Graduate School

Anna, I am an Iraq veteran and I have read that military service is anywhere from "extremely valuable" to law school admissions to something akin to any other job.  What is your take?  Is there anything I should do to highlight its strengths while also countering its possibly negative connotations?

As for another, more specific question: I am struggling with whether to include my platoon's "number of enemy captured/killed" on my resume.  It's a metric we use to gauge efficacy, and it conveys the gravitas of my deployment.  However, I can also see how it would be inappropriate for a resume as well.  Help!

Thank you for all of your efforts in facilitating law school candidates' applications and enabling us all to strive for acceptance to better schools.

Well, thank YOU for your service. I have the much easier job here.

You've asked a great question. In the Ivey Guide to Law School Admissions, I advise applicants to quantify their work experience as much as possible. What's the impact you've had in your role? How can you best capture that impact in a bullet point? Your situation is a great reminder that guidelines are not gospel truths, and applicants should exercise judgment when it comes time to apply guidelines to their individual fact patterns. You are smart to wonder whether quantifying makes sense in your situation, so here's how I would think about presenting your work experience in the application process:

DO include your military experience in general. You were employed during that time, doing meaningful work, and you should get credit for that. A gap in your resume wouldn't help you.

DON'T be in any way defensive or apologetic about your military experience. Even people who are anti-war or anti-military can still be pro-soldier. To answer your question about how law schools view military service: All the admissions officers I know have great respect for it. They understand the gravity of being deployed, so your gravitas will almost certainly not be in question. Ex-military applicants are much loved by both law school (and business school) admissions officers, especially those service members who had increasing responsibility during their time serving and/or who graduated from the military academies. Ex-military students are nearly always hard-working, smart, disciplined, responsible, unflappable, and very happy to be back in school. And they bring a very interesting perspective to class discussions. Any school that would reject you because of your military experience (are they even out there?) is not one you personally would want to attend in any event. Ditto for applications to future employers. That being said...

DON'T quantify the number of enemy captured or killed. While most admissions officers will have great respect for you and the hard work you've been doing, there are many people -- even among those who are sympathetic to service members -- who don't want to be reminded that the military's job is to kill people and break things (as someone once said). Admissions officers, too, can be subject to cognitive dissonance.

DO quantify the kinds of successes or list the kinds of metrics that don't make people uncomfortable. Examples:

• Commanded 153-man rifle company in combat
• Managed $20mm budget and care and maintenance of $50mm aircraft
• Obtained Silver Star for Combat Leadership

DO include relative rankings or metrics. In your case, is there a way for you to convert the number of people killed/captured into a relative measure of platoon efficiency? Maybe, for example, your platoon was in the top 10% of your division.

This exceptions might apply in some civilian contexts as well. For example, one would say, "Led consolidation of two corporate divisions, cutting costs by X% and increasing profits by Y%" WITHOUT tacking on "...by laying off 1,500 employees."

So my big-picture advice, for both military and civilian applicants alike, is to quantify with hard numbers EXCEPT when the harsh realities of a job might make people squirm, in which case it's best to take this softer approach to quantification.

Please check in and let us know how you end up deciding to present your military experience, and keep us posted on your admissions success.

Copying and pasting from Wikipedia in your college papers may seem totally normal to many college students, but this NYT article ("Plagiarism Lines Blur for Students in Digital Age") makes clear that (1) there is a casual attitude among many students about what constitutes plagiarism, and (2) copying and pasting and "borrowing" language is still considered plagiarism by any self-respecting university. From the article:

At Rhode Island College, a freshman copied and pasted from a Web site's frequently asked questions page about homelessness — and did not think he needed to credit a source in his assignment because the page did not include author information.

At DePaul University, the tip-off to one student's copying was the purple shade of several paragraphs he had lifted from the Web; when confronted by a writing tutor his professor had sent him to, he was not defensive — he just wanted to know how to change purple text to black.

And at the University of Maryland, a student reprimanded for copying from Wikipedia in a paper on the Great Depression said he thought its entries — unsigned and collectively written — did not need to be credited since they counted, essentially, as common knowledge.

Professors used to deal with plagiarism by admonishing students to give credit to others and to follow the style guide for citations, and pretty much left it at that.

But these cases — typical ones, according to writing tutors and officials responsible for discipline at the three schools who described the plagiarism — suggest that many students simply do not grasp that using words they did not write is a serious misdeed.

It does appear to be a pervasive problem: a recent study found that "40 percent of 14,000 undergraduates admitted to copying a few sentences in written assignments."

Is this just another Gen Y phenomenon? The last paragraph of the article suggests there may be more at work:

And then there was a case that had nothing to do with a younger generation’s evolving view of authorship. A student accused of plagiarism came to Mr. Dudley’s office with her parents, and the father admitted that he was the one responsible for the plagiarism. The wife assured Mr. Dudley that it would not happen again.

In the admissions process, I see parents crossing ethical lines with some regularity. That's not just student laziness; that's also a message from such parents that the ends justify the means, and I would think that's not the best way to help launch their kids into adulthood.

