Good Problem to Have

An interesting this happened when LSAT scores came out: my list of schools that I was applying to got turned upside down. Don't get my wrong, I've very excited about this, but at the same time I feel I jumped the gun in visiting some schools that I will now not be applying to.

I spent the last day trying to decide where I will apply to (of course the list with change if I get any exciting fee waivers) and it is tough. I have been married to the idea of applying to some schools for so long (for example American) but there is no point on applying to a school I wouldn't go to (especially one that will likly ding me out of yield protection).

I dont mean to sound like I'm complaining, this is an exciting problem, but it certainly means I will need to spend a bit more time getting myself ready for the fall.

Joy and Sorrow

Today was the biggest rollercoaster ride I have been on in a LONG LONG time. Even though I have refused to ever come close to using this blog as a diary, I feel like today the topics I want to discuss can be best explained by retracing my day for everybody.

10 AM: I wake up. The plan was to wake up at 11, but I couldn't sleep so I got up, washed my face and signed online to mass hysteria about scores. Apparently LSAC started scheduled updates later than planned and people freaked out.

11:20: I head to lunch, getting away from the boards for a while.

12:30 I return only to see that scores have not been released and people are starting to get upset. It appears as if scores may not be coming today afterall (*sigh*).

3:00: It is now 4 PM at LSAC, scores still aren't out, the common thinking is that if they are not out by 4 they are not coming out.

3:01: I head out for a jog to release some stress.

4:30: I get back all sickly sweaty and check the messege boards: SCORES ARE UP!!!!

4:31: I debate showering to be all clean when I check my score or immediate knowledge.

4:31.5: I quickly go to LSAC to see my score.

4:32: Deep breath

4:33 I check me score, AWSOME.

6: I talk to a good friend, she is not having the best of evenings and sounds generally not happy, I feel terrible.

9: Start getting drunk, all feelings other than giddyness leave.

12: Friend is still upset, moreso now, I feel even worse, I really want to help but do not know what to do (damn being a boy). We talk for a while, I hope I helped at least a little... I feel bad again. Now my feeling bad is combining with guilt, my day is good and my friends is terrible... I have to cut the convo short and feel even worse.

1:30: I get home and check my email and notice an odd email from Bradley, I check it and the Firm I have worked at in the falls has awarded me a $2000 scholarship for the Fall, I am once again super excited!

So there you have it, my day was a roller coaster, but scores did come out.

Days remaining till LSAT Score is released: ZERO!!!
Score: 174!!!! (99.3 percentile!)

Judgement Day

Well today MIGHT be judgement day. It appears as if there is a decent chance that LSAT scores will be released later this afternoon meaning that three weeks of nightmares and worries will finally come to an end (or at least, the truth will be known, it is very possible that nightmares will continue as I will retake in September).

First, wish me luck. I need it. I have never been less confident about the results of something I worked very hard on.

Next, here are some of the reasons that have been used as evidence for a Thursday score release:

1. Tonight people that had already taken the test had their percentiles change meaning that LSAC is done refiguring the percentiles.

2. Scheduled updates until noon. Each score release in recent memory has been preceeded by these updates.

3. This was the origional release date given to some people.

4. We really really really want it to happen tomorrow.

Of course, it is very possible that scores could be released Friday, in which case we all get to do all of this over again (and be even crazier the second day). Lets hope for tomorrow, but me getting a good score is of a higher priority.

I don't have any new content, I just wanted to post on the hysteria.

Also, there is a raging debate on wether a percentile drop in the high 160's means a tough scale, easy scale, or does not reveal info about the scale. In my mind, it doesn't reveal info about the scale, just says that more students scored above that number than the percentile was origionally representative of. Thoughts?

Days Left: (0-1 Depending on LSAC)
Mood: Nervous as heck

Final Camp Debrief and an ironic twist on life

So I just wanted to post a few quick notes about the leadership camp. Now that I have had a few days to reflect, I can honestly say that this was a very positive experience. I learned some things and got to function in a role I do not normally act in. Additionally, I met some awsome high school students and a couple awsome Bradley students (a few of whom I hope to continue to socialize with).

