Lawyer & Law School Megathread #12: Started Out Barrister, Ended Up Barista

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > Lawyer & Law School Megathread #12: Started Out Barrister, Ended Up Barista

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Petey: Nov 26, 2005; For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?

lipstick thespian posted:

Sorry, Ainsley, but I really laughed when I read that post.

Me too

Yeah, Linguica, that needs to go in the OP "testimonials" + "suck a dick in alaska"

e: Ainsley what was your undergrad degree in? I'm trying to think if I know of anything for you...

# ¿ May 7, 2010 16:08

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 15:19

Petey: Nov 26, 2005; For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?

Aschlafly posted:

Original plan was to go JD -> clerk -> LLM -> SJD -> professor. So yeah, I guess I didn't particularly want to practice law.
Definitely, if sating my math appetite doesn't work, I'll be submitting my HY apps in early September, not early February.

Don't go to law school. Go for theoretical bio. You'll make more money and you'll actually help people.

# ¿ May 8, 2010 04:51

Petey: Nov 26, 2005; For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?

So I'm thinking of working on a new, but much shorter article (or note) about Facebook.

The general idea would be whether or not we should think of Facebook as a monopoly, or more specifically as possessing the anticompetitive characteristics that make monopolies dangerous (see this for a rundown of the argument). I discussed this briefly in my old paper, but was thinking about actually doing an article, probably working with my thesis advisor, both a) to make it more likely to get published and b) have his guidance in working with more formal stuff.

The question I have for people here is: what is your recommended reading for monopoly / antitrust law? By which I mean not only cases and statutes, but also histories of how it came to be, the forces the drove its creation, the underlying principles animating its application, that sort of thing.

From my basic understanding of law on the books, I don't think Facebook would be considered monopolistic. The argument I'm interested in exploring is whether or not social network sites, which (like early telephone systems) rely on network effects to maintain marketshare more than the technology per se, should be monitored as such.

Seems to me that since network effects aren't subject to competition, at least in the same way other goods and services are, there could be an interesting argument made that the bar for regulating them should be lower.

But again, I haven't explored this at all, so anyone who has any books / articles / materials generally that might be helpful in my research, please send them along!

edit

Perhaps more specifically, I'm interested in legal arguments about vendor lock-in and natural monopoly regulation.

Petey fucked around with this message at 05:14 on May 16, 2010

# ¿ May 16, 2010 03:10

Petey: Nov 26, 2005; For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?

Ersatz posted:

I completed a note this semester defending mandated network neutrality against potential First Amendment claims (counterintuitively, ISPs can be expected, once their administrative law arguments run out, to claim that the FCC's rules interfere with constitutionally protected editorial control). The note hinges on convincing the reader that the concentration of broadband market power is such that intervention is necessary to ensure the smooth operation of the marketplace of ideas. Luckily, communications jurisprudence is relatively sophisticated in the way that it deals with natural monopoly and network effects, so there's a lot out there to work with.

There's probably a lot of overlap in the direction of our arguments and I imagine that many of my sources would be useful to you. Feel free to send me an email and I can provide more, but Itheil de Sola Pool's Technologies of Freedom, Nuechterlien and Weiser's Digital Crossroads: American Telecommunications Policy in the Internet Age, Lessig's The Future of Ideas, and Zuckman's hornbook, Modern Communications Law, were all very helpful in producing the note. In terms of case law, I'd closely read Turner I & Turner II to understand the pro-regulatory communications law arguments that the Supreme Court has recently found persuasive. They generally revolve around the threat posed by market power over physical infrastructure.

I haven't taken antitrust, so I can't help you there, but your argument sounds like a logical extension of the pro-regulatory arguments made in the communications law context.

edit: Also, Lotus v. Borland (holding that a menu command hierarchy is a "method of operation" and therefore cannot be copyrighted) involves an interesting discussion of the impact of network effects on software development and the end user.

Thanks, this looks really helpful. I'll download the articles and re-read The Future of Ideas.

I figured there must be stuff about natural monopolies in either the law and economics or communications law journals, so this is also useful.

I have to do more research, but from what little I know I think some of the early telephone interconnection stuff is probably going to be helpful for me. While it has the added degree of complexity of physical infrastructure, the underlying dynamics of network effects seem fairly analogous.