I bring this all up not to finger-wag, but to remind college students that if you get caught plagiarizing -- even if YOU don't consider it plagiarizing -- there are likely to be longer-term consequences that can affect your graduate school applications down the road. If your college, or even just an individual professor, takes any action against you for plagiarism, you will have to disclose that on your applications. Examples of such actions, whether as a result of cheating on a test, lifting language from someone else's paper, or copying and pasting from online sources without attribution, can include things like:

• Giving you a failing grade and making you redo the test/paper/exam/class
• Initiating formal proceedings within the college
• Making you appear before an academic integrity/honor code/academic honesty panel
• Recording a finding of academic dishonesty in your permanent college record

Even if nothing ever gets noted in your official college record, and even if such a notation gets expunged after a certain period of time, you would still be expected to disclose in your applications that any action was ever taken. And graduate schools take academic integrity violations seriously, so think twice before you borrow someone else's language in any of your college work or on your applications. The consequences are hardly worth it.

I'm curious to hear your thoughts. Why this epidemic of plagiarism? Is it really something new under the sun, or it is just the old-fashioned vice of laziness manifesting itself on a larger, technology-enabled scale? I'm especially intrigued by this argument made in the article by Sarah Wilenski, a senior at Indiana University:

“[Plagiarism] may be increasingly accepted, but there are still plenty of creative people — authors and artists and scholars — who are doing original work,” Ms. Wilensky said in an interview. “It’s kind of an insult that that ideal is gone, and now we’re left only to make collages of the work of previous generations.”

In the view of Ms. Wilensky, whose writing skills earned her the role of informal editor of other students’ papers in her freshman dorm, plagiarism has nothing to do with trendy academic theories.

The main reason it occurs, she said, is because students leave high school unprepared for the intellectual rigors of college writing.

“If you’re taught how to closely read sources and synthesize them into your own original argument in middle and high school, you’re not going to be tempted to plagiarize in college, and you certainly won’t do so unknowingly,” she said.

At the University of California, Davis, of the 196 plagiarism cases referred to the disciplinary office last year, a majority did not involve students ignorant of the need to credit the writing of others.

Many times, said Donald J. Dudley, who oversees the discipline office on the campus of 32,000, it was students who intentionally copied — knowing it was wrong — who were “unwilling to engage the writing process.”

“Writing is difficult, and doing it well takes time and practice,” he said.

Yes it is, and yes it does. Do you agree that students are plagiarizing because they are underprepared for college-level analysis and writing? Please weigh in.

 

Related postings from the Ivey Files archives:

• You're Not Fooling Anyone
• A Tweet Stream Is Not an Essay
• Dealing With Your Past: Disclosing Criminal Issues on Law School Applications
• 34 Duke MBA Students Punished for Cheating
• Study: MBA Students the Biggest Cheaters

I love hearing from applicants with whom I crossed paths in years past. Here's an update I just received from a soon-to-be JD. It's a great reminder not to tack on graduate degrees willy-nilly, but to think hard about how a more general degree (like an MBA)  stacks up against more specialized ones.

In my last email I told you that I was considering getting a MBA because of my interest in working for the Justice Department or the SEC. I am no longer considering pursuing a MBA because I found a graduate program that is more suitable to my career interest. After [X Law School], I am going to get a Masters in Forensic Accounting at Georgia Southern. I want to tell you about this program in case any of your clients have an interest in pursuing white collar prosecution. Georgia Southern is one of three universities in the country that offer a Masters in Forensic Accounting (Cornell University and Washington University are the others).

What makes Georgia Southern good for me (aside from location) is that Georgia Southern agreed to waive the GMAT requirement because I have demonstrated that I can handle a graduate workload. After completing the Masters in Forensic Accounting, I will be able to sit for the CPA; the school uses the Becker model (I am not sure who or what that is, but I hear it's effective) to teach the CPA. I will also take the CFE [Certified Fraud Examiner] exam after I finish the program. I hope this information helps.

I'd love to hear from others who are choosing (or have chosen) among general and specialized degrees. What makes the most sense for you? Please share your thoughts.

How much do things like determination and grit correlate with future success? It's a big question, and one that intrigues me as a former admissions officer. After all, the gatekeeping function of admissions is to scour all these imperfect proxies (some might say tea leaves) to try to predict the future success of all those wonderful applicants.

On that subject, a recent article by Amanda Ripley in the Atlantic Monthly caught my eye. Many of my blog readers have heard of Teach for America, the non-profit that sends talented and eager college graduates into inner-city and rural schools to teach disadvantaged students. It's a very competitive admissions process to join the "corps" (as they're called). Last year, Teach for America chose 4,100 out of 35,000 candidates, and during the 2008-09 school year, 11 percent of Ivy League seniors applied. It's a very popular career choice for college seniors.