The big value of this camp to me is that I am used to the role of a leader as setting direction, leading change, managing organizations. I am not used to the leader as motivating a small group and dealing with personal problems, but I was able to step into this role this week. If anything this will help me more in the study of law because often clients are coming in with either 1. A goal or 2. A problem to resolve and are looking to you for help. This is essentially what my role was at camp: take materials and help students get where they want to go or resolve problems/misunderstandings so that students can get the most out of camp.

In an ironic on my future plans, I had a discussion today with a friend going to grad school in student affairs. He was trying to convince me that student affairs, not law school, is what I should dedicate my future study towards. I have typically used three arguments again why I don't want to be involved in student affairs and he made an interesting argument for how each of them is the same in the study of law.

Argument 1: Student affairs is a cult, I don't want everybody across the nation knowing me and the job I do and refering to me as "Chris the X at Y university." He pointed out that this is what a bar association is that that you will always be "Chris the X associate and Y firm." He also reminded me that I love greek life and we routinely are refered to as "chris from x chapter."

Argument 2: I want to have a broader impact than just college students. Here his argument was easy: if you dont do public interest you really aren't having a broad impact. He pointed out that no matter how much I say I want to get involved in public policy, when the time comes I may take a firm job and have a very narrow scope. He also reminded me that if you mold students that mold the world, you are molding the world.

Argument 3: $$. Here he pointed out that he is going to school for free and I will almost certainly be in a huge amount of debt and that by the time I pay my debt off there is a very good chance he may have been promoted a few times and earning at least as much as me. Interesting argument.

I still want to study law. At the end of the day, I like the career path of a lawyer and if I wanted to be in college administration is would be in a capacity that a law degree would help me secure a job. I am confident in my decision to go to law school and feel I have an opportunity to succeed. The only question left is where I will go and if I will have an opportunity to attend a school that I am really excited about, which brings us to:

Days remaining until the LSAT is released: 3
Mood: Tired

Interesting article

This article offers an interesting history of the LSAT and its development and application. It does a nice job of addressing some common complaints and suggesting a path for the future. I dont agree with some of what it says (specifically the statement that using it as a sorting tool is a mistake) but overall it is an interesting read.

http://www.lsacnet.org/publications/history-lsac-lsat.pdf

But Alas, She Was In Baltimore

Today I leave school and return home! While I was packing today I realized a sad truth: No matter how much I pretend as if I am in good shape to apply by the fall, I am not. The following is a list of things I need to accomplish before application season:

1. Letters of recommendation: I need to get the info to the writers and have the writers get them turned in
2. Diversity Essay
3. Why X essay
4. Why law essay
5. Finish resume

Short post today, waiting on the LSAT, get excited!

Transition

This week is going to be a week of transitions for legalfratboy.

First and foremost I am going back home tomorrow. This means a transition from "holding onto the school year, prepping for the LSAT, hanging out" to working lots. Thankfully I have a trip to Vegas to keep me entertained!

Additionally, my LSAT score is (supposedly) coming out this week! This means that my transition from "looking at schools and studying for the LSAT" to "applying" is about to begin. This is going to be an interesting few months, hopefully the LSAT gods will be kind and smile on me!

Another transition is the transition to a senior. This seems small and never dawned on my until yesterday afternoon when we were having an afternoon keg and talking about college and we relaized that at this time next year it would all be over and that we are much different peole than we were as freshmen. This is exciting but also freaking me out!

Tomorrow is my last Greek Life presentation, hopefully things will go well and scores will be high. You never know!!

The LSAT is looming and my heart skips when I think about it.

Days remaining until the LSAT is released: 5
Mood: Transitioning

End of Camp

Today is the end of camp. More specifically last night was my last involvement with Summer Enrichment camp. Overall the camp went well. The students seemed to have fun and the peer mentors all enjoyed themselves. Not only did we have a good time interacting with the students and with each other, we learned a few things ourselves.

On a personal note, I really enjoyed lots of the students I met and found the other peer mentors to be awsome people that I hope to continue interacting with in the upcomming year.