Could you email me your paper (petey@somethingawful.com)? I won't be able to look at this stuff right away but I will drop you a line if I have any questions. Thanks again!

# ¿ May 16, 2010 21:52

Petey: Nov 26, 2005; For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?

Ersatz posted:

Sure thing - I just fired off the email. In terms of working by analogy to the phone system, I think that the best source from my first reply is definitely going to be Digital Crossroads. The authors do a fantastic job in that book of explaining the policies behind current communications regulation, with reference to the historical development of the phone system and lessons learned in dealing with natural monopoly and network effects. Their views and their sources are also completely orthodox, so you'll have firm ground to cite from in making your arguments.

Thanks, got it - I'll give it a read when I get a chance, and I'll definitely check out Digital Crossroads. Tim Wu was working on a book about this that he used to talk about back in 2007 but I don't know what happened to it - sent him an email too, maybe he can be of help.

# ¿ May 17, 2010 00:45

Petey: Nov 26, 2005; For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?

When I was a freshman at a public ivy college in the South, I lived next to two jocks who were very much unlike the nerdy jesus freaks who populated the rest of the dorm. They partied, watched porn, asked the kid with cerebral palsy to "get me some fries with that shake", and were generally pretty chill.

One of them was very smart, but the other incredibly dumb (we're talking sub-1100 on the old SATs dumb), and had only been accepted because he was one of the top ranked athletes in his sport in the country at the time. He was from Miami, and grew up on 8th Street, and knew the guys who ran the eponymous porn site.

He ended up transferring after being put on academic probation his freshman year, but before he did that he had some fun. But having fun in a southern college can be confusing, because many of the students are still wrestling with the freedom college gives them in the context of their hard-right Christian upbringing.

One night this kid - call him Blake, it fits - was hooking up with a girl. He was a good looking guy, she was all over him, few months into college. They went back to his room, yada yada yada, and the next morning he awoke to find her despairing, accusing him of having tricked her into sinful behavior with his dashing tempting good looks.

(I'm not trying to trivialize date rape etc, but this wasn't a case of that - it was a girl who fully consented to activity with him but felt horribly guilty about jesus the next morning)

Anyway, Blake was shaken, because this wasn't long after Duke, so he wrote up a contract (in sub-1100 on the SATs English) that said something to the effect of "yo, by signing this official contract of law you hereby consent to all acts of freak that may be be perpetrated upon this bed by his sexual majesty blake, etc etc etc", made a hundred copies, hung them above his bed with a little pen on a chain, and made girls sign the second they answered his room

I haven't seen or spoken with Blake since we both transferred, but he just popped up on my News Feed today with an educational announcement:

[T14] Class of 2013

Looks like he decided to make a career out of his prior experience with contracts.

# ¿ May 17, 2010 20:21

Petey: Nov 26, 2005; For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?

ewr2870 posted:

URM? Or are law schools finally getting really serious about the UVA softball tournament?

white as snow

# ¿ May 17, 2010 22:01

Petey: Nov 26, 2005; For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?

gvibes posted:

For the stark numbers behind some law school admissions, you can always look at the sixth circuit grutter decision. I think the dissent had the numbers, and determined how much of an advantage being black gave you at Michigan.

Did they compute how much of an numerical advantage being white gave you for Mich?

Tim Wise did. Hint: it's much more!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uH0vpGZJCo

(go to 4:10 for the numbers)

# ¿ May 18, 2010 02:18

Petey: Nov 26, 2005; For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?

Blinkz0rz posted:

That could be true. He could be a legacy, or famous, or any number of other things that might make this T14's admissions department choose him over someone else.

Yeah I mean I did spend a lot of time talking about his athletic prowess, and someone else did mention (tongue in cheek) softball success.

I don't think ewr or evilweasel were malicious I just think it's a symptom of a lot of the discourse (and more importantly deep seated generalized resentment) of affirmative action in law school admissions.

I mean, I work in undergraduate admissions now, and I see it all the time among kids we don't accept - honing in on a racial difference, real or imagined, rather than a billion other things that explain the acceptance/rejection equally well. It's simply how people think of it.

# ¿ May 18, 2010 02:39

Petey: Nov 26, 2005; For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?

Blinkz0rz posted:

boston goons, just had anna's. it was delicious.

tacochat itt

Having an Anna's literally in my place of work is the best part of where I work and it's not even on the HR chart.

