<p>I haven’t posted in this forum for a while…</p>
<p>I freely admit that my own and my attorney kid’s experience are now out of date. However, I can tell you that my kid would have shown up in those stats as having taken a year “off” after college. My kid applied to law school during senior year, got in and deferred a year. I know that even back then --about a decade ago now–about a third of the class did the same thing, i.e., deferred. </p>
<p>Some students do this in order to accept presitigious fellowships–there are Rhodes, Marshall, Gates Cambridge, Fullbright, Keasbey, Mellon, Rotary and other scholars in every YHS law school class. There are also people who deferred to do a stint in Teacher for America, the Peace Corps, the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, NYC Urban Fellows, etc.There are also some students who get in and defer for a year or two to work, especially for high-paying consulting firms. </p>
<p>Now, MOST, though not all of those of those who had fellowships got advanced degrees, these are sometimes awarded too late to be included in entering stats. But people who took teaching Fullbrights, or did TFA, the Peace Corps, JVC, NYC Urban fellows are counted as having “worked.” While they certainly did “work,” I don’t think this is what most people think of in terms of “work experience.” </p>
<p>In many cases, these students applied as college seniors, at the same time they were applying for other programs or jobs, got in, and then deferred. In other cases, they applied in the fall following their May/June college graduation, and even if they started immediately after graduation–which is unusual–they had about 4-6 months of work experience when they applied. It was more common among my kid’s friends who waited until after graduation to apply to devote at least a couple of weeks after graduation to studying for the LSAT in June…or to spend the entire summer studying for the October LSAT…and then begin work. </p>
<p>That’s a long-winded way of saying I agree that you shouldn’t jump to the conclusion that the student who enrolled in law school a year or two or three after finishing college got into law school because of what (s)he did in the interim. </p>