So Teach for America has all this mad talent to choose from. Over the decades that their own researchers as well as outside researchers have been measuring their teachers' success in the classroom, some interesting findings have emerged. The factors that correlate most strongly with great teaching (which they measure very scientifically) are:

• a previous track record of perseverance and passion for long-term goals, or "grit"
• "life satisfaction" (measuring how content they are with their lives) and
• two kinds of performance in college:
  
  • GPA and
  • leadership achievement, a "record of running something and showing tangible results"

Another fascinating finding: an applicant's overall GPA wasn't as good a predictor of success as the GPA from the last two years of college. It turns out that hitting some speed bumps the first few years and being able to get your act together the last two years demonstrates something important about you. That's the kind of thing one may have already suspected intuitively, but it's great to have some data to back up the intuition.

While those findings relate to success as a classroom teacher in particular, they do strike me as having wider applicability that college and grad school applicants might find interesting. What's the take-away? You should still treat your GPA and test scores as paramount -- those are the indicators that will matter most. But if you can also demonstrate perseverance and stick-with-it-ness (whatever your particular challenges might have been), and you are the kind of student who has seized leadership opportunities outside the classroom, you have a lot of great qualities to show off besides the numbers.

So if your applications are still a ways away, think about the choices you can make between now and then that will let you show off these kinds of qualities. And if your applications are starting to sneak up on you, take inventory of your achievements. What concrete achievements can you highlight to demonstrate perseverance and leadership? How are you going to showcase them? It's not enough to say you are a leader and someone who perseveres. You'll need to back it up with a track record proving those things.

This Atlantic article has so much interesting data and examples to chew on, with implications far beyond teaching skills. Take a look, and please leave a comment with your thoughts.

In a previous post we discussed the general rules to follow when assessing when and how to disclose a criminal issue in your background. Even with those rules in mind, however, you might find yourself struggling with how to answer a "disclosure" question on an application (whether law school, business school, etc.) because you aren't familiar with the terminology.

Criminal disclosure questions often include terms that may seem familiar to you, but have specific meaning in the context of an application (e.g., arrest, charge, adjudication, conviction, "no contest," expunge, etc.).

When you are being asked to disclose information as part of your application, it is your responsibility to know which terms apply to your situation and whether disclosure is required. You may feel comfortable remaining blissfully ignorant now (after all, if you don't know what the terms mean, how can you be held accountable if you make a mistake?), but as we discussed in the previous post the repercussions of a "mistake" in your disclosure can be far reaching.

The best way to guarantee that you are fully informed before answering a disclosure question is to speak to an attorney who practices criminal law in the jurisdiction where your incident took place. Then, and only then, can you be certain how to classify your situation before answering the application question. The descriptions below should not in any way be taken as legal advice. Instead, they provide a general overview of the terminology you might find on applications, a basic glossary to consider before you seek further assistance in addressing your concerns.

 

Was I Charged with a Crime?

Applications may ask if you have ever been "arrested, cited, or charged with any criminal violation." Generally speaking, a charge is a formal accusation of a crime. A charge is usually brought by way of some "charging document." Charging documents include criminal complaints, indictments, or an information. It is not essential that you know the definitions of complaint, indictment or information. The important thing to determine is whether one of these documents was ever filed accusing you of a crime.

The best way to determine this is to order any paperwork related to your criminal case. In most states you have a right to order your criminal record (it may cost you a little bit of money and it's possible that you will have to appear in person to receive the copy). You can also request copies of the court file (sometimes called a "docket") relating to your case. This can sometimes become more complicated if the incident took place when you were a minor. Once you have gathered all of the paperwork you can consult with an attorney to see if there is a charging document accusing you of a crime.

For the vast majority of applicants, the information and indictment will be inapplicable. That is, few applicants will have been charged with a crime by an information or indicted by a grand jury for a criminal offense. If this happened to you, chances are that you are well aware of the circumstances of your case.

For most applicants who have a criminal disclosure issue, the criminal charge will come by way of a "complaint." A complaint is a document that someone files accusing you -- literally "complaining" -- that you have violated the law in some way. Police officers usually apply for complaints, thus you may see a police report filed among court papers in your case or attached to an application for a criminal complaint.

But civilians may also apply for a criminal complaint. This is important to remember because it is possible that you were "charged" with a crime even if you were never arrested.

If you were charged with a crime, it is possible that you were "arraigned" on the charge. An arraignment is a formal proceeding in court where the charges are read aloud (or presented to you in hand), you enter a plea of guilty or not guilty, and bail (if applicable) is argued. You may also be appointed an attorney or asked to hire one yourself. If you recall going through this process in front of a judge or magistrate then chances are you were charged with a crime.

It is also possible, however, that you were charged with a crime but did not have to appear in court. In some jurisdictions, a person can have an attorney appear on his or her behalf to respond to a criminal charge. Thus even if you never appeared in court to enter a plea or to have charges read to you, you may have been charged with a crime.

 

FAQ about Being Charged With a Crime:

1. Can I be charged with a crime without being arrested? → YES. The police or a civilian can accuse you of a crime and file a criminal charge against you even if you were never arrested.

2. If I receive a ticket from a police officer is that a criminal charge? → MAYBE. Police can give you a ticket for some offenses and then file documents afterward that accuse you of a criminal offense. It is important to request all paperwork related to your incident in order to determine what happened. For example, you may be pulled over and given a citation from a police officer and then later have charges filed against you relating to your driving in that case.