Delicious, delicious benefits.

# ¿ May 19, 2010 00:39

Petey: Nov 26, 2005; For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125223926

Is More School The Right Choice?

Matt Jones wishes he had a career to manage. Right now, he'd take a job even if it didn't make use of his new law degree.

Jones graduated from Michigan State University's law school two years ago and has not been able to find work outside of AmeriCorps, where he worked for several months. He has the financial and emotional support of his family, his fiancee and her family, but he still thinks "many times a day" about how and when he might find a job.

Jones says he's cut back on as many expenses as he could. And he thinks the austerity has also made him a more spiritual person. "That's been a nice source of comfort," he says. "But it hasn't gotten any easier."

"There's been a lot of soul searching, especially in the last six months," he says. "Did I make the right decision going to law school?"

# ¿ May 19, 2010 01:48

Petey: Nov 26, 2005; For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?

Phil Moscowitz posted:

Mr. Bungle is a bad clown and should be tried for crimes against humanity.

- Julian Dibbell, YLS '13

Petey fucked around with this message at 14:54 on May 19, 2010

# ¿ May 19, 2010 14:50

Petey: Nov 26, 2005; For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?

Julian is actually a really nice guy and told me at a conference once that ARIC was unbelievably misinterpreted. He intended it to be a basic journalism / pop anthropology piece about the new and different things that were happening in cyberspace (mainly community spaces arising from what were dead DARPA data lines), but every journalist just saw RAPE RAPE RAPE INTERNET RAPE and focused on that, and the debate became whether or not internet rape was serious business, when in reality it was never about that in the first place.

I sort of feel bad for him, because he (and his work) have been caricatured in this way somewhat baselessly. But only so bad, because he did make a career out of it.

Phil Moscowitz posted:

From my first introduction to the internet---playing "gently caress You, rear end in a top hat" in Ahrnold's voice in Trekkie chatrooms on AOL---the web has been a place of ruthlessly loving with people and being full of poo poo.

So when I had to read that dumbass thing in undergrad in some composition class, and the teacher was talking seriously about a girl crying because her wizard queen was cyberraped by a clown on a text-only game, you can imagine how seriously I took it.

My introduction to Julian and Second Life was an old prof at UMass talking really seriously and eloquently about both "A Rape in Cyberspace" and Second Life.

I resolved then and there that I would destroy Second Life because it was something he loved.

I went on to SA, found the SL people here, and that's how the Second Life Safari began.

Of course, that prof ended up hating it himself, and becoming my thesis adviser, but that's just proof that even old profs can be made to understand that there is inherent value in loving with people on the Internet.

SWATJester posted:

I argued that the Mr. Bungle rape as written could potentially give rise to an IIED claim.

Probably - although the same would go for 99% of stuff on the Internet, and if you explained to most goons that there was such a thing as IIED they would not understand. It's amazing what the Internet does to the sort of common decency that keeps you from loving with people in public.

# ¿ May 20, 2010 05:07

Petey: Nov 26, 2005; For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?

nm posted:

Because they don't go in your car.

So?

It's like how Posner wrote in an Op/Ed that warrantless wiretapping / government coded worms / etc by definition cannot violate privacy because a computer / robot / script cannot violate privacy.

# ¿ May 20, 2010 05:14

Petey: Nov 26, 2005; For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?

Adar posted:

David Brin's theory is that privacy is obsolete; technology makes snooping so easy that we may as well give up, admit there's no privacy anymore as a concept, and put restraints on what people can do with the information instead.

I disagree, but then again, I basically am a contextual integrity fanboy. Nissenbaum's new book is really good though.

# ¿ May 20, 2010 11:48

Petey: Nov 26, 2005; For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?

Draile posted:

The LSAT is an extremely learnable test. You can go from average to 90th percentile with enough effort.

I went from 157 on my diagnostic to 166 on my first official to 173 on my second official.

It took the entire Powerscore Logic Games bible (and a dozen practice tests) to get me there but it's absolutely doable.

# ¿ May 27, 2010 19:55

Petey: Nov 26, 2005; For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?

TyChan posted:

I think I've already posted this, but the dumbest thing people do is get bent on going to law school RIGHT NOW and choose a school that is substantially lower in rank than what they want.