A few days ago I posted about my fears of camp. None of them were realized. Though the classroom stuff was a little dry at times, the social stuff and the random fun more than made up for it. At the end of the week I think the students all learned something and enjoyed themselves. I will be interested when the reviews of camp are accumulated.

Now that camp is wrapped up its back to the real world and more specifically, back to worrying about my LSAT score. There is (supposedly) only a week left until scores are released! I will keep you posted with my score (and likly preperation to retake the test).

On an unrelated note, I received word this week that I was selected as a Pi Kapp scholar for this year. Pi Kapp scholars are selected through a nataional application process and represent the top 5-8 scholar-leaders in the fraternity. This year 7 were awarded and I will be receiving one of them. The prize for this is not only recognition, but a $1000 academic scholarship. This is really exciting news.

My tasks for this week are as follows:

1. Tie up some greek community loose ends.
2. Arrange transportation to Texas
3. Start Work

Fun stuff huh?

Days Remaining until LSAT score released: 6
Mood: Drained

To resume or not to resume, that is the question

I like many law school applicants have done a variety of things during my undergrad and feel that many of them are meaninful. I have attempted to get involved in as wide a variety of ativities as possible and consider myself successful in most of them. WHile I have done these activities only for the purpose of bettering the organizations that I have become involved with, I am now faced with the issue of assessing which of my activities are and are not important.

I have begun putting together a final draft of my resume and it is much harder than I thought. Career services suggested a 2 page resume but this seems to contradict what I was taught (your life on a page). My plan is to make a one and two page version and then see how much I loose. The following are activities that I am unsure about the importance of:

Taught freshmen introducation class
Facilitated summer leadership camp
Speaking engagements
Contributing research (cited at conference) for a professional presentation by a PhD professor
Advisorary committe to the provost
Budget review committee
various honors societies (Phi Kappa Phi, Order of Omega, etc.)

I will post a like to my online resume when I finish it. In the mean time I still sit and wait for LSAT scores and am still facilitating camp. It is halfway done and so far so good however today will be the most trying time!

Rant on Personal Statements

Ok, so here is something I doubt many people say: I hate personal statements, I think that they should take a back seat to numbers (even though I do not currently know mine) and I honestly believe they should be eliminated and replaced with either 1. a formal writing sample or 2. a broader scope of what constitutes an acceptable addendum.

This isn't just blind complaining because my personal statement isn't any good (though I am not looking forward to writing one) it is something I have thought about and honestly believe.

First, personal statements do NOT show how well you write. They show how good you are at having people edit and how well you can assume a narrative voice (which is used exactly never in business or legal writing) and how well you can fit an interesting story into a limited amount of space. If a school claims they want to see how well you write, they should give you a stock topic and stock sources and ask you to construct an essay from them. To make this easier on the student, schools should agree to use the same topic and sources for a given year. Of course this will never happen, but then, schools don't REALLY use the personal statement to see how well you write.

Next, it could be that they want additional information to consider with your application. This could be true, but in that case why not ask for addendums for a variety of reasons instead of an open Personal Statement in addition to a more limited amount of addendums. Instead, they ask students to pretend that vacations and small experiences shaped their life. In addition, a diversity statement that is optional would cover a lot of what they seek to gain from the personal statement.

Lastly, as any good debater knows, there is no problem without harms in the current system. First, the current system forces students to make two page productions out of things that really are not that important to them. Next, the current system essentially says "we are going to make a judgement about your application, if you are average, by how well you pretend to have some worthwhile story, or how important we preceive your random experience to be.

Thats my rant on personal statements.

Campy Goodbye

Well this week should be interesting. I am signed up to be a peer mentor (basically a student facilitator for Bradley's summer enrichment program this week. The program is about leadership and the week looks like it could be fairly interesting. Today starts training and I finally find out what we will be doing!