3. If the case was dismissed when I first went to court was I still charged? → MAYBE. It's possible that you had your case dismissed when you first appeared in court either by agreeing to some minor punishment (dismissal in exchange for community service, for example) or because the attorney convinced the prosecutor or the court that the case should be dismissed. But it is possible that you were formally charged with the crime and then the charges were dismissed; this may still count as being "charged" for purposes of the application question.

4. My case was "expunged" - doesn't that mean I was never charged? → NO. Whether you were charged has little to do with the outcome of the case. Even if the matter was dismissed, expunged, or sealed, it is possible that you were still "charged" with a criminal offense. For more on this see the section below on "sealed" or "expunged" cases.

5. A spouse / family member / significant other had me arrested and then "dropped the charges" in court before anything happened. Was I charged with a crime? → MAYBE. The actions of your spouse / family member / significant other regarding the resolution of the case are irrelevant. If a charge was brought against you by an acquaintance, the police, or some other authority - even if the charges were "dropped" or the party "refused to press charges" later on - it's possible that you were still charged with a crime.

 

Was I Arrested?

For most people, a formal arrest is an event that sticks in their mind and requires no further explanation. In some cases, however, confusion, intoxication, or the complexity of a situation will leave someone uncertain as to whether he was arrested.

An arrest is a seizure - usually by police officers - that is often accompanied by a prolonged detention and/or the filing of criminal charges. The stereotypical arrest involves the use of handcuffs, verbal warnings about an individual's rights, traveling to a police station or some other detention facility, and often a post-arrest processing (booking). There are other types of detentions that may apply to law school applicants, and it's important once again to research your particular situation to figure out if you were actually arrested.

 

FAQ about Being Arrested:

1. I was never put in handcuffs - was I still arrested? → MAYBE. Police can arrest you without handcuffing you (for your safety, for health reasons, etc.) so don't assume you were not arrested just because you were not handcuffed.

2. I was handcuffed - does that mean I was arrested? → MAYBE. Police can handcuff you for a number of reasons. Just because you were handcuffed does not mean you were necessarily arrested (although you might also have been arrested).

3. I was handcuffed, brought to jail, fingerprinted, and booked - but then they dismissed the charges. That's not an arrest, is it? → MAYBE. That situation has all the hallmarks of an arrest; whether you were charged with a crime has nothing to do with whether you were arrested.

4. I was drunk and was brought to the police station overnight to sober up - is that an arrest? → MAYBE. Some law enforcement agencies will place people in what's called "protective custody," an event that involves detention by the authorities without the additional characteristics of an arrest (handcuffing, reading of rights, booking, etc.). However, in some cases police do make a formal arrest in order to place you in some form of temporary detention. If you believe you fall into this category, consult with an attorney to determine how to classify your situation.

5. I was caught by store security for stealing and then police came and took my information before releasing me. Was I arrested? → MAYBE. Store security can effect an arrest and often assist law enforcement authorities with formal arrests. If you believe you fall into this category, consult with an attorney to determine how to classify your situation.

6. I was handcuffed, brought to the police station, fingerprinted, and booked - but no one ever said "you're under arrest." Was I arrested? → MAYBE. There are no magic words that indicate an arrest. While most arrests include a police officer telling you what's happening, you can still be arrested even if no one says the word "arrest."

 

Was I Convicted or did I Plead "Nolo Contendere," "No Contest," "Admit to Sufficient Facts," or "Adjournment in Contemplation of Dismissal"?

 

Some disclosure questions will ask if you have ever been "convicted of a criminal offense." What is a conviction?

A conviction is a finding (or judgment) by a judge or jury that a person is guilty of a particular crime or charge. This judgment can come by way of a plea of guilty or a finding after a trial. If you'd stood trial as a defendant in a criminal case, it's a good bet that you had legal counsel, know the outcome of the case, and remember the details of the event.

For most applicants, the issue of criminal convictions arises if they have been charged with a criminal offense and resolved the case in some way short of going to trial or pleading and being found guilty. While some applicants may have plead guilty to a criminal offense (and therefore were "convicted" of the charge), a number of applicants have resolved a criminal matter by some other method that involves a combination of punishment and a partial admission of responsibility.

The nature and circumstances of those resolutions varies considerably among states. Pleas can include:

• "Continuance Without a Finding" (aka CWOF or "admission to sufficient facts")
• "Nolo Contendere" (aka "no contest plea")
• "Adjournment in Contemplation of Dismissal" (aka "ACOD," "pre-trial diversion," "pre-trial probation," or "Probation before Judgment")

Each of the terms above involves a different set of circumstances and is defined by the law of the state where the incident took place. In some cases, such as a plea to "sufficient facts," the defendant must make an admission or acknowledgment before the court that he has done something wrong. In other cases, including some forms of pre-trial diversion or probation, no such admission is required.

These types of adjudications often involve a nominal punishment of some kind, including a fine, a diversion program (most often for driving offenses or incidents involving alcohol or drugs), community service, or a probationary period.