Almost did this (offered full ride at Cardozo); so loving happy and grateful every day that I didn't.

# ¿ May 27, 2010 23:04

Petey: Nov 26, 2005; For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?

TheWarp -

I was in a very similar situation to your girlfriend (albeit I had a full ride at a much better school). I know how hard it can be to look for something else, or to go back on your plans. Hell, I should've listened to this thread when they told me not to rush the December LSAT when I wasn't ready.

I promise I am not a troll. If your girlfriend wants to talk to someone who was in a similar situation and now has an actual job at a respectable organization outside of the legal industry, send me an email or PM and I will tell her (or you) why it is a bad choice to make.

# ¿ May 28, 2010 05:18

Petey: Nov 26, 2005; For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?

entris posted:

There was a research paper published recently that discussed whether going to law school was a sound investment. Google that, and show it to her, because it shows pretty conclusively that her current path is not financially sound.

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1497044

# ¿ May 28, 2010 05:19

Petey: Nov 26, 2005; For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?

Abugadu I went to the Museum of Natural History Guam exhibit.

It was beautiful.

e: also my cousin graduates from Touro this weekend and got into JAG and his girlfriend is an RN so he emailed me the other day saying "Guam's looking better every day!"

# ¿ May 28, 2010 05:22

Petey: Nov 26, 2005; For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?

I became pretty disappointed when I learned that you need to learn Swedish to work for Google Sweden because I am an entitled American who had hoped you could get by on English alone.

#fwp

# ¿ Jun 20, 2010 16:36

Petey: Nov 26, 2005; For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?

Roger_Mudd posted:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/22/business/22law.html?hp

"One day next month every student at Loyola Law School Los Angeles will awake to a higher grade point average.

But it�s not because they are all working harder.

The school is retroactively inflating its grades, tacking on 0.333 to every grade recorded in the last few years. The goal is to make its students look more attractive in a competitive job market."

Came here to post this, because it is hilarious.

# ¿ Jun 22, 2010 04:21

Petey: Nov 26, 2005; For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?

InternetRulesLawyer posted:

I don't see where people are getting that Remedial is scamming people in real life. There's links all over the NH bar website about this case. The New Hampshire bar apparently backs Dargon and other real estate attorneys from oversight from the Banking Department and apparently a Superior Court judge agrees. The NH Banking Commissioner is being removed by the governor and executive council for incompetence. The law looks really, really poorly worded and poorly thought out, too. Even the ABA thinks the law is dumb and overbroad.

There's even a chronology of what happened that makes it sound like everybody was surprised by what the Banking Department did:

tl;dr a guy steals video game money and that makes him a real life criminal mastermind who apparently got 10 other lawyers to go along with him???

Wait, you're the lovely originalist Clarence Thomas fanboy with completely incoherent and/or evil beliefs.

All makes sense now.

# ¿ Jun 24, 2010 02:34

Petey: Nov 26, 2005; For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?

The lawgoons thread just took a most interesting turn...

# ¿ Jun 24, 2010 02:35

Petey: Nov 26, 2005; For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?

InternetRulesLawyer posted:

I posted stuff from the NH Bar's website. I don't know anything about Remedial or his opinions or whatever other than he pissed off a lot of people because he stole their real money or internet money or something. Now they're flocking to this thread because he apparently went into hiding or something and they think he's resurfaced on SA in a lawyers thread.

I lurk SA and rarely post. I'm going to go back to that because it's more fun watching people do dumb things than to participate. Word.

# ¿ Jun 24, 2010 02:43

Petey: Nov 26, 2005; For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?

HooKars posted:

Are you still looking to expand and hire more people?

Depends, what is your policy on photocopying the penis of your superior?

# ¿ Jun 24, 2010 03:13

Petey: Nov 26, 2005; For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?

evilweasel posted:

That was ha-ha evil.

What you're doing now is genuinely helping to destroy lives.

Would you expect anything else this scintillating intellect.

# ¿ Jun 24, 2010 03:33

Petey: Nov 26, 2005; For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?

HiddenReplaced posted:

I think I may have made a post a couple months ago saying that I had made it through two years of law school in a long term relationship.

Looks like it won't be three.

So glad I only looked for jobs in the market where she said she wanted to live.

