Bad Glacier

Jeremy’s advice for 0Ls (list item #2; I’ll write about the other pieces of advice later) says to write down your goals, dreams, and good intentions in a note to yourself. “Then, three years from now, you can look back and cry.”

It’s not yet time for that note, but in the same spirit, I have decided to write to my three-months-in-the-future self about choosing a law school. Here we go:

Future Josh,

Hey man, hope things are going alright. You still doing that blog thing? Way to stick with it. I’m impressed with you.

Anyways, you’re just about to decide where to send your deposit check. Congratulations. I’m sure you made a good choice. Or at least a decent choice. Truthfully, you can’t really mess this one up. Keep that in mind.

I do hope you considered more than the US News rankings, though. You better have at least visited each school. And remember how you said you’d have to think hard before turning down grant money? Law school’s expensive. You’re gonna be deep in debt by the time you’re done. I really don’t want my job choices constrained because you decided to turn down a good financial aid package for no good reason. Now, if there’s a reason behind it, cool. I just don’t want to hear excuses about “But School Y is ranked four places below School X! I couldn’t pass that up! You know how important prestige is in law!”

Bah.

Choose a school based on the factors that matter to you. Just remember that small ranking differences didn’t matter to the three-months-ago you. If you think they matter now, figure out why you changed your mind before you make this decision.

Go somewhere that will allow you to achieve your goals. Go somewhere with professors and classes you’re excited about. Go somewhere you’ll enjoy for the next three years. But don’t forget, you can’t really mess this up.

Hearts and flowers,
Josh of the past

This entry was posted on Friday, February 4th, 2005 at 12:28 pm and is filed under Applying to Law School. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.