GPA Addendum Decision

One last benefit of my visit to U of R. Given that my undergraduate GPA will not be taken too seriously, thank God, I will not be writing an addendum to address my sophomore year dip. This was something I debated doing earlier. My visit clearly indicates that I don't need to put too much emphasis on anything relating to my grades.

More on U of R visit

Here a few things I forgot to note in my previous post about my visit to Richmond Law.

1) If my GPA is being trumped by what I've done since undergrad, that means that I really need to make sure my resume captures my industry and graduate school experience. As I have finally had some success with my personal statement, I will start focusing on my resume. I have one now, but I think it could be better. (As a side note, I was reading a TLS forum about resume length. Don't worry about length and focus on content people! Although I have to agree with a few of the replies. Nobody in or right out of college should have a resume longer than a page.)

2) I tested my personal statement topic on the admissions rep I spoke to yesterday. She seemed intrigued. Of course I didn't say, this is what I'm writing about in my personal statement, but when I gave her my business card and she saw that I have a PhD and I work for a pharmaceutical company, she asked me if I was interested in IP. I gave her my motivation for law school (which I discussed here). IP is definitely a key component of my plan, but that's not the whole story. She seemed genuinely interested.

3) I could really feel that I am a decade older than most of the people who were in that class with me yesterday. I hadn't thought about it much before, but it will be weird to be in class with people who are so much younger.

4) I really liked the school. It has a very collegial atmosphere. With everything so centralized, it definitely feels like a community. It's on the main U of R campus, which is very nice by the way, but it's on the edge. It's not like you're in the hustle and bustle of the heart of campus.

U of R Visit

I used my second to last half-day Friday to pay a visit to Richmond Law. I really just wanted to ask somebody in admissions a few questions, but when I called to set up the appointment they offered to let me sit in on a class. Well, why not? I sat in a Civil Procedure class. They were discussing Pennoyer v. Neff. I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised. Of course I had never heard of the case before sitting in the class (and I can't remember the last time I was in a class where there was nothing written on the board. The chalk board is critical to a chemistry lecture), but I had the gist of things by the time I left. I felt bad for the kid (and they are kids, by the way) who was called on to start the discussion. He had read the case, but he didn't understand it (I'm sure he will now though). I can see why they make such a big deal about faculty in rankings and such. Running that discussion would not be easy. I will read the case later just to get an idea of how long it takes to get through one of these things. I might have a bit of a head start having heard the important points of the case, but I found the text of the case through a link on Wikipedia. The site had a decent synopsis of the case, at least it looked that way from what I was able to gather from the class. I will just start there when I start reading these things for real.

I had a tour too, which was pretty uneventful. It's just one building after all. They were having OCI with some firms so there were plenty of nervous looking people walking around in their Sunday best. There were some interesting points raised in the few minutes I talked to an admissions rep. The most relevant thing she mentioned for readers of this blog was what her response to my question about my GPA. They have to look at it because that is what gets reported to LSAC and the ABA, but for somebody like me, and this is her word, it's basically irrelevant. I will be evaluated based on what I've done since graduation. She basically told me that I would be admitted with my LSAT score. I'm glad I asked about my GPA before I told her my LSAT score.

Given that there was OCI going on today, she also had some interesting views on how employers view U of R. Keeping in mind that she is trying to get me to think seriously about her law school, she told me that employers in Richmond see the Virginia schools on par with one another when evaluating applicants. She also noted that any employer would rather see somebody from the top 10% of a U of R class than from somebody who is an average student at UVa. I agree. It's all about what you do, not where you do it.

My Motivation

I've made 25 or so posts on this blog and I have managed to avoid directly stating why I am taking the time to apply to law school. I finally finished a draft of my personal statement that I am happy with, so I don't mind taking the time to lay out my rationale for adding three more years of schooling to the 8.5 years of post-secondary education that I have already acquired.

Last year I started reading books listed on the Personal MBA recommended reading list. (This is different than the list that I was using. Looking through it as I copied the link, I think I need to go back after I've finished this post and take a closer look at some of those books.) I could see that I needed something other than my research degree to really make a difference in the pharmaceutical industry. While all the senior managers in my building have Ph.D.'s, we answer to a corporate office up in New Jersey. That's where the real decisions are made. All of our activities are geared to meeting a deadline or providing a product that has been selected by a marketer or project planner in that corporate office. This would be fine, if they included us in the planning phases of these projects.

