Law School Discussion

What I liked:
-I think the thing that stood out the most was how absolutely EVERYONE raved about the faculty and I think they're mostly right. Both faculty panels on saturday were probably my favorites. They seem really accessible and I got the impression that they truly enjoy what they're doing and that they really love interacting with the students.

-The facilities are quite nice, the classrooms are quite comfortable. They do have a few problems, but I'll talk about those later.

- At least among the 0Ls, I didn't see much gunnerish attitude. Most people seemed really laid back, although  kinda reserved.

-Good swag. We got t-shirts, portfolios, coffee mugs. Good food, good alcohol at the scholar's dinner. I didn't go to Bar Review so someone else will have to talk about that.

-My student host, aside from having cats that crawled over me while I slept, was super nice and I probably learned the most from her. She's also into public interest so she gave me a lot of insight about how it is to pursue that in GW.

-The clinics panel was really informative for the most part. Quite honest, at least. They do tell you outright that PI at GW is not an easy path but that it's still doable.

- On Friday, a few of us had lunch with Dean Scooner. I loved that he never once told anyone the just HAD to go to the school, I think he gave everyone very good advice on the choices we have to make. Plus, he's helping me with my deferral so that earned him brownie points.

What I didn't like:

-I didn't see one person who was absolutely in love with the school. Everyone loves DC but and to quote a student "law junk gets in the way".

- Administration tells you it's not competitive, I got the vibe that it really, really is, specially for the journal competition. I did not get the "one big happy family" vibe.

-Climate control is horrible. In one room you're roasting, in the next you're freezing. Also, the school seems way too small for the amount of people in there.

-A few students I talked to said the Career Development Office was worthless, that all they were good for was for posting the jobs, everything else was up to you.

- Everything was FIRMS, FIRMS, FIRMS, FIRMS. Public Interest people didn't even have someone at CDO until this semester. I think the fact that most people are so firm oriented is a big factor in the competitive atmosphere of the school.

-The Aston was not bad, but it wasn't fantastic either.  I guess it depends on what yo're looking for.

Basically, the school just pushed "DC is the GREATEST PLACE EVER to study law in" as its main selling point. I liked the school a lot, but I wasn't blown away. They are probably going to let me defer with part of the scholarship so that still keeps them on top for me, but I wish I could have felt more sure about my decision to go there at some point.

I'm pretty sure I want to defer a year. I just got an offer to do research in Madrid for year and it's looking pretty tempting. I know a few of you out there, like demingh, have deferred and I was wondering if I could get some help. How exactly do you go about asking schools for a deferral? Who do you need to contact? And most importantly, do schools let you keep scholarship awards if you defer? Thanks in advance!

Let's have this somewhere more visible...for those of you who were down at GULC this weekend, how'd it go? What did you think about the school? Did the ASW in any way changed the way you look at GULC?

There's a huge possibility I might defer a year. How exactly does this work? When would I have to notify a school that I was deferring? And also, if I were to defer, would that bind me to attending the school? Thanks for the help! And if there's anyone out there who's planning on deferring or who's doing it already, care to share  your thoughts and plans?

Ok, so by now everyone has heard that they'll start taking the higher LSAT score, without penalty. I have no idea what to do. I thought that I was in a pretty good spot  and chose not to retake in June. Now with everyone retaking medians will go up and I'm wondering how this will affect URM admissions. They always need to fill minority spots, but will the expectations rise now that they know we can take the test multiple times.  Will they expect people to take it many times so that they can do better?