Die alone.

sorry man, that's awful

# ¿ Jun 24, 2010 04:07

Petey: Nov 26, 2005; For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?

Baruch Obamawitz posted:

I'm also singlehandedly responsible for the no homegrown rule

Man I didn't realize my former business partner was the dregs of humanity.

# ¿ Jun 24, 2010 05:00

Petey: Nov 26, 2005; For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?

amishsexpot posted:

his wife makes $55-60 a year... that's seriously how much I make right now.

I do about 2-3 hours of work and spend the rest of the day on SA.

still really confused about what I want out of my future, but I feel like I'm 25 and I'm pretty much going to be dead soon.

You know that the median lawyer salary is $55k right?

I get where you are coming from. A coworker just left because she felt that her job was not intellectually stimulating and she'd never make six figures doing it.

But here's the thing -

you're making more money than some clinical PhDs, more money than the median lawyer, and you do so with 5 hours of free time a day to spare researching things to do that will a) make you a lot of money and b) be fulfilling. You could be picking up grad degrees, volunteering, working on side projects, etc.

I would love to be in your shoes, with a few hours a day to do research on the side / think about grad programs / etc. I 100% understand your motivations (making more money + plus be stimulated), but you need to realize that you are not likely to make more money being a lawyer than you do now and you will be overstimulated/overworked/etc if you do have a job.

It's not worth it - take it from someone who thought and breathed and planned law school for over a year, took the LSATs, applied, got in, and decided not to go.

# ¿ Jun 25, 2010 22:33

Petey: Nov 26, 2005; For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?

amishsexpot, that sucks.

But you are considering law school for literally all of the wrong reasons: because your parents want you to go; because you're bored and don't know what else you want to do with your life; and because you dream of doing fashion law.

I don't know what to tell you, or what you need to tell your folks. It sounds like maybe your parents don't have a clear eye for what a law degree will do for you (or indeed what it means to be a lawyer). And I understand that you don't want to be a paralegal for the rest of your life.

But look at the numbers. Look at the miserable people around you. Think, for a moment, about whether you are making a wise decision. You're about to invest a lot of money, and time, and overqualification in something that you don't want to do, that you have seen make other people miserable, and for what?

There are good reasons to go to law school. But you have not articulated a single one.

I went through a similar crisis when I was looking at law school. Not as bad as you, but I had a lot invested emotionally in law school, family thought I was going to be the lawyer, etc. And what you need to realize is that you are about to do something horribly stupid for a lot of bad reasons.

You need to sit down, figure your life out, figure out what would make you happy and achieve your goals, and then pursue it for those reasons.

Good luck.

# ¿ Jun 26, 2010 02:53

Petey: Nov 26, 2005; For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?

I just saw that your parents are Asian. You should find some of atlas of bugs' old posts about working with Asian parents.

That makes it more difficult, but you need to realize that your parents are doing this because of fears about status, and not because it's actually what's good for you.

# ¿ Jun 26, 2010 02:58

Petey: Nov 26, 2005; For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?

Yeah Amish, one thing that stood out to me was that it seemed like it was very important to you to avoid $100k in debt and marrying for money (meaning: dependency or codependency on another), and yet the path you are considering would almost certainly lead you exactly to that, and what's more you've seen it happen with coworkers.

# ¿ Jun 26, 2010 14:09

Petey: Nov 26, 2005; For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?

Just got back from 10 days in Alaska.

Cons: not Guam; indeed, Alaska
Pros: still insanely beautiful, and you can probably find work as one of those people who poses as a mountie as the cruise ships dock

# ¿ Jul 3, 2010 20:02

Petey: Nov 26, 2005; For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?

BigHead posted:

Of course, so is the cost of living.

In Skagway one of our guides paid $640 a month for an 8x5 foot camper (with no bathroom or shower; YMCA for those) resting on 10 square feet of land literally right next to where the passing scenic trains dumped their latrine waste.

Also in Alaska you will still die alone - the male/female ratio is around 10:1 and this is a thriving personals publication sold in all the drugstores:

e: plus, if you live in the more temperate (think chillier England) part of Alaska in the southeast, it rains literally an average of 320 days a year. Between that, and $6 gallons of milk, I can understand why even being paid to live there is not enough for most, despite views like this:

hence a population density of 1.03 per square mile (Vermont is 80 per square mile by comparison, and New Hampshire 146).