Applicants are often confused or ill-informed about what these terms mean. Because the terms vary so much among jurisdictions, you should gather the relevant documents from your case and seek legal advice about how to classify your situation.

 

FAQ about Convictions, Probation, and Pre-Trial Diversion:

1. My lawyer told me that if I admitted what happened and did community service, the case would get dismissed. Is that a conviction? → MAYBE. In most cases, if a charge was dismissed then there is not a conviction for that charge. However, in some cases a person can admit to doing something, sustain a conviction, and be placed on a period of probation, after which the case is dismissed. Depending on the jurisdiction, this can amount to a conviction. You should consult an attorney if you admitted to wrongdoing as part of your case.

2. I was given pre-trial diversion and stayed out of trouble for some period of time. I was not punished in any way (no community service, no fine, etc.). Is this considered probation? → MAYBE. Being placed on pre-trial diversion, pre-trial probation, or some period of supervision - without more, such as an admission of guilt or responsibility - is usually not considered probation. However, these pre-trial diversion programs may qualify as "probation" in the jurisdiction where the incident took place. You should read the paperwork from your case very carefully and then consult with an attorney to see if your situation qualified as "probation" in that jurisdiction.

3. I don't remember what happened in my case but I know it was eventually dismissed and my attorney said it would never appear on my record. So I was never put on probation, right? → MAYBE. Just because a case ended in dismissal does not mean that you avoided probation. In some jurisdictions, a case can be continued, deferred, or stayed for a period of time, after which the case is dismissed. However, the period during which the case was continued or stayed may qualify as a probationary period. The laws of each jurisdiction determine whether this period of adjournment or continuation was considered "probation," so once again, you should receive legal advice if you have a question about classifying your case.

 

My Case was Sealed / My Case was Expunged

Many jurisdictions have a process for "sealing" a criminal record, an act that closes the criminal record from public view unless it is sought by a court order. In other places a record can be expunged from the public rolls. This is considered more permanent than "sealing" a record, and has the effect of eliminating or eradicating the record (with a few exceptions).

Sealing or expunging a record is usually done by either (1) the passage of time or (2) a motion or request by someone made before a court or magistrate. The laws of each jurisdiction determine if, and how, records are sealed or expunged in that jurisdiction. For some jurisdictions, juvenile cases are expunged after a set period of time, such as when the defendant reaches the age of 18. In other cases, a person can move to seal his or her record after a set number of years passes from the date the case concluded.

There is great confusion surrounding the notion of sealing or expunging a record, and many people believe - incorrectly - that if their case resulted in something short of a conviction, it was automatically sealed or expunged. Unless you have a document from a court indicating that your case was sealed or expunged, you should assume that neither applies to your case. Expungement and sealing of a record is not the default status for a case that has been concluded (even if the charges were dismissed).

Even if your case was sealed or expunged, you may still have to disclose the incident on your application (and, for future lawyers, for admission to a state bar). Sealing or expunging a criminal case can prevent it from appearing on a standard criminal record check, but by applying to school you likely waive any protection of that information because you agree to be honest on your application.

 

FAQs about Sealed / Expunged Cases

 

1. My case was dismissed prior to trial in exchange for 20 hours of community service, so my case was expunged, right? → MAYBE. The outcome of a case (in terms of guilt or innocence, or the disposition of the case) has little effect on whether the case is expunged or sealed.

2. My case happened when I was a 14-year old kid, so it's sealed now because it's a juvenile case, right? → MAYBE. The sealing or expungement of juvenile records varies from state to state. Do not assume that a juvenile case is automatically sealed. Order your paperwork from the case and consult with an attorney from the jurisdiction where the case took place.

3. I was on probation, but my attorney said that if I didn't get into trouble again I would not have "a criminal record" - so I don't have to disclose anything at all? → MAYBE. A "criminal record" is a general team that has many meanings. You can have a "criminal record" even if you've never been convicted of a crime (but have been arrested and charged with one). Law enforcement and the courts have records of prior arrests and criminal charges, even if the person was not convicted. This would be the broadest definition of a "criminal record."

The term could also be interpreted to mean that unless a person was convicted of a crime, he has no criminal record. Under that narrower definition, you might not have a "criminal record," and you would need to get clarification on what, exactly, the application is asking for.

However, few schools will ask if you have a "criminal record." Instead, they'll be much more specific in the inquiry, asking about arrests, charges, convictions, etc. Instead of guessing about which definition is being used by the school and whether you have a "criminal record," read the instructions on the disclosure question very carefully and consult an attorney if necessary.

 

Questions? Comments? We want to hear from you!

Gregory Henning is a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Virginia Law School. After graduating from law school, he clerked for Judge R. Lanier Anderson of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit and then became an Assistant District Attorney in Boston. As part of the Ivey Consulting team, Greg works with law school and public policy school applicants.

Lately, there seems to be quite a bit written about salaries and salary negotiation (we did an interview on that subject recently for an article in the Wall Street Journal). Salaries may at first seem like a bit of a non-topic, considering the state of the economy.  However, we do know if there is any group that it is really going to push the envelope, it's Gen Y, so we wanted to give you some guidelines to think about.

