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TRANSFER ADMISSION QUESTIONS
In
order to assist you with the transition to Northeastern University
School of Law, we have created the following list of commonly asked
questions.
As
part of our graduation requirement, you must successfully complete four
co-op work quarters. As a transfer student, you will need to complete
your first co-op work quarter the summer following your first year to
graduate on time. To receive co-op credit, you need to work full-time a
minimum of 11 weeks for a single legal employer doing legal work under
the direct supervision of an attorney or judge. You must contact the
Office of Cooperative Legal Education immediately (even if you do not
have an admission decision yet), so that you know what you need to do
to receive co-op credit. You can reach the Office of Cooperative Legal
Education at 617-373-3002.
Admission
I applied back in March to transfer to Northeastern and still haven't heard back. When will I know whether or not I am accepted?
The
Admission Committee cannot make a decision regarding your application
to transfer until we have received your grades from your first and
second semesters of law school. We make decisions shortly following the
receipt of transcripts. Because many law schools do not process the
spring semester grades until the end of June or July, we usually do not
make final decisions regarding transfer student applications until
early to mid July. To get the best indication of when we will be able
to decide upon your application, contact the appropriate administrative
office at your current law school to find out when the grades are
officially processed and how soon afterwards they will send out your
transcript.
How many transfer students are there in a given year?
We
typically receive about 35 to 45 applications each year. We usually have about 10 transfer
students attend each year.
What factors does the Admission Committee look for in a transfer applicant?
We
primarily focus on the first year of law school, although we also look
at your undergraduate work. You should have no less than a 'B' in each
course in law school (although there are rare cases when exceptions to
this are made). We also consider your outside activities and connection
to the mission of Northeastern University School of Law. Your LSAT
score is considered; however, it is far less influential in the
transfer process. Students should have the following classes in their
first year in order to be considered for admission:
I am not in the top 7% of my class at my current law school. Should I even bother applying as a transfer?
Absolutely.
Do not have your class ranking deter you from applying. There are many
factors we consider when reviewing applications.
Financial Aid
How does my transfer student status affect my eligibility for Northeastern grants?
Because
you did not enter Northeastern as a first-year student, you will remain
ineligible for institutional need-based or merit-based grants. However,
there are some endowed scholarships for which you may qualify. A
separate endowed scholarship application is necessary and is available
in September. If you have any questions regarding financial aid, please
contact the Office of Financial Aid at lawfinaid@neu.edu or (617)
373-4620.
If I have prior federal student loans, how do I make sure that they remain in an "in-school deferment"?
Once
you arrive on campus, you can have the University's Registrars Office
complete a deferment form for you. They will forward the form directly
to your loan servicer. It is important, however, that you confirm with
your loan servicer that the document was received.
Housing
I am currently out-of-state. How do I find out about housing?
Most of our students live off campus and there are
many apartments available near campus and public transportation.
The Admission Office will mail you information about housing when you
are admitted. You can also find apartment listings at www.craigslist.com or www.boston.com.
Academics
How long are the academic terms?
About 11 weeks.
Because the academic quarters are shorter than the semesters at other law schools, is less material covered?
No.
We cover about the same amount of material in our courses as in
other schools. Though our quarters are 11 weeks and semesters are
usually 14 or 15 weeks, most semester schools run fifty-minute hours,
but we use sixty. Sixty-minute classes meeting three times a week for
11 weeks provide 1980 minutes of classroom time. Fifty-minute classes
meeting three times a week for 14 weeks provide 2100 minutes of
classroom time. That is a difference of only about 2 hours. What
Northeastern's compressed schedule does is eliminate much of what we
like to call the "hello and goodbye." Professors rarely have leisurely
introductions to courses, nor is there much time for in-class review.
The pace certainly feels faster, though actual time in class
differences tend to be small.
As long as my first-year credits transfer, does that mean that I will be graduating in May 2010?
NOT
NECESSARILY. Northeastern students are required to complete four eleven-week
co-ops (legal internships) by the time they graduate. Thus, in order to
graduate in May 2010, a student transferring to Northeastern must have
completed an eleven-week full-time legal internship that has been
approved by the co-op office and is supervised by a licensed attorney
prior to the 2008 Fall Quarter. If you have not completed an approved
full-time eleven-week co-op prior to entering Northeastern as a 2L transfer
next fall, you must complete a fourth co-op during the summer after May
2010. The first three months of a post-graduate job may also count
towards this requirement. If you have any questions as to whether or
not you will be given co-op credit for your summer legal work done
prior to entering Northeastern, please contact either one of the
Associate Directors of Cooperative Legal Education, Jeff Smith
(jef.smith@neu.edu or 617-373-4942) or Jerry Slater (g.slater@neu.edu
or 617-373-2618).
How many academic credits are required to graduate?
103
quarter hours. Northeastern first-year is 50 quarter hours, so students need to
complete at least 53 quarter hours during their second and third years.