I have two fears with this camp. First, I don't know how the students will react to the peer mentors in general. I have some experience with summer camps put on by colleges but in each of those cases the gap in knowledge between the campers and the mentors was so large that it was never an issue of how much do they really have to offer. In this case, I feel as if some of the mentors may have very little additional experience when compared to a very active high school student leader. It all goes back to the Bradley philosophy, Community Service = Leadership. Anyway, I think once I meet the staff I will be more impressed but as of now this is a worry.
Second, I am afraid of the "fun factor." Every camp I have ever gone to has been fun. Then again, every camp I have ever gone to was about something people do for recreation or an activity people love to do. Leadership isn't really a topic like that. Nobody wakes up and plays a rousing game of "leadership" or is on the "leadership team." I don't think this means that camp isn't a good idea, leadership is one of the traits that is most important in life, business, college, etc. but sometimes learning/studying leadership gets a little dry. I hope we can make it fun for these campers!!

On a law school note, since that is the primary focus of his blog, I am almost hoping that something really interesting happens at camp and I get a personal statement idea! Once again, all personal statement ideas are welcome. Also, if anybody can help me figure out how to use a "personal statement guide" book, please let me know. I have read two and gotten NOTHING out of them that I could not get from LSD or a similar source.

Days remaining till LSAT score: 12
Mood: meh

Same Game, New Rules

So as I mentioned in my last post, the ABA decided to change its reporting so that schools now only need to report the highest LSAT score earned by a given applicant.

As I mentioned in a post before this decision was made, I think this is a necessity in a day and age where people with internet access, no lives, a strong memory, and knowledge of messege boards can essentially figure out within a reasonable range how they scored on a test (or at least, how many they had wrong, with the scale being the X factor).

Despite the fact that I think this is a good change in the long run, I am not in favor of it now. Why? Because I am applying now, not in the long run.

First, I am not confident in my score and this essentially forces me to retake to try and score higher. With people being able to retake there will be more high scores floating around making whatever I get less valuable. As a result I feel as if I almost need to retake to attempt to position myself to accomplish my admission goals. Second, I like knowing what rules I am playing by. I know ish what my chances are at schools based on recent admission cycles, however now it seems everybody's numbers will jump a little bit, meaning more stress and uncertainty for me, things I do not like.

Finally, this may actually hurt my score. Cancelations tend to occur among people that know what they are doing and that have a good feel for the exam. A person for example that is shooting for a 170 but makes a 167. Why does this suck? More people keeping 167's will mean a higher standard and thus whatever I earned (less than that) will be lower.

Additionally, this makes the September test THE TEST, because prep for september is like a two for one, you get two tests in two months as opposed to two tests in 4 months if you take in June for the first time.

Overall this throws off a lot of things and I wished the ABA would have waited until after my admission cycle, even though I know this is a good thing in the long run.

Days remaining till score is released: 14 (hopefully)
Mood: sulking

Coolest Thing Ever

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2486187

I was going to post about the ABA deciding to take the higher LSAT score for reporting purposes, however after some thought I changed my mind. When I saw this article I wanted to post it because it might be the most fun thing I have ever seen (even if it does mean solidifying independent league baseball as a joke). Even better, the Flyers are about 20 minutes away from my home, so I will probebaly be seeing some games and mabye even participate in this!

I am eager to see the details about this, I will keep you posted. Things like this need to keep coming, they brighten up my day!

Sorry everybody no law school stuff today. Tomorrow will probeabaly be my discussion of the ABA's change.

Days remaining: One less than yesterday
Mood: Eager to see this!

Info Overload

The biggest reason I don't want to retake the LSAT is because I feel I have already aquired all the information that can help me. If I continue to prepare, I will simply retake tests I have taken, rework through a course book and reread posts on websites (though I have discovered a few new sites). I will basically be taking the test with the same level of preperation and hoping for better results. I really really really really really hope and pray that it does not come to this. I did a quick count today and here are the following statistics from logic reasoning:

For Sure wrong: 3
Probebaly wrong (minority opinion): 2
Dont Remember but this wrong: 4
Dont remember at all: 4
Dont remember but this right: 1

That makes a total of 16 that I think there is a chance of having wrong , even if I get two or three of those right that puts me at 12-14 wrong. I also know I missed one LG for sure, so 13-15 wrong.