If you are in the process of securing a position:

1.  Be realistic, and don't be too picky.

Anything paid is a plus in this economy. What matters is that your career is moving forward. Remember that many young people are going the unpaid route just to keep their foot in the door. If taking a lower salary means getting a roommate or even moving home for a short stint, don't panic. Everyone is adapting to the challenges of the economy, and it may be your turn.

If you are lucky enough to be entertaining an offer, keep the following questions in mind. Answering these questions may help a lower salary seem more palatable.

• Will I learn new things from this role?
• Will I be learning things from established employees with a lot of experience?
• Does this role satisfy a skill or experience requirement that I will need in
  the future?
• Are there chances for advancement at the organization later on?
• Is this an organization known to help young people move forward with their careers?
• Is the organization known to be fair in terms of salary and bonuses overall?

Remember not everything is salary. Keep a clear head even if you are greatly disappointed with the salary you are initially offered. Try to extract your ego from the process and remember that working is good...being unemployed, not so good. Always remain gracious and polite when receiving any offers. Don't write off offers that you think are too low, especially if you have student loans or other debt to consider. There may be other things that the organization has to offer in the overall scheme of your career.

2. Do your homework.

Review websites to get current info about salaries. You could try www.salary.com or www.payscale.com. Others sites like is the bureau of labor statistics - (www.bls.gov.) are a bit more detailed, but offer info about your job in specific settings, and that can make a big difference in salaries. Keep in mind that even in the same field, the setting in which you work and area of the country can change a salary dramatically. For example, will you be in a school vs. a hospital setting vs. a business setting?

Also, remember that cost of living is quite different from place to place. Visit sites that help you compare how far a salary can actually go from one place to another. Try sites like www.bankrate.com that offer detailed information concerning cost of living indicators such as housing, food, and utilities.

Finally, know the credentials that affect salaries in your chosen field. If a master's degree means more dollars in your field and you have a bachelor's degree, know that there will be a difference in salary without exception. Be familiar with the credentials and certifications that affect eventual salaries in your field.

3. Get a realistic salary preview from insiders.

Use social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook and LinkedIn to make contact with people in your field and explore what managers are actually offering younger employees. Don't rely on rumors or urban myths or outdated information, because today is much different than two years ago. Remember you may be competing with other individuals with years of experience. You can ask for information about raises and bonuses as well. If you are still in school, contact the college recruiting center - they are a great resource about salary and hiring trends.

If you already have a job and want to negotiate a salary increase:

1. Think long and hard about the timing of your request and the state of your organization.

If you have witnessed recent layoff and concessions among other employees, you definitely do not want to talk salary at this time. Be happy you are still employed and wait a while and reevaluate your options. Nothing will make you look worse than demanding a higher salary in the midst of a severe downturn. Don't move forward - sit tight even if you think your salary is on the low side.

If it appears that things are stable or improving at your workplace, read on.

2. Know how your experience and performance stack up against others in your role.

You need to look around your workplace and assess how you really stack up. Is your salary really low when you are compared with your co-workers? Do you have the credentials to move up the pay scale at your workplace? If you haven't completed your graduate degree or that certification program that has been recommended, now is the time to think about how that will affect a request for an increase. If you can swing it, find a way to beef up your resume and round out your credentials before you ask for an increase. 

3. Make yourself a more valuable employee before asking for more money.

Consider the following:

• Have I spent enough time in my current role to be a proven entity - in other words if you left, would you be missed?
• Has your performance stood out in a way that sets you apart from your peers?
• If you imagine your manager reviewing a list of employees and having to cut one loose, would it be you? Why not?

Remember that spending a year or two in a role doe not guarantee a promotion or a salary increase; those have to be earned and justified. In the meantime be sure that you are continuously increasing your value within the organization.

If after considering everything we have discussed, you still think it wise to negotiate, do so. But proceed with caution and be prepared to justify your request thoroughly. Let us know how things have worked out by posting a comment.

Marla Gottschalk is our workplace and career coach. She and Anna have conducted surveys about Gen Y in the workplace and will be publishing the results soon.

Law schools generally open the floodgates for applications around September 1. Last year, the top-10 law schools began accepting applications between September 1 and October 1, with final submission deadlines scattered throughout the spring.

There's obviously a lot of material to put together in order to submit your application. During the summer, when the weather is nice and the atmosphere is more relaxed, you may be taking some vacation time. There's a natural tendency to push off working on the applications until the fall when schools start the admissions process.

It's best to fight this instinct. Early submission of your materials is almost always the wisest course of action when applying to law school. That means it's never too early to start putting your materials together.

But if you can't bring yourself to polish your resume or brainstorm topics for your essays, here are three things you can do right now that will help you during the application process. None of them requires heavy lifting.

 

Sign Up For The Credential Assembly Service

The Law School Admission Council is responsible for the Credential Assembly Service (also known as the LSDAS -- Law School Data Assembly Service). According to the LSAC:

LSAC collects the US and Canadian academic records of law school applicants and summarizes the undergraduate work according to a standard 4.0 system to simplify the admission process. Applicants who have studied for more than one academic year outside the US or Canada can use the Credential Assembly Service for transcript evaluation and authentication if required by the law schools to which they are applying.

