I quit my job to study. Will this be alright?

Q_ESQUIRE

I quit my job to study LSAT(commuting was a burden so I thought this would be time-efficient). Which will give me a min.6months to max 1year blank on my resume. Will this be alright when I apply to law school? I am not young and it's been quite a while since I graduated so I'm concerned about this..even my previous career has nothing related to law. what do you guys think?

samantha.ashley92

I did it. I'm not sure how I'll explain it yet haha. Honestly, I feel like the jump in my LSAT score will outweigh the gap in my resume. If anything, I'll twist it into how I learned financial responsibility in order to save up for my time off blahblahblah.

Q_ESQUIRE

Thanks for the advice! I guess getting a high LSAT score will explain it naturally but I do agree on the financial responsibility part with you if the schools requires additional explanation

studyingandrestudying

Some people find it helpful to volunteer PT.

Tom_Tango

Do what you have to do

Ohnoeshalpme

You need a part-time gig. Even 4 empty post-college months on a resume looks terrible on an application. Obviously if you score a 175+ it won't matter too much but if you are at the median for a school and they see that you took off 6+ months and quit your job leading up to your LSAT date, they will know that you spent all of that time studying for the LSAT.

Admissions officers want candidates who are capable of working part-time and studying full-time. This is especially true of the T17ish schools that expect their students to be heavily involved in pro-bono and journal work as well as moot court and other law-based activities. If you take off this much time to merely study for the LSAT and do nothing else, they will probably guess that you aren't the type of person that can juggle two things at once.

Ohnoeshalpme

@"samantha.ashley92" said:
I did it. I'm not sure how I'll explain it yet haha. Honestly, I feel like the jump in my LSAT score will outweigh the gap in my resume. If anything, I'll twist it into how I learned financial responsibility in order to save up for my time off blahblahblah.

I wouldn't include anything about it on your application. You don't ever want to call attention to a weak point on your application unless it needs an addendum (character and fitness etc).

samantha.ashley92

@Ohnoeshalpme is probably right. I took a look at the admissions course info last night, and pointing out weaknesses was discussed. Who knows, if you apply before the end of the year, the admissions committees may be in a rush to get on their vacations and not even notice. They probably will notice haha but just focus on getting your score up.

Leah M B

Very much agree with @Ohnoeshalpme. You really should look at doing some part time work or volunteering. Honestly, studying for the LSAT 40 hours a week isn't even really a great idea. Your brain will get overloaded and tired. You should have something to put on your resume for this time period and also just to give yourself breaks from studying.

_oshun1_

More power to you. Just note that a lot of schools do have a section asking you to explain any gaps in your work history. So ultimately if you don’t score well in the percentile range of the schools you want to apply to...it really won’t look good to say “I took time off to study for the lsat” and not have anything to really show for it...I agree that you should volunteer part time...even just 5-10 hrs a week.

studyingandrestudying

Also, are you done with undergrad?

ElleWoods77

I quit my job because I became sick and decided to study for my LSAT during my year off. I do not regret it. I plan to write an addendum describing the gap on my resume. If you are worried about the gap hurting you, I will echo everyone and suggest some volunteer work or a part time job. Though I may add I read of a former sage who took 6 months off to study and she got into Harvard.

m.c lshopeful

If you do take time off, make sure you really boost that LSAT. Ultimately, if you took a year off but got a 169/170 (median for majority of T14) you would still outperform the guy who worked full-time at some job but got a 165... assuming all other things equal. Go volunteer somewhere that won't tax your energy too much and use all your good stuff for LSAT studies. They aren't going to care that much unless you're applying to Yale or Stanford... Just don't fill-out the section telling them you smoked weed and played video games all day and they'll forget about it before the end of reading your app.

I don't know the sources of the other info in this thread came from about a 6mo - 1yr gap being horrible on your app. There was an question/answer panel with admissions officers i listened to where they mentioned taking a year off to relax, travel abroad, or volunteer before starting the beast that is law school and beyond is perfectly okay if you have the resources to do it and they even proceeded to give examples of how it could be a positive thing... I've never once read/heard about a gap year causing someone to under perform in admissions, but i definitely have heard about a low LSAT score causing someone to not get the outcomes they wanted. High GPAs are common but given the curve of the LSAT means there is a finite number of high scorers each cycle, being one of those will set you apart more than anything else.

Aside from being a sack of crap during your free time, there is almost no better thing you can do but try to raise your GPA/LSAT for admissions outcomes... plain and simple. Every year people think that some random job they thought was awesome (when really no one cares much what kind of job 99% of the time) or some other master's degree program or something will be a good excuse for their GPA / LSAT and will ultimately help them outperform someone who had a gap or didn't "do as much" but they are gonna be sad come admissions time when reality sets in. I can't speak from experience with the lower-ranked schools but I'm guessing if you are willing to take a year off you are aiming for somewhere in the top20.

The only caveat i would add is that if you are k-jd who has NEVER held an actual job there could be an argument between getting work experience or LSAT studies but it still appears that the higher LSAT gets better admissions outcomes. Feel free to spend a week scanning LSN and other sources if you want to see exactly what i mean. Only once you hit 170+ do you start to get diminishing returns on raising your LSAT compared to work experience (assuming you had no prior work experience). If you already have ~2 years work experience, it's an absolute no-brainer that raising your LSAT is the way to go.

Make sure you make a decision using data that relates to your specific situation. Find interviews/panels with admissions folks, scour over LSN data, read many anecdotes on reddit from people who have already gone through the admissions process. You know, to someone applying to some schools with LSAT medians in the low 160's and down, the work experience might be better because you kinda have a wildly varying applicant pool with some people who did care a lot about LSAT studies and some people who didn't and those schools might place a stronger emphasis on other parts of an application as stronger indicators of success. The same could be said about Yale and Stanford who have small class sizes and get to choose from an applicant pool where everybody was so good at the LSAT that it becomes hard to distinguish candidates at scores so high. For the rest of the ~2,500-3,000 spots at the higher schools, the biggest portion is gonna be your GPA/LSAT.

Q_ESQUIRE

Thank you so much!! this really, really helped me