Saturday, March 19, 2011

Preview Day

Went to the Toledo Law School Preview day.  No particular theme to this post, but a bunch of observations:

1.  Law students sure are short.  Maybe just 4T law students.  Or maybe just Toledo Law students.  Maybe just the ones who showed up today, but they're short.  I notice this because I am essentially of average height.  Maybe an inch or two higher.  It's strange how many groups of people are identifiable by height.  In the Army, I was probably of average height.  In the Navy, I'm one of the taller folks.  I guess short people don't want to be in the Army, or they don't worry so much about bumping their heads if they have to be in a submarine.  In b-school, I was about average height.  Today?  I was pretty much the tallest person there.  It was that noticeable.  So, if the law school ever takes on the b-school in basketball, I'm betting on the b-school.

2.  Holy ****ing cow.  Helicopter parents!!!  I swear to god, 3/4 of the people there today were with their moms and dads.  I don't know if this is just a change since I was in school back before Columbus sailed the ocean blue, but I can't imagine ANY parents at any college functions when I was in school.  I didn't even know my classmates had parents.  Maybe these guys were all from out of town, and their parents drove them, but even then, that's sorta WTF.  I really, really don't get it.  The people there with parents FAR outnumbered the people without.

3.  Whenever I get into a large group of people I don't know, my immediate reaction is, "Jesus, look at all these effing hipsters.  How in the world did I end up in a room with THESE people."  My sense of repulsion is almost always replaced by a feeling of, "why do I always have to practice douchebaggery every time I get with a new group of people?" during the first few minutes of actually talking to them.  The folks I got to speak to were uniformly cool and easy to approach and talk to.  I could really enjoy being in school with them.

4.  Applications to the law school are up 90% this year.  Probably due to the fact that nobody has a ****ing job around here.  When they said this, I immediately dropped any plans I had of letting my acceptance lapse.  This was reinforced by talking to another guy who hadn't been accepted, and was, instead, wait-listed.  I really have taken this whole thing for granted.  Yeah, that's me, unappreciative and self-centered.  Small wonder I want to be an attorney. 

My plan at this point is to wait until the 11th hour, then submit my seat deposit.  It's only $150.  So, if I don't go, not a huge deal.  With any luck, I'll have a scholly by then, but with applications spiking like this, I'm probably less competitive for a scholarship than I already thought I was.  The admissions director said this was likely to be a very high-achieving class based on what she saw.  ****ing great.  Will make class rank all the harder to attain.  I should have done this 3 years ago.

5.  I was amazed at how many people at the preview day were not from Toledo.  They actually are leaving their home town and moving here specifically for the purpose of attending UT Law.  I overheard one kid in there whose parents said (yes, his parents were talking, not him) that he took the LSAT 3 times and I believe he was applying to CSU, Akron and Toledo.  All I could think was, "Wow, dude, you want to be an attorney THAT BAD?" 
6.  The part of the day I least wanted to do turned out to be the most enjoyable.  It was like a "sample law school class".  Okay, it really wasn't.  They said it was, but please.  For one thing, the prof was AMAZINGLY energetic, positive, upbeat... a truly, truly gifted and entertaining educator.  If every teacher in there is like that, I'll be more than mildly surprised.  Second, we really just sorta glossed over a few scenarios.  I mean, what could be more like law school than sitting in a class in front of an entertaining teacher, while not digging into the details of things at all? 

Despite being against my better judgement, I spoke up (since the class was supposed to be Socratic method) and the prof politely told me my head was in my ass.  That happens a lot with the law.  A reasonably intelligent, educated person can read a law and think, "Oh, that law means X."  Then, when they talk to their attorney the attorney says, "No... I mean, I know that's what it looks like, but they really aren't talking about X at all.  What they mean is that when you're talking about Y and Z, under conditions W, that you have to consider factors L, M and N."

7.  Overall, I couldn't help but feel that the whole thing was like when a guy on Vegas gives you free tickets to some musical, and all you have to do is sit through a brief sales presentation.  They were there to sell.  We were there as potential buyers.

8.  Not one single question about jobs after graduation.  Not one.  I can't believe these kids.  In b-school, that was all anybody ever thought about.  We had multiple opportunities for Q&A, but not one question on how placement is going.  Maybe they all already know the deal, and don't care, but honestly, I don't think a lot of the kids knew.

9.  University of Toledo campus?  Majorly beautiful.  I totally didn't know how nice it is.  The university trail runs within 3 miles of my house.  If I got a bicycle, it's a nice 10 mile ride to campus.  I may do that. 

10.  Toledo has a reputation as being a bit more collaborative and not at all cutthroat.  Based on what I saw today, I believe it, and I mean that in the most sincerely complimentary and nice way.  I think it's a situation where the class quickly stratifies and the 90% who realize they're not gunning dial it way back. 

The class sizes are smallish, too.  120 or so in the entering 1L class.  Maybe that has something to do with it.  I mean, if you're competing against 300 people you barely know, you'll always feel like you can work just a little harder and catch that nameless faceless bunch of people who just barely outperformed you last semester by getting one letter grade better in one class. 

If you're in a school of 100 classmates, everybody knows everybody.  You know who the brains are.  You know who's barely scraping by.  You might be more likely to just accept your order in things.  The 1L class at UT will be roughly half the size of my High School class.

11.  I was a little alarmed by the lack of diversity.  Given that the school is located in Toledo, I was anticipating a lot larger minority enrollment.  I only saw a couple of prospective african american students.  That was alarming. 
As much as I hate Affirmative Action, every now and then, I see a large room that's almost exclusively full of white people and it sort of shocks me.

Now, on the other hand, Affirmative Action could explain the lack of minority applicants at Toledo.  Qualified URM candidates are pretty fiercely competed after.  So, people who might have gone to Toledo are quite possibly at much more highly regarded schools.  Though I do think this indicates a lack of bench strength.

By that, I mean, URMs have their share of bright people who can compete with anybody, but behind them, the pickings get slimmer.  Whereas, white people have bright folks, but right behind them, there are some less-bright people who still want to go to graduate school.

1 comment:

  1. Oh man, that's funny stuff.

    2: Helicopter parents of ADULTS? What? Mommy brought you to law school? Pussies.

    6: my professors at a tier 3/4 law school were better as a whole than my wesleyan or any other professors I've had since. By a lot.

    Oh and yeah, you're getting a flavor for why I get squinty when folks who don't work in a particular area of the law start opining about it . . .

    11. Black folks of mediocre ability get reverse shafted: they get to go to better schools than the could if they were white and it means that at hiring time, they're not competitive with the other students. And frankly, if the distribution were perfect, you'd still only have like 12 in your class at most.

    ReplyDelete