It also synthesizes information on transcripts and your LSAT score(s), and serves as a clearinghouse for your letters of recommendation.

There is no reason to wait to sign up for this service. Most law schools require use of the service, and signing up is relatively painless. Even if you decide to wait until next year to apply, your membership with the service will be active because it lasts for five years.

Signing up early is most important for those of you who naturally procrastinate. During peak season it can take weeks for your letters of recommendation to be submitted and processed by the LSAC. If you're staring down a deadline, those weeks will matter. So why wait? Sign up now and get it out of the way.

 

Request Admissions Brochures

Sure, the economy is looking up but that doesn't mean you're going to have the funds to visit every law school you're applying to. Rather than making your decision in the dark, go online (or call) to request a law school admissions packet (aka admissions brochure or informational brochure).

Viewing the brochure can provide you with a lot of information you may not already know about the law schools. Take the art and photographs with a grain of salt; every school is going to produce a packet that puts it in the best light. But you may find out important details about a school that greatly increase (or decrease) your interest. These nuggets can be helpful when you're facing a decision on where to apply (or where to enroll).

Some law schools may not yet have their brochures available. Don't worry -- lots of schools will have a mailing list you can sign up for. When the brochures are ready, you'll automatically be sent one.

You might be asking yourself, "Why can't I just read about the school on its website?" You can. The websites are a good source of information. Still, a lot of us associate the computer with work, especially those of us who sit in front of one during a large portion of the day. You don't want to equate your law school search with work, and you may be less likely to poke around about the school if you have to turn on the computer, log on, go online, and so forth.

Having the hard copy of the application sitting at home allows you to glance at it while you're having a bowl of cereal in the morning, or flip through it between commercials on Sunday afternoon without having to worry about actively "researching" your schools online. In short, the hard copy gives you some flexibility so that your search can be conducted at your leisure.

Many of those brochures will also contain a hard copy of the school's application, which leads me to...

 

Figure Out What You Have To Write

When you get the brochure, you may be tempted to throw out the hard copy of the application. After all, the trend in law school admissions is to complete the applications online.

Don't throw it out. Instead, read everything carefully. It may be a few months before you go online to fill out the application, but you can identify (and organize) your workload as you read.

Law schools may ask you to write any combination of the following: a personal essay, a diversity essay, an academic addendum, a criminal history addendum, an "optional" essay, and an essay on why you want to apply to the school. You may not be required to write every essay for every school -- but it helps to know ahead of time what you're looking at.

Take the applications and make a "to-do" list for each school that includes any written materials that can (or should be) submitted. By the end you'll have a better idea of just how much work you're going to be doing. It may even motivate you to start working on your applications...

 

Gregory Henning is a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Virginia Law School. After graduating from law school, he clerked for Judge R. Lanier Anderson of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit and then became an Assistant District Attorney in Boston. As part of the Anna Ivey team, Greg works with law school applicants.

 

 

Jon Hodge is the owner of Strictly English TOEFL Tutors.

I ask all our clients when they begin studying for the TOEFL, "what schools are you applying to?" I ask this because we need to know from the start what TOEFL score the student will need. If they want to attend Harvard Business School, they will need a 109, but if they want to attend Suffolk for an MBA, then they will only need an 80. Obviously, this will change the amount of time they need to prepare and the way we customize the student's course of study.

One answer to this question always surprises me. Every once in a while I get a student who says, "I'm not deciding on what schools to apply to until I get my TOEFL results." The applicants then explain that they will apply to the schools that have TOEFL requirements equal to their scores.

Let me make this very clear: This is a very bad way to choose the schools you will apply to.

First of all, a large part of your admissions file is your personal statement or statement of purpose that explains, among other things, why you want to attend the school you're applying to. Schools use this part of the essay to determine if you're serious about their program specifically. If the only reason you've chosen their school is because it matches your TOEFL score, then you will have nothing substantial to say about their program and why you like it better than other programs. Sure, you could invent some reason by looking at their website and finding something to talk about, but admissions offices can always tell when a student doesn't have a genuine passion for the school they are applying to.

Second, keep in mind that you'll want to be working on all of your admissions materials at the same time. You should be studying for the TOEFL while you're also working on your letters and other standardized tests. If you are waiting for your TOEFL results before applying to schools, you will most likely be left with very little time to prepare the rest of your materials. Especially because the students who decide to let their TOEFL score determine the schools they apply to are also the students who keep taking the TOEFL over and over again until the last minute. And this leaves them no time to craft powerful resumes and statements of purpose.

But let's stop here for a minute and think harder about the fact that applicants who want their TOEFL score to pick their schools are also the people who keep taking the TOEFL. Why take the TOEFL over and over again if you don't care what school you go to? Repeatedly taking the TOEFL suggests that these people really do have a goal they are trying to achieve, a school they passionately want to attend, but they are afraid to admit it, or they are afraid of failure.