I am not hoping and praying for good luck on the reading comp section. A 165 I will keep, a 166 I will keep without a grudge anything higher and I will be so happy I cannot put it into words!

For the person that asked, I have been reviewing question thoughts at the following site:

http://www.lawschooldiscussion.org/prelaw/index.php?board=6.0

Fighting Back in North Dakota

So earlier today an adminstrator at Bradley that I really enjoy showed me the following article:

http://www.universityrelations.und.edu/logoappeal/openletter_6-07-06.html

There are several awsome aspects to this letter. First, it is good to see that some universities are willing to fight back and not take whatever the NCAA says as scripture. The President makes a good point that once they move past the rules of athletic competition the NCAA is overstepping and essentially making rules about things they have no right to control.

Other entartaining points in the article are the way that the president begins by talking in the hypothetical, then drops the hypothetical to blatantly say "look, we are more respectful than FSU and you let them keep their mascot." Origonally I wouldn't excepting much from this letter, but in reality it is well written, persuasive, and VERY entertaining.

If you have a few minutes, definately read it.

Days till LSAT Score: 16-20
Mood: Scared and worried, not at all confident.

Over..... I Hope

Well yesterday was the LSAT.

In my dreams, I would be sitting here typing how I did awsome and killed the test and how everything was glorious and I would now be applying to the T14 only because I killed the test.

Sadly, we live in the world of reality where, though I felt good about the exam when I took it, I appear to have selected every one of the debated second best answers to put my actual score somehwere around -10 for JUST LR. At this point, a 166 would be considered a success but I am praying for more. We will see I guess.

Anyway, everything was about how I thought it would be. I started off slow but the second section was experimental and after the break I felt on the ball. I hope I didn't screw up too hard in the first (26 question) LR section, but it appears that I did.

I tried to read through the forums about RC, but I just cant follow what they are saying, I will have to wait and see.

One other thought though: don't these internet forums defeat the validity of the score? If people can just cancel because it turns out they have a lot wrong, doesn't that mean the test is VERY flawed? Curious to hear thoughts.

Anyway, back to real life, hopefully things will go well. Type at you soon!

Back from Bed

So I was about to lay down when I felt the need to do something I have never done before: come online and post something that has NOTHING to do with law school, politics, greek life, or anything else related to my current involvement or future plans.

The White Sox game today was one of the best regular season games I have ever watched. Several lead changes, a team taking the lead in the top of the 11th, then a come from behind in the bottom of the inning, the game winning run being thrown out at home only to have the next hitter bring in the winning run with 2 outs. Lots of substitutions, pitchers filling biggers roles than they normally do and overall entertainment value all contributed to me enjoying this game.

On another note, 36 hours til the beginning of the LSAT. At this point I just want the test to come and almost wish I could skip tomorrow. I will be heading to Bloomington tomorrow to settle in, look at the area, and spend the night close by. This will be my final post before the LSAT. I would say it is a fairly safe bet to say that my next post will be dealing completely with the LSAT and take place on Tuesday (I will almost certainly go out hard Monday night to celebrate this crap finally being complete).

Once the LSAT is finished, I will return to my routine of exercise and greek stuff, with more posts about the law in general and my school choices. It will then be several weeks of posts about how I hate waiting!

Again, please wish me luck, I need it.

Days Remaining: 1.5
Mood: Eager

Running away

Well today is the final test day before the lsat! I was over in the administrative building today and was asked four times "neverous?" or something to that extend. The more people ask the more I get nervous, so I did what any mature 20-something would do in this situation: ran away and went back home for the weekend. At home I have quiet and comfort not to mention no people to come up and ask me if I am nervous. Last day of prep was as good as I could expect. I started shopping for LSAT supplies today. Here was my shopping list:

3 bottles of red bull (one to try tomorrow to make sure it doesn't mess me up and two for test day)

1 bag of chips (ruffles, no aftertaste)

1 King size candy bar (Butterfinger, in case of a need for a quick sugar fix)

1 package of mechanical pencils

1 eraser

Other things I need to bring with:

Bottle of water
Ticket for testing center
Silent Timer
Directions to test site and possibly where I am staying

Wish me luck everybody!