We get projects that are dead before we even do an experiment because there is some technical issue that we can never overcome. Inviting us to a meeting where these things are discussed would save the company millions in wasted resources. They choose to keep us out of the loop and when a project goes bust, who do you think gets the blame? The blame game is very popular in big corporations. Everybody is too caught up in their own agenda to just focus on getting the job done. If a mistake was made, identify what went wrong and move on. Nothing good comes from worrying about who to blame when a project goes south. Sometimes there is nobody to blame. We're trying to do something that has never been done before. There is always a risk when you're trying to make something innovative. If an idea doesn't work, oh well. Figure out what you learned in the process and see what you can do with that. Experiments might not always go the way you want in research, but unexpected results usually open doors to whole new ideas. A lab that is organized to take advantage of those new insights will be successful. That's my vision of a successful pharmaceutical lab anyway. I want to get up to the corporate office so I can speak for the laboratory. Somebody who has never worked in a lab has a hard time understanding what goes on there, but that knowledge is essential in an industry that relies on the lab to produce innovative new products. The mystery of what I have done in the lab will prevent me from reaching an executive position as a research scientist, but I think a law degree would overcome the bias against PhD's that seems to permeate corporate culture.

A productive research lab delivers tremendous value to a company, especially if given the freedom to pursue new product ideas. We do not have the freedom and I think it really hurts the company's performance. It doesn't have to be an open ended project, but one of two experiments to see if an approach to a new product is feasible could reap big rewards. The corporate office likes to make a point that every one has good ideas, but then they put up this burdensome system to make sure everything filters through them. Just put a few grand in the budget to fund some independent projects. I think they would like what they found.

So why law and not an MBA? That's a subject for a different post.

My Application Progress

I wanted to be helpful to other applicants, so I thought I would give a little update on my application status and how that plays into my application strategy. I have requested my two letters of recommendation. One has been processed by LSAC and is available for me to add to my applications, I'm hoping the other has been written. Both my undergrad and graduate school transcripts have been processed by LSAC. (It took about 2 weeks from request to having them show up in my LSAC account.)

I have an optional essay type of statement 90% complete. I have spent too many hours working on my "why law school" essay. I was having so much trouble that I had to take a step back and reassess my approach. I think I found a new topic that allows me to address the same issues in a better way. I'm hoping to finish both of these up by mid-September. I want to have my highest priority applications (the Virginia schools) in by mid-October. That will give me a month to handle school specific application activities (filling out applications, writing school specific essays). That should allow me to take advantage of the rolling admissions process.

Letter of Recommendation

The author of my admissions reference book, Ann Levine, had a blog talk radio show about tips for non-traditional applicants. There was a lengthy discussion about how people who have been out of school for a few years go about getting letters of recommendation. You can listen to the show (I linked to it above) to see what her panel had to say about their letters. I'll tell you about mine right now.

I have requested two LOR. One was from my graduate school research adviser. We worked very closely for 4 years so he knows me very well. I asked him to address a few things in his letter. I wanted his letter to be the graduate school experience piece of my application. I asked him to discuss the sophistication of my laser experiments (I did degenerate four wave mixing experiments with a femtosecond laser system in case you were wondering). I also asked him to mention the impact factor of the journal that published my papers. (Again, in case you were wondering I have a communication in JACS, three papers in JPC journals (2 in B and 1 in C), and one in Applied Physics.) There were a few other things I asked him to mention as well. I got lucky and caught him between trips to Europe. He got his letter in quickly. It took LSAC about a week to process it. He told me he tried to make it strong. Let's hope he was successful.

My second letter is coming from my old manager. She's only my old manager because she was promoted. I mentioned before that I was a little uneasy about asking her for a letter, but she was very supportive when we talked about it. Everybody moves on to other things, she told me. She still hasn't written her letter, but I'm hoping she took care of it on her way to China this week. I'll remind her that I need it by early September when she gets back next week. I also asked her to address a few topics. I'm going to law school to help me reach a leadership position in the pharmaceutical industry. I will be addressing that in my personal statement (after weeks of trying, I think I finally have a topic that will let me get to my ambitions in a way that tells the adcoms about me) and I want to make sure that there is an informed opinion that will support my ability to achieve that ambition.

WE? How about CE!

I was skimming through the TLS forums again this afternoon and came across a post about the perceived value of work experience. I say perceived because the more of these things I read, the more I realize that these people really have no idea what the hell they're talking about. If you've been working some entry level job at some office job, that experience really won't be worth much. But if you've been out of school for 10+ years and have held positions with some real responsibility, how can something like that not be taken into account during the application review? Every applicant and every situation is different. How can you make a post about there is no value to work experience when you are not aware of the nature and extent of that experience for every applicant? While it is likely that a job like mine won't get me into Harvard, my experience has to be considered given that my GPA was established a decade ago. For somebody a year or two out of school, work experience probably won't count for much because they haven't done anything in their career. Let's just agree with the TLS post and say that work experience doesn't mean much. Career experience does matter. If it doesn't, this whole law school application carnival should just be junked for a webpage where you enter your GPA and LSAT score.

Debt

I'm always surprised to hear about people turning down big money at one law school to attend some place a little more prestigious. One of the most bewildering to me is a girl who said she turned down a full-ride at Cal to attend Penn. You can listen to her talk about it yourself here. She just off hand mentions that she'll just take a little longer to pay off her loans and attend the school that she really liked. I'm all for going someplace that feels right, but turning down free tuition? That's like turning down a free house!

