A Day in the Life

Student Bloggers Weigh In on our Faculty Blog

If you have spent time browsing our website or blogs, you have likely already discovered that the University of Chicago Law School faculty and students have great enthusiasm and passion for sharing and discussing ideas.  As we mentioned in our post earlier this week, some of Chicago's best ideas are shared at lunch time and our Student Bloggers have been weighing in on our Faculty Blog. Recently, one of our students discussed Professor Lior Strahilevitz's paper on the abandonment of property:

Towards a General Theory of Making it Rain

Abandonment of property is arguably bigger than ever. To give a few examples, craigslist and freecycle.org have become popular venues for giving away property for nothing other than the hassle of picking it up. Many jurisdictions have established laws and procedures allowing abandonment of children without prosecution, most controversially in Nebraska, where recent abandonment of teenage children has caused controversy. In some segments of pop culture, the practice of "making it rain," or throwing cash to a waiting crowd with predictably chaotic results, has become popular - either as a means of signaling wealth or simply providing entertainment. What, if anything, does law have to say about these and similar practices? How could it do a better job in dealing with them? 

To read more on this topic or to see other ideas that our faculty and students have been discussing, click on the link below to visit our Faculty Blog...

http://uchicagolaw.typepad.com/faculty/2008/10/towards-a-gener.html

Lunchtime at the Law School!

Throughout the academic year we have a series of lunchtime lectures called "Chicago's Best Ideas".  This is an opportunity for a member of the faculty to present their current research topic to the Law School community.  Current students have recently started writing blog posts about them and I thought it would be fun to post their blogs here:

Suppose I am a utility-maximizing, risk-averse trophy husband/wife. Currently I have a generous monthly allowance, but due to a lack of foresight (or the blindness of love), I do not have a prenuptial agreement. There has been no trouble in the marriage yet, but what if things go south? Perhaps I should put part of my allowance toward premiums on divorce insurance, which one company now claims to offer. Previously, the initial allocation of divorce risk could not be altered; now, perhaps, it can. Whether risk can be reallocated is an issue that is present in far less tawdry situations than this example; in fact, it is everywhere.

On Wednesday, October 22, Professor Lee Fennell gave a talk entitled "Risk Reversals" as part of the Chicago's Best Ideas lecture series. (The first CBI presentation on October 1 was a fascinating talk by Mary Anne Case about "Why Evangelical Protestants are Right When They Say that State Recognition of Same-Sex Marriages Threatens Their Marriages and What the Law Should Do About It."). 

Click here for our faculty blog to continue reading:http://uchicagolaw.typepad.com/faculty/2008/10/chicagos-best-i.html

Addenda and Supplemental Materials... should you include them?

I just returned from my final recruiting trip of the season at BYU in Provo, Utah – I really enjoyed the beautiful area and friendly students that I met! This brings me to other parts of the application process about which I receive several questions at every recruiting event. First, students often ask whether and when they may attach an addendum to their application. Applicants are welcome to attach an addendum when they feel it is necessary to explain a weakness in their application or provide facts pertinent to the Admissions Committee’s review of their file. If you think that there is something in your file that will raise questions for the Admissions Committee, this may be something that is appropriate to address in a brief addendum. For example, addenda are often used to address a significant difference between LSAT scores or to discuss personal circumstances or difficulties that occurred during the applicant’s undergraduate career. As with all other parts of the application, an addendum must be submitted electronically with your application.

Second, students often ask if they may submit additional diversity statements, writing samples, or supplemental materials beyond those that we require with your application. Additional statements or writing samples are not necessary in the initial application process. Academic honors and accomplishments, major research essays or honors theses, personal characteristics, and other personal and professional experiences can be adequately conveyed in your resume or personal statement. Moreover, your personal statement and the LSAT writing sample (yes, we actually read it) will be a sufficient sample of your writing ability.

Resumes and Transcripts

We have already written about personal statements and letters of recommendation, so I thought it may be a good time to discuss a few of the remaining aspects of the application process about which we frequently receive questions: resumes and transcripts.

First, let’s discuss your resume. We require that you submit a detailed resume with your application. It should include your extracurricular, volunteer, and community activities, in addition to any full or part-time employment or internships. This is one of the parts of the application that allows us to learn a little more about you, your interests, and the experiences that you will bring to U of C. Students frequently ask if their resume must be limited to one page. There are no page limits – your resume may certainly be more than one page if you need it. We do not want you to leave out anything important. However, use your judgment – you do not have to include absolutely everything that you have done in your life and more than two or three pages will rarely be necessary. Your resume should be professional and remember to proofread!

Second, we require that you submit all undergraduate and graduate transcripts through the LSDAS. We will review your transcripts in detail; they are quite helpful for giving us additional information about your undergraduate experience beyond your GPA. In addition to your overall undergraduate GPA, we will consider the difficulty and breadth of courses you have taken, any trends in your grades, your GPA in your major, academic honors that you have received, the difficulty of your undergraduate program, and the quality of your undergraduate institution. We like to see motivated students who have taken well-rounded, challenging course work!

Your resume and transcripts are two important components of your application. They provide context and supplemental detail about your undergraduate record, in addition to showing us some of the experiences that you will bring to our community.

Show Me the Money!

At the Chicago Forum this past weekend, we had a whole lot of questions about financial aid and scholarships. So, I thought I would take this opportunity to address the way we award scholarships here at U of C and how you can make sure you are being considered for them!

