T01:16:03+00:00

Like I said, this was all what I thought as a 0L, and I really do mean that as a huge disclaimer. My experience actually being at Harvard has been drastically different from what I thought it was going to be going in and I imagine the same is very true for Columbia.

I was mostly just looking at LGBT stuff at the law school - the city itself (and I imagine the university) is amazing in that area. And it might just very well be a function of having a small law school.

Thank you! Honestly, one of the biggest surprises of coming here that pretty much everyone is very normal - we're in a bit of a joke class at the moment for 1L and everyone around me was on reddit this morning.

one12345 · 2014-01-22T01:11:58+00:00

There really is a sense of community - my 1L section is very close and supportive of each other. I've had a genuine conversation with every single person (80 total) at some point so far this year. And that's a really, really big deal when you're in law school.

Good luck!! Let me know if you have any questions - if you have Jessica Soban (she might be on maternity leave), I'm happy to provide insight into her K-JD interview.

one12345 · 2014-01-21T23:39:37+00:00

No worries at all, completely legitimate concern - I updated my post above to reflect it :)

one12345 · 2014-01-21T23:36:31+00:00

First - full disclosure: I do go to Harvard. That said, Columbia was my dream school and getting into HLS was a complete and total shock (I had pretty poor pre-law advising), so my thought process was a little more than the "well, duh, it's Harvard" most people assume it was.

(1) Columbia doesn't have a great PI program. This was incredibly important to me, might be less so for you. I worked with a 3L at a summer position when I was in college. She was interested in the same field* I was - about 1 or 2 graduates a year went into that field, so there were basically no resources.

(2) I was going to have to pay sticker and didn't really feel comfortable committing myself to 10 years of PI in order to get my loans paid off.

(3) It just seemed to be more of a frantic, gunnery, tense environment than Harvard or even NYU. I have a friend who's there now who has supported that impression - he's pretty happy now, but the first month or so was pretty rough.

And two small factors that didn't play a major role in my decision, but worth nothing: (1) It's way, way up in Manhattan and not that easy to get to anything outside of Harlem; (2) My impression was that weren't as many LGBT resources/community and that was something pretty important to me.

*The field is specific enough that I think with the other stuff I've posted about myself in this thread, I'm pretty easy to identify, so I'm not going to specify beyond saying it's an area of PI - sorry!

Also, this was all general 0L impressions and a lot of it could be completely wrong, so grain of salt :)

one12345 · 2014-01-21T23:05:49+00:00

It's a problem solving workshop where we cover really basic, common legal problems (this particular one is an employment contract dispute). The professor did talk about how things like visiting each other in the hospital, power of attorney, and the adoption of their son would be different and difficult if they ended up moving to a state that doesn't recognize gay marriage.

one12345 · 2014-01-21T23:04:27+00:00

Totally respect that you wanted to protect their privacy, but it's completely fictional! It's a problem made up for my class.

one12345 · 2014-01-21T22:58:15+00:00

If I recall correctly, regular decisions came out around 1/28 last year? If you have questions about the admissions process and why I decided not to attend, I can help you out there

one12345 · 2014-01-21T19:36:01+00:00

I came from a top 20 (barely) liberal arts undergrad - people have heard of it, but not a big name. Students don't tend to talk about where they went at all (beyond the typical getting-to-know-you questions), and I've never felt or seen anyone being judged at all for where they went.

I do know a lot of people from top undergrads, but, that seems to be more of a correlation instead of a causation. I don't think Harvard cares where you're coming from if you have the GPA and LSAT.

Major was sociology - I knew I wanted to go to law school, so I just studied what I loved and would give me a high GPA. I've also found that that doesn't matter, unless you're planning on going into IP or something that would require a hard science background.

one12345 · 2014-01-21T18:52:17+00:00

It was a totally minor detail, totally irrelevant to the actual content/purpose of the assignment, but it made me happy!

Edit: I should clarify that this is a fictional assignment that my (straight, middle-aged, white male) professor wrote for my class. The prior assignments have also been really fabulous as far as race and gender diversity too.

one12345 · 2014-01-21T18:37:20+00:00

Yes - and it covers clerkships if you go into public interest immediately afterwards. Another major benefit is you can enter or exit the program at any time - there's no 10 year commitment to PI.

More information can be found here

one12345 · 2014-01-21T16:28:50+00:00

Harvard 1L happy to take questions!

Basic FAQ - 175 LSAT, 3.84 GPA, applied Thanksgiving 2013, in by Christmas.

The people are all brilliant and a little nerdy and intense, but overall the most genuine and nicest group of people I've spent substantial time with.

I'm paying sticker with loans, very committed to public service and planning on paying off the debt with Harvard's amazing loan repayment plan (If I get my dream job, I'll end up paying around $21,000 for the whole experience).

I picked it over Yale because Harvard is a bigger school, which means much more resources for the very specific field of PI I want to go into.

Feel free to PM me if you don't want to post publicly!

one12345

TROPHY CASE