This blase attitude to student debt is alarming to me. People are essentially betting their future on getting a high paying job when they finish law school. I want to go to law school, but I do not want to purchase a second house to do it. (My wife and I paid ~$125K for our first house. That's less than what it costs to attend most law schools.) This post at The Personal MBA blog makes some very nice points about the purpose (and burdens) of debt. His B school examples are valid for law school as well. Are you really all that different from an indentured servant if you have to work 100+ hours a week at a Big Law firm to pay for law school loans?

My take on ratings (and why they seem to matter so much)

As several of the links on this blog profess, I spend a decent amount of time skimming through the forums on TLS. I'm always amazed at how much of the focus is on the ranking of a particular school. I know everybody on that site wants Big Law so they can make Big Money (and work Big Hours) and they think the best way to achieve that goal is to attend a T14 law school (why it's the top 14 and not the top 16 or 19 or any other random number is something that I have yet to figure out). I'm sure there is some justification for this. On campus interviews and all of that are more likely to be focused on the top schools, maybe? I do have an idea about why there is so much emphasis on rankings in law school.

The curriculum at one law school is not likely to be much different from the curriculum at another. They all teach basically the same information to students who are all about the same age who have similar backgrounds, at least in terms of professional experience. All things being equal, how else can you tell the difference between one candidate and another other than looking at where they went to law school and how well they did while they were there? Graduates from a chemistry program have several levels of differentiation, what area did they do research in? lab skills? how many publications? which journals? how involved were they in preparing the manuscripts? grades (like any one really cares about PhD grades, it's all about the research)? Grades and school are the best way to differentiate law school grades. That's also why people are so eager to make law review or do moot court of something like that. You need something like that to make you stand out in the crowd.

No matter where you attend law school, success will be a function of how much effort you put in while you are there. Simply attending Harvard, Yale, or Stanford will not write your ticket to that plush Big Law job. It might make it easier to get there, but somebody who attends a school a little down the rankings of USNWR who worked very hard and was committed to making law school a successful endeavor could out-hustle somebody from a "better" school for the same job. What you get out of anything is ultimately a product of what you put in.

Another Dean's Opinion on a PhD

Portion of TLS interview with Paul Pless, Assistant Dean of Admissions at Illinois.

TLS: How are advanced degrees viewed at Illinois?

Typically at least 20% of our students have advanced degrees. I love to see them in applications. The only thing is that the graduate GPA is fairly meaningless since almost all graduate programs have very high curves. I look more at the quality of the school and the program when using it as a factor.

TLS: What percentage have Ph.D.s? How is a doctoral degree viewed as compared to a masters?

Maybe 5%, and yes, it is given considerably more weight. I think a Ph.D. is always an impressive thing to see in an application. It can make up for a lackluster undergraduate GPA or a poor LSAT.

TLS: Does the nature of work experience acquired after graduation matter significantly?

We like to see people with work experience in fields other than law. We will teach you the law you need to know. Being able to relate what you learn to the experiences you have is a valuable addition to the classroom.

I especially like that comment about the PhD making up for a lackluster GPA or LSAT score.

Thank you, Zeus

A perfect control for my little investigation has appeared in the 2009-2010 application cycle at LSN. Dionysus has a 3.15 GPA with a 168 LSAT score. If you click on his user name you will go to his profile. He's been looking at lawschoolpredictor.com. Several of his schools are right where our numbers go from deny to weak consider. He's a white guy like me and he doesn't mention any significant softs in his post. Thanks for posting a profile, Dionysus. Good luck with your applications.

Grade Breakdown

My undergraduate GPA is a lowly 3.05. I was just taking a look at my transcript to see if writing an addendum might be a good idea. I had a very pathetic sophomore year. I torn my ACL during football practice that year. I lived in an off campus apartment. I couldn't study in my apartment, it was hard for me to get to campus (I hurt my left knee and my car was a stick shift), and I just generally wasn't into my studies that year (I met my wife that year so my personal life was great). I'm torn about whether or not I should write a short note explaining that circumstance. (Both semesters were in the 2.5 range.) My GPA for the other three years comes out to a 3.2 or so. Still not great but better than a 3.05. On a positive note, I managed to get a 3.7 in my final semester. I think a short note would explain the dip in my grades, but how much will it really matter?

I've been out of college for 11 years and how relevant are undergraduate grades in chemistry for a person who now has a PhD in that subject? (I would get an A in every one of those classes now.) I don't want to draw attention to my grades when some schools might not put too much credence in those grades in the first place. I still haven't decided what I'm going to do.

I also thought about calculating my GPA in classes that required significant writing assignments. My best grades are in those classes, but when I honestly calculated a GPA with the classes that I remember writing long papers, the GPA wasn't all that great either. So much for that tactic. Maybe a short sentence noting that I did well in writing intensive classes will suffice. Although writing this post has shown me that all of these arguments are pretty weak. Maybe a comment that I injured my knee and that will be that.