Last year we awarded 59% of the entering class with merit and/or need based scholarships.  Here at Chicago, one of our priorities is to make sure we can help support as many students as possible and so we spread our scholarships very wide.  Our scholarship award letters will follow closely after admission and contain one large scholarship award amount, to be spread over your three years here at U of C.  The benefit of this for you is that you don’t have to worry each year about re-qualifying for your scholarship; there is no pressure to maintain a certain grade point average, nor do you have to remember to re-apply for your scholarship or risk losing it!

Everyone who is admitted to U of C is automatically considered for merit based scholarships; you do not need to fill out a special application.  Instead, we make decisions for merit aid based upon your admissions application in its entirety.  This means that scholarships are not determined solely by your LSAT score and GPA.  Yes, it is that “holistic review process” again!

To the extent that you want us to consider your financial need when awarding scholarships, however, you can elect to fill out the Need Access form online.  Again, this is only IF you want us to consider financial need.  The Need Access form must be filled out and submitted online by March 1.

I also had several questions about whether or not we awarded “Diversity Scholarships” or “Scholarships for Minorities”. Here at Chicago, we do not divvy up the pots of money and say “amount X is for these people” and “amount Y is for those people”.  Instead we make ALL of our admits candidates for scholarship money. Everyone is considered, minority or not, “diverse” or not.  I hope that admitted students take comfort in this approach.

In the Thick of Recruiting Season!!!

Well, I wrapped up another week of recruiting today!  It was a busy but very productive week.  During the recruiting season, I participate in a very interactive and informative panel with the deans of admission from University of Michigan Law School and the University of Pennsylvania Law School. During the panel we hold a “mock admissions” committee meeting and talk about the various pitfalls and positives in applications and actually review applications (which of course have been redacted!)  We did 4 panels in 24 hours!  On Tuesday, we were on the University of Michigan campus, and over 250 students came to the panel, we filled the entire auditorium!!  The students really appreciated the information we had provided.  Some of the student feedback included  “This program did a great job of explaining how the admission process truly works.  It has forced me to re-evaluate what kind of candidate I am now, and where I hope to be in a couple of years.  I now have tools to present  myself appropriately to an admissions committee in the best possible light .”  The next morning we had an early flight to Chicago where we did our panel at the University of Chicago, Northwestern University and at the law firm of Mayer Brown.  It was a very busy day, driving from Hyde Park to Evanston and then downtown Chicago.  All in all we saw over 350 prospective law students, that is a lot of hands to shake!  Recruiting is a great part of the my job, the travel is fun and the ability to talk to so many people about the Law School and the application process makes it worth it!  On campus today Imet with some eight grade students who are “shadowing” law students for the day.  I gave them a tour of the Law School and talked to them about the steps for getting to law school.  It is never too early to think about it!  Their visit today is sponsored by BLSA and Boys Speak Out, Inc which is a nonprofit organization, founded by one of our recent graduates, Anthony Webb ’06.

I’m home for weekend which is exciting since it is the Chicago marathon.  Over 45,000 runners will run 26.1 miles throughout 29 Chicago neighborhoods.  The weather is going to be great and I have a couple of friends running so I will be out cheering Sunday morning.  I will also be able to catch up on my mail and laundry!   

Then it is off again on Monday to San Francisco.  There are a couple more weeks of recruiting and then we will start reviewing applications.   Make sure to check out our recruiting calendar to see if we will be anywhere that would be convenient for you to stop by!  But don’t forget, you are always welcome to visit on campus. 

On-Campus Interviewing at U of C

Fall at U of C is an exciting time of the year for a number of reasons.  In addition to the arrival of a new group of enthusiastic first-year students, it is an important time for our returning 2Ls and 3Ls because of our On-Campus Interviewing ("OCI") program, which is administered by our Office of Career Services. Every September, hundreds of employers come to campus to interview U of C law students for summer and post-graduate employment opportunities. Lois Casaleggi, our Senior Director of Career Services, has briefly summarized the 2008 OCI program below:

We’ve recently completed our whirlwind on-campus interview season.  By the numbers, we held 11 days of interviews over three weeks, hosting nearly 600 legal employer offices, and arranging more than 5,250 interviews for our students!  Our students are very fortunate to have so many employers coming to them to interview for summer and post-graduation positions and have made the most of this opportunity. Our office continues to work closely with students as they are in the midst of the post-OCI stage of this process.  This includes focusing their career goals as they proceed with the search, going on call-backs for further interviews with the employers at their offices, and evaluating offers and opportunities. 

Prior to beginning the OCI program, our career counselors reviewed students’ resumes and provided one-on-one coached interview sessions to prepare students for their interviews. Our small student body allows the Office of Career Services to give individualized attention to our students and their career searches. 

U of C students typically work in legal positions over their 1L and 2L summers during law school. The Office of Career Services assists students with locating summer legal internships in both the public and private sectors and in the U.S. and abroad. In addition to administering the OCI program, the Office of Career Services also provides support and assistance to students pursuing careers in legal academia, public interest, and judicial clerkships. Please check out some of our previous posts on the Office of Career Services and check back throughout the academic year as we will continue to highlight some of the extensive career-related programming and opportunities available to U of C students.

Finally, on a different note, good luck to those of you taking the LSAT this Saturday!

Tweet Home Chicago

The Law School is happy to announce the launch of a new experiment that we're calling TweetChicago. We've asked a few of our students and faculty to join the micro-blogging service Twitter and provide occasional updates on their lives in no more than 140 characters. By answering the question, "What are you doing right now?" our Tweeters provide you with a continuously updated snapshot of daily life at Chicago Law. We'll be adding more Tweeters as the year continues, so keep an eye on the site.

Want to learn more about Twitter? Check out this recent article from the New York Times (the discussion of Twitter begins on the second page), or read about it on Wikipedia.