If it were really true that they didn't mind that their TOEFL score would determine the schools they were going to apply to, then they would simply take the test once and, with their results in hand, they would pick their schools. In fact, they would be the first to complete and submit their applications! But this is not the case.

Therefore, I encourage everyone who picks their schools based on their TOEFL scores to question this decision. What might really be behind this presumably "practical" choice? Most likely, you do have a school that you feel passionate about. Don't be afraid to go for it! Work hard to raise your TOEFL results to the score you need for the school you love. You'll need this kind of dedication and perseverance once you're in graduate school anyway, so it's a good thing to begin training yourself now to achieve your goals. With the right support, you can achieve anything, even a high TOEFL score! 

Having trouble finding a summer job? It seems as if everyone is, from high schoolers to lawyers-in-training. This Sunday's New York Times has an interesting article on the unemployment issue facing teenagers and college students.

Among the sobering statistics:

• 24% unemployment for 16- to 19-year olds (up from 16.1% last year)
• 21% decline in internships available to college students versus last year

A psychologist quoted in the article opined:"[T]here is something to be said about sitting out on a warm evening and looking at the stars  — they need more of this contemplation and self-evaluation."

While I understand what he's saying, it's also important to consider what an "empty" summer will look like in the future when you apply for jobs or admission to graduate school. If you're a college student aiming for a permanent post-graduate job or admission to a graduate program, you'll more than likely be submitting a resume as part of the application process. Students will naturally have less material to include on their resume than someone who has been out in the working world for some time. But that doesn't mean you're going to get a free pass if you can't get a job for the summer.

On the contrary, each summer when you could have worked will be scrutinized by those reviewing your materials. In addition, hiring managers and admissions officers know how to spot a "hole" in a resume. With fewer years in the working world for you to gain experience, the marginal impact of an "empty summer" is that much greater. So what should you do if you're having trouble landing a traditional summer job?

The short answer: anything.

Find something meaningful to spend your time on during the summer. Work on a political campaign, volunteer at a hospital, become a Big Brother or Big Sister, coach a youth sports team. Doing something substantive is guaranteed to make your summer more enjoyable but it will also pay off in the long run. Going through the summer like some of the subjects in the NY Times article -- "loaf[ing] through days," "playing trumpet or guitar," "watching DVDs at one another's houses" -- may create a hole in your resume that you cannot later fill in. 

Competition for post-college jobs and graduate admissions is always going to be intense. Rather than creating an obstacle to your future by inaction this summer, take steps today to fill in that hole.  Your summer work does not need to be permanent. It doesn't even need to come with a paycheck (though it would be nice if it did...). It needs to give future employers or admissions representatives an indication that even in difficult economic times, you found a way to make a meaningful contribution to some organization. 

Questions or comments about the summer job hunt? We want to hear from you!

Gregory Henning is a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Virginia Law School. After graduating from law school, he clerked for Judge R. Lanier Anderson of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit and then became an Assistant District Attorney in Boston. As part of the Anna Ivey team, Greg works with law school applicants.  

To add to the list of things that can keep you from practicing law: taking on so much debt that you can't pay it back and get dinged by the bar committee.

Today's NYT has an astonishing story about a 47-year-old who started at Hastings Law School back in 2000, decided to throw in a master's degree, and then found himself trying to carry student loans of $230,000. By now, that amount has spiraled to $400,000 because of interest and penalties, during a time when he wasn't able to practice law yet because he had some difficulty passing the bar exam (he had to take it three times).

He concedes that he hasn't made a single payment on his loans, and he now finds himself in trouble applying to the state bar:

In January, the committee of New York lawyers that reviews applications for admission to the bar interviewed Mr. Bowman, studied his history and the debt he had amassed, and called his persistence remarkable. It recommended his approval.

But a group of five state appellate judges decided this spring that his student loans were too big and his efforts to repay them too meager for him to be a lawyer.

“Applicant has not made any substantial payments on the loans,” the judges wrote in a terse decision and an unusual rejection of the committee’s recommendation. “Applicant has not presently established the character and general fitness requisite for an attorney and counselor-at-law.”

Mr. Bowman, 47, appears to have crossed some unspoken line with his $400,000 in student debt and penalties, accumulated over many years.

I don't mean to pile on. The article makes clear that the borrower had some extenuating circumstances, and that the lenders don't necessarily have clean hands in all of this. And of course these days even graduates of the top law school in the country are having a tough time finding (and keeping) work at very high salaries.

At the same time, though, one wonders about the borrower's judgment. This article serves as a good reminder that higher education is an investment -- a very expensive one -- and piling on more and more debt means you have to be ruthless in assessing what your income prospects are likely to be coming out of School X with a degree in Y to be leveraged in market Z. And to invest in law school and then have so much trouble passing the bar exam... that's a scary scenario, too.

Some closely related postings on the subject:

• "We Should Be Ashamed Of Ourselves"
• "What's a Master's Degree Worth?"
• "Feast or Famine for Law School Grads"
• "Interview with the LSAT Blog"
• "Upside-Down Math"
• "Dealing with Your Past"

Please share your thoughts! I imagine people will have strong feelings about this NYT article.