Petey fucked around with this message at 16:34 on Jul 4, 2010

# ¿ Jul 4, 2010 16:26

Petey: Nov 26, 2005; For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?

Draile posted:

Petey lies. Alaska owns.

Alaska absolutely owns, but after visiting it I can understand why prolonged exposure would drive people to Russian levels of drinking.

I also understand the genesis of Russian levels of drinking.

# ¿ Jul 4, 2010 17:04

Petey: Nov 26, 2005; For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?

Congrats sigmachiev! You deserve it (unemployment and a lonely grave)

# ¿ Jul 8, 2010 20:24

Petey: Nov 26, 2005; For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?

methamphetamine posted:

I think largely because I went to a really crappy undergrad which gave me a chip on my shoulder about prestige

man you're really racking up the pleasant points here

# ¿ Jul 13, 2010 22:35

Petey: Nov 26, 2005; For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?

The Arsteia posted:

i'm not bragging or anything duder I'm just telling him

Good work! Now - you must find Randbrick...

# ¿ Jul 14, 2010 16:41

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 15:19

Petey: Nov 26, 2005; For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?

SWATJester posted:

What makes you think that colleges actually look at applicants holistically?

Depends on the college. Most schools don't - but then again, the vast majority of colleges admit more students than they reject.

The most selective undergraduate schools in the country are heavily holistic, with a few notable exceptions (for example CalTech). Some of those "holistic" practices are still essentially reproductive of hierarchy (see: legacy admissions), but not all schools give such weight to such things, and it's generally balanced out by a litany of other considerations (sensitive to socioeconomic status, a desire for breadth in rural vs urban populations, etc).

Don't get me wrong, colleges still care about numbers. But not in the same way law schools, or med schools, do. MIT, for example, treats the SATs as a model. Overall scores basically mean nothing:

Matt McGann, MIT Admissions posted:

People make a big deal about test scores. No one seems to believe me when I tell them that when I'm reading an application, I just glance at the test scores to get a sense of them before moving on to the more important parts of the application -- that is, who you are. But here's an example. So, I'm reading this application of a student, a pretty strong student, who's definitely overcome some challenges recently. I come to the second to last piece in the folder, which is the guidance counselor letter (the last piece is the interview report). The GC makes a big deal of the student's "scoring the magic 1600 on the SAT." Now, when I started the case, I mentally noted to myself, "Okay, this student has scores that are fine, let's move on," but it didn't really make an impact on me that the student had "the magic 1600." Yes, scoring a 1600 is something that you, your school, your parents, and your guidance counselor can be very proud of. But it's not something I'm going to bust out my highlighter for, circle in big red pen, make it the focus of your case. In fact, I don't think I have ever in my summary of a student used high standardized scores as an argument to admit that student.

Let me tell you one more story that I often relay. I was doing a regional reception in a city a few years back, and afterwards a student -- we'll call her Artemis -- comes up to me and tells me that she has a 760 on the Math SAT. As I was about to tell her that her score was just fine, she keeps talking, to inform me that she was going to take the test again, since "clearly" her score was "too low." I was like, "What?!?!" I "ordered" Artemis to not take the Math SAT again, and instead to have a picnic on that Saturday. Because to us, a 760 math is the same as any higher score she could receive on the retest.

MIT has historical data that show how students who score at certain levels on certain tests do in college, and thus treat the SAT/ACTs as predictors for success or causes for concern rather than as objective qualifiers in and of themselves. Look at the admissions website - they say right there that once you score at least a 650 you're pretty OK on scores, meaning it won't keep you out.

This has been less true internationally. The major Korean university just announced they are switching to holistic admissions and convened a summit of Ivy+ admissions deans to help them through the process; Oxbridge is famously numbers-driven, but has begun to inch towards a holistic system as well.

Part of the reasons undergraduate universities have managed to escape the pressure on rankings a la professional schools is because it's so hard to measure. You rank by major, by private vs public, by this and that, and sooner or later every place is near the top in some characteristic. There isn't really a T14 equivalent for undergrads, and that's a really good thing.

Petey fucked around with this message at 00:07 on Jul 15, 2010

# ¿ Jul 15, 2010 00:01

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > Lawyer & Law School Megathread #12: Started Out Barrister, Ended Up Barista

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