The position I am in right now in life is NOTHING like anything I could have wanted or foreseen last year. It was pretty unfathomable to me until less than a week ago. I'm trying to determine how to organize my thoughts and tell this story in a way that will make most sense to readers. I also have a possible date/likely phone call an hour from now so I have to squeeze in whatever I can for right now. I guess I'll start with the big revelations, or the ones that feel biggest to me becausethey are causing the most uncertainty in my life:
Big Thing #1:
I am gainfully unemployed
(because my job let me go (after buying me a REALLY nice leatherbound hard cover Black's Law Dictionary and a delicious yellow and fudge cake as parting gifts) so that I could prepare to leave for law school and because they hired my replacement and were afraid to lose her. They gave me one week's pay (vacation time) as severance. I was hoping for two full weeks pay, but it's better than nothing.
Big Thing #2:
I am not in law school, nor am I starting law school this year.
To me, this is the biggest. I planned to take ONE year off between undergrad and law school to a. pay off the credit card debt I accumulated my first year of college and b. buy a car. I did both (although the completion of a. was kinda forced on me at the last minute.) I am debt free and I have a car.
I am (technically) unemployed and I have plenty of bills to pay (car note, internet, phone) and expenses (gas, miscellaneous living expenses) which I thought I would be paying with student loan or grant refund checks by now. Never would I have imagined that I would not be attending law school this year. The very thought of this situation horrified me prior to about 5 days ago.
So I guess I owe you guys some explanations. I hope that any future law students learn from my mistakes and actually follow my advice. I ignored a couple of these suggestions and I believe that is why I'm in the state I'm in. ( I realize this paragraph sounded really defeated and self-pitying. I'm not feeling that way anymore. I acutally have a pretty positive outlook on what I'm going through right now, but it may not emerge in the writing of this post until later.
Experience's List of What NOT to Do If You Plan to Attend Law/Graduate School After Earning Your Bachelor's Degree
1. Do NOT ruin your credit by falling into the credit card trap that ensnares many college freshman in America.
I did this. I had PERFECT credit by the time I was 19. It was in the high 700 range. I had 6 cards and I ran them all up near their limits, made a couple payments and then just stopped. I was dealing with some personal issues and became depressed and unfocused my second semester of college, so I quit going to class (see #2) and I quit working so I could not pay my bills. I allowed the cards to charge off and didn't deal with them until I graduated from college. I knew that I needed to address this and pay off my debts. Even though I paid several items on my credit report, I still owed some. Direct Loans denies anyone who is 90 days or more past due on any debt. It doesn't help that collection agency crooks often report inaccurately to the credit bureaus, and many companies continue to report negative information, even after the debt has been paid. Now, I no longer owe any money on any old credit card accounts, but I'll still have "bad credit" until 2012. It's an f-ed up system indeed.
If you are in college and you have credit cards, make your payments on time! If you cannot, pay the cards down to zero and freeze them (like literally, in the freezer), hide them, or close them. Keeping the cards open helps your credit score, so I wouldn't recommend closing them unless you just don't have the self-control to not spend beyond your means. Allowing cards to charge-off or go into collections, or even the less-extreme late payments can bite you in your ass later because negative items stay on your credit report 3-10 years and in unpredictable economic recessions such as now, banks are denying loans for late payments from FIVE YEARS AGO, even with otherwise perfect credit!
2. Do not allow anyone or anything to affect your grades.
I was young and naive. My second semester of college, I let my triffling mother affect my mental state and I fell (hard) in love with someone who was no good for me. Instead of finding a positive outlet for my issues (as I do now) I let them get the best of me. I flunked out of a science class, got a D in a math class, and had to petition to late-drop another class to avoid getting a bad grade. Fortunately, I was able to pick up a one credit hour course (thank you, academic advisor) that started the second half of the semester in order to not have my financial aid affected by the dropped course. I was so stupid that I let this guy push me back into the bed in the mornings while he got up and got dressed for class. I got a 1.6 gpa. while he got something like a 3.5 that semester. I didn't even recognize that my lack of motivation and inability to make good decisions were due to depression and other issues that I was experiencing as a result of my horrible relationship with my mother, so I coped in all the wrong ways. I was able to bounce back from that 1.6 with a decent gpa upon graduation, but I should never have done that poorly in the first place.
If you are having issues that could potentially affect your work, seek help immediately. Your school may have counseling services that are free of charge. And young women, PLEASE realize that no young man is EVER worth ruining your life, especially since he more than likely isn't ruining his for you. It's college. 2-3 years down the line you may not even be communicating with this person who you think is the be-all-end-all. I know I'm not.
3. Apply Early!
I ignored this advice, even though it was drilled into my head for a couple years preceding my actual application process. I waited until the last week of December to submit my apps. I have average numbers (gpa and LSAT) and I know I should have had everything done by the end of October. My favorite professor submitted my letter SUPER late and I made the unwise decision to wait on her letter before I submitted my apps. I also thought (since I'm a pretty good essay writer) that I could throw my Personal Statement (PS) together in a short period of time. I had about 4 rewrites before it was perfect and that took time.
If you are retaking an entrance exam late, submit your apps anyway. Have EVERYTHING in order, including filling out the portions of the app that require you to fill them out (then save them on the database) Letters of Recommendation (LORs), Transcripts, Essays, etc... Your applications should be waiting for you to hit send as soon as the applications open. Be careful of the professors you choose to write your LORs. If you're still in college, network your butt off and suck up to thyour profs so you can guarantee SEVERAL profs who you know will write good LORs and you won't be so heavily dependent on one versus another, in the event that that prof just doesn't come through for you. Also, start working on your essays asap, and send them to all your critics well in advance so you can have time for a couple of rounds of critique, feedback, and rewriting. It's so worth it to be prepared earlier. Also, apply for financial aid early, preferably as soon as you find out that you are admitted. 2 weeks before school starts is not the time to find out that financial mistakes you made five years ago cause your much needed federal loans to be denied. Even if you aren't applying to a school Early Decision, you need to have the apps submitted to them about a week before the ED deadline. Trust me.
4. Pay Attention to How A School Treats You
I began to feel that the school I had selected only selected me because I am Black. I asked for money and they told me that they didn't award money to students with my numbers. (Minority students at The Alma Mater's law school with similar numbers to myself were given significant scholarships and even more when they asked.) I began to wonder why the hell Corntown University College of Law accepted me if they thought I was not good enough to receive even a nominal scholarship. I ultimately am not in law school right now because the school left a bad taste in my mouth and I realized this too late, when thedeadlines had passed for me to accept any other school. But I'm kinda happy with my decision because at least I won't be in debt $51,000 for a year of school at a university at which I would not have felt happy.
Make a decision well before the deposit deadline so that you have leverage. If you ask for money and they turn you down, and you are not 100% in love with the school, maybe it's not the school you need to attend. If it's a ranking question, from my experience this application cycle, choose the lower ranked school that gives you money, is in your home state, and treats you well over the higher ranked school that is in another state, offers no money, and makes you feel unwanted. You should never attend a school with the intention to transfer, but the exception to this rule is if you just HAVE to be in school this cycle, and you don't get into the school you want, or if a higher ranked school that accpeted you treats you like dirt and you really can't fathom being happy there.
I think that's it for my advice. I'll get a little more personal and write about the solutions to my problems in the next post.
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