How many credits do Northeastern students usually take during a given academic quarter?
Usually
between 12 and 16 credits. Students can take between 10 and 16 credits
per quarter and need to get permission if they plan to take less than
12 or more than 16. However, keep in mind with the shorter terms (11
weeks), it is strongly advised not to take more than 16 credits (even
15 or 16 credits is quite a heavy load). To meet the ABA Residency
Requirement, students, during the second and third years of law school,
must be enrolled in at least 10 quarter hours and pass 9 quarter hours. I'm interested in doing one of the clinical programs. How many credits should I take while I am doing a clinic?
Clinics
require a 20 hours/week commitment. One should keep this in mind when
registering for other classes. Clinics are generally worth 6 quarter hours,
so at minimum one must take 4 additional quarter hours of courses. It
is advised to keep the total number of course credits during a quarter
in which you are taking a clinic between 10 and 14 quarter hours.
Assuming that I am accepted, will all of the credits from my first year at my current law school transfer?
The
Office of Academic and Student Affairs determines which credits
transfer on a case by case basis. First-year students at Northeastern take
seven courses (Civil Procedure, Property, Torts, Criminal Justice,
Constitutional Law, Contracts, and Legal Skills
in Social Context). Transfer students, however, are not required to
take
Legal Skills in Social Context, but must have had a first year legal writing course. If you have any questions as to which
courses will transfer, contact Bettye Freeman, Assistant Dean of
Academic and Student Affairs, at (617) 373-5147 or at
b.freeman@neu.edu.
Co-op
What is the co-op requirement?
The
Cooperative Legal Education Program ensures that students graduate with
one full year of practical legal experience gained through four
different academic quarters of full-time work ("co-ops"). Under the
Co-op Program, second and third year students alternate every three
months between working full time as legal interns and attending
classes. Students work between 11 weeks (minimum) and 13 weeks during a
cooperative quarter, often taking a short break before returning to
full-time academic studies.
As
part of our graduation requirement, you must successfully complete four
co-op work quarters. As a transfer student, you will need to complete
your first co-op work quarter next summer to graduate on time in May
2010. To receive co-op credit, you need to work a minimum of 11 weeks
-- full-time (a minimum of 35 hours per week) for a single legal
employer doing legal work under the direct supervision of an attorney
or judge. You must contact the Office of Cooperative Legal Education
immediately (even if you don't have an admission decision yet) so that
you know what you need to do to receive co-op credit. You can reach the
Office of Cooperative Legal Education at 617-373-3002.
Do I have to complete all my co-ops in Boston?
No.
You can go on co-op anywhere, even outside the US, so long as it is an
approved placement. For information on international co-ops, please
visit the school's international law opportunities Web page at http://www.slaw.neu.edu/coop/international.html.
How does the application process for co-ops work?
You
can apply to participating co-op employers (employers who have an
established relationship with Northeastern and may only be contacted through
the school's co-op application process), and/or you may create your
own. If you create your own, you must get prior approval for the co-op.
Please refer to the "Developing Your Own Co-op Guide" available at the
Co-op Office, or on the Co-op Office's Web page, for further
information.
If
you choose to apply to participating co-op employers (as the vast
majority of students do), the process is as follows: Each quarter the
Co-op Office publishes a list of participating employers that are
hiring. During the third or fourth week of each quarter there is a
rèsumè collection date on which you may apply to 10 participating
employers for the following quarter by submitting application packets
to the Co-op Office. The Co-op Office will send your materials to the
employers. Starting the following week, employers will contact the
Co-op Office to post interview requests and offers. Students have 24
hours to reply to interview requests, and three business days (not
including the posting day) to reply to offers. During the eighth week
of each quarter, there is a supplemental mailing for students still
looking for co-ops. In between these times, additional job postings
will be sent to you. Information and rules
regarding this process are available in the Co-op Handbook and on the
Co-op Office's Web page. It is crucially important for you to meet with
a Co-op advisor immediately upon your arrival to ensure that your
participation in this process runs smoothly.
If I have to do a fourth co-op during the summer of 2010, how will this affect my ability to get post-graduate jobs?
Because
graduating from an accredited law school is a requirement to sit for
the Bar exam, and you will not have graduated from Northeastern until September
2010, you will be ineligible to take the Bar exam that summer. Since
all states only offer the Bar exam twice a year, in July and February,
the earliest possible date in which you can take the Bar exam will be
February 2011. Depending on what kind of job you are applying for, this
might affect the employer's decision to hire you. For example, most
assistant District Attorneys are hired to begin in September provided
that they pass the Bar exam that summer. However, many civil litigation
or corporate law firms will hire applicants who are scheduled to take
the February Bar exam. In addition, you are not required to have taken
the Bar to clerk for a judge. There are many options available so do
not let a later graduation date discourage you. If you have any
questions, contact either Randi Freidman, Director of Career Services,
or Valerie Kapilow, Associate Director of Career Services, at the
Office