Time off after UG a good thing?

<p>Hey everyone,</p>

<p>I was just wondering, is taking time off after undergrad generally a good idea in terms of chances for admissions? I'm not talking about just taking a year off for travel, but instead a year (or maybe even two) for work related to law.</p>

<p>I've heard from people that it helps your chances greatly if you don't have the best GPA, and that it can even increase your resume exponentially. I'm skeptical to these claims and was just wondering if anyone had any ideas.</p>

<p>For some background, the situation is an undergrad at a prestigious UG who has a below-average GPA and wants to get into a top 10 law school, if not top 5.</p>

<p>Any help is appreciated!</p>

<p>IMO, based solely on anecdotal evidence, a year or two of work doesn’t really boost your admissions odds by much UNLESS it’s some sort of public service–TFA, Peace
Corps, military service (which is usually more than two years anyway.) To do much in way of results, you need 5+ years of work experience of a substantial sort.</p>

<p>This question has been asked and answered a gazillion times on this board. You might want to do a search. </p>

<p>I still think it’s a good idea to take the time off and work experience will help when you interview for jobs while in law school. But I really don’t think 1-2 years of WE is going to do much to change the outcome of your apps. Of course, if it suddenly enabled you to write an astonishingly good PS, that might matter. But 1-2 year of plain vanilla WE doesn’t seem to matter much.</p>

<p>thanks a ton for the info jonri</p>

<p>The work experience I’m thinking about is actually law related and it is a public service organization, so it definitely would be a good addition. However, I agree that it probably wouldn’t even begin to matter unless I took 5+ years to do it.</p>

<p>It does not necessarily make a difference in terms of admissions unless you do something extremely impressive. It can help you decide whether you want to be a lawyer if you take the right job. For example, some folks try to get jobs in law firms to see what it is really like to be a lawyer. That can be helpful.</p>