Back on the horse

Yesterday still sucked, there is no doubt about that, but today was better from an LSAT prep standpoint. I took preptest 48, the final of the modern exams that I have. I scored a 174 and felt like I generally kicked the tests butt. The high point was completing logic games with 1 wrong, the first logic reasoning with 0 wrong, and the logic reasoning with 1 wrong. I'll take two wrong over three sections that count any day! The only concern with this exam is how drastically the rate that I complete the exam has slowed. Today I had three sections where i finished with less than a minute left (on two it was because I took my time with the final question).

From here out it is about sustaining the feeling I have. I will be taking not that old exam tomorrow (something between 41 and 44) and rereading chapter 9 in LGB. Friday is about a final exam, making sure I am solid on time and getting prepared for money in terms of details (ticket, pencils, figuring out the optinal eraser... important stuff. The countdown is on, wish me luck, I DEFINATELY NEED IT.

Days remaining: 5
Mood: Better

bad day

like the song, my day didn't go so well.

poor prep, received some bad news, lost some motivation.

Days left: 5
Mood: pissey and depressed.

copyright

So today I got my first introduction to the stupidity of intellectual property protection and more importantly to the fear that organizations have of being accused of violating these protections.

This is a frat boy and a legal post.

The greek community put together a 3 minute informational presentation about greek life that it uses at new student orientation sessions. This presentation is a series of words followed by a series of pictures and set to music.

The show is shown twice a week for three minutes, for educational purposes to new freshmen and is not solid or disseminated in ANY way. What happens? The University, afraid of copyright says that the song must be taken otu and replaced by one from its library.

Why does the University do this? Because last year they used protected music for the general orientation videos and got a talking to. The university audio-visual department, apparently unable to find a lawyer to talk to failed to distinguish between them.

Lets observe:

When the University was talked to, it was in reference to the fact that they sold the videos as a fundraiser. There is only one copy of our video and it certainly is not being sold. In addition, our video is for educational purposes. Third, our video is not in any way reproduced or disseminated.

IP laws serve a valuable role in society, I don't dispute that, but when used by uninformed people in positions in which they are supposed to know what they are doing, it causes more problems than it is worth. Shouldn't we be focusing on protecting patents in other countries and cracking down on the massive copying of computer software instead of worrying about what some college students do with a 20 year old song? Yes, yes we should.

I am reminded of an economic theory: IP laws are useful only to the point that the marginal cost of inforcing them is less than or equal to the marginal benefit. Clearly the cost here exists, we cannot use the song, we wasted our time, our product will not be as nice, however the benefits are non-existant: the band wrote the song 20 years ago....... they made their money.

More of the same

Took preptest 45 today, scored a 172, how I wish these scores were the real thing! I hope I can get lucky and post a big number on the real day.

Reading killed me and I made two silly mistakes on games, otherwise the score would have been even higher. Oh well, there is no way I would complain even a little with a 172 let me tell you!!

I have been thinking more about my visit to IU and my overall impression is this: I think the school was really impressive and I would be happy there, I certainly will be applying, but it didn't jump out to me as "definately the place I need to go." No place has, and that is disappointing because I really wanted a campus to step up and feel like the place I feel is perfect (obviously not realistic). I view Indiana on the level with UIUC and Iowa, if it comes down to these three money will play a fairly large role (obviously getting in plays an even bigger role than money).

Finally, I had to make the ultimate test prep decision today: how dedicated will I be for my final week. Answer: as dedicated as I can. I decided to leave the TV here meaning all I will have to distract me is the internet.... hopefully this will add to my productivity!

Wish me luck!

Days remaining: 8
Mood: Eager

Frat Boy

Today we put together the final details for the recruitment presentation. I feel confident the presentation will go well but we definately put a lot of pressure on ourselves. Wish me luck, I only have to do two sessions, I will also view a few other sessions.

I have determined what my routine on test weekend/day will be, I will be posting that later in the week.

It sounds like our Pi Kapp College representative did not have the best time, I look forward to talking to him tomorrow.

Indiana

My visit to Indiana was an interesting time and left me with mixed feelings. Before I go into details, let me start with a statement to the IU admissions office: students coming to visit your law school are primarily intersted in, get this, your LAW SCHOOL. The material that you give to your prospective law students should reflect this. To give out a folder that does not include 1 single piece of information about the law school, not even so much as a viewbook, is ridiculous!

So I walk into IU, go to the office where my meeting is, and am given a folder. The folder contains a large collection of "tourist sites in Bloomington," IU sports schedules, theatre schedules, and resort advertisements. What it lacks is any information about the law school. After flipping through the folder and figuring this out, I went to the rack and pulled off a viewbook and a few handouts that I felt would matter in terms of areas that I might be interested in.

This was a fairly accurate example of how my visit went: I saw things I liked, but the school was not choosing to sell them. I was especially impressed by their library. The view out the huge windows in the "reading room" is fantastic (a nice forest setting makes it seem somewhat more relaxing, if I am going to spend a large part of my life in this room, at least it will look nice), the desks are large and nice looking, the building seems very technology friendly, and the collection is fairly large. I am not keen on the fact that it is open to the public, but the trade-off (being a federal records repository) seems to make it worth it. This is where the first disappointing part of my law school tour experience occured. We spent a grand total of 15 seconds in the library and another 10 looking at the computer lab. He mentioned that they had the top ranked library in the nation, and apparently I was supposed to hear that and come to the conclusion that "oh, well its the top library in the nation, it much be nice, I don't need to see anymore." I haven't taken a marketing class, but something tells me that if you have the best something in the nation, mabye you should focus on it, sell it, and convince me why it is important. At any rade, the library was a big plus.

The next aspect of my tour was the classroom that I looked at. The annoying thing is that I want to see the classroom. I want to know what the classroom looks like, how much technology is present, if the seats are confortable, etc. Again, a grand total of 15 seconds in the classroom, and when I wanted to look around at the desks, my guide seemed fairly annoyed. The odd thing: the classrooms seem ok. They have wireless in the classrooms and plenty of power strips to hook computers up to. Technology wise, the classrooms seem pretty generic.

So what did my tour focus on? Not much, it was 15 minutes and that is only because I asked about 5 minutes of questions when the tour was over. We did spend five minutes talking about lockers, which is the one place we could have spent 15 seconds.

Though my review of my tour is negative, I enjoyed the school. The town has the typical "big ten town" feel to it, which I like. More importantly, the school has some really interested aspects. Students have the option of selling books back to the bookstore or through the student office on consignment at 100% of the sale price. This is a neat feature that I have never heard of before. Additionally, my guide had nice things to say about career services, and odd occurance on my tours and definately different than what I have been reading online. Hopefully he wasn't just feeding me a line. I will have to contact some students at IU and see if this holds true.

Additionally, I like the idea of write on and grade on to law review, with different methods for gaining admission to the other two journals. I also enjoy the fact that they have multiple journals that each have an aspect that makes them attractive (similar to American). Instead of having law review and some others, they have three journals with unique advantages. Law Journal is their version of law review and is clearly the most prestigous. Their communications journal is interesting for two reasons. First, it is a communications journal and I have developed a recent interesting in communications law (specificaly regulation of telephone communication hardware). More importantly, the communciation journal has the widest circulation of the journals and is the official journal on the topic, meaning that it will generate good exposure.

Finally, their global studies journal (which interests me the least) is in a developing topic and it seems to me that as the topic grows so will the importance of the journal.

The student lounge was one of the nicest I have seen on my visits, leather couches, nice TV, lots of tables and room. I found my visit to IU to be a mixed bag, but after visiting I know that I have a higher opinion of the school than I did before I visited. Overall I would call the visit a positive experience.

Frat boy note: I visited the Pi Kappa Phi house at IU today. We hear a lot of talk about it and it is for good reason: it is an awsome house. Unfortunately, lots of the chapter houses at IU are nice and it doesn't stand out all that much, but it is still an awsome house with lots of neat features (including a full court basketball court on the side of the chapter house). I'm glad I visited and I definately wish that I could live in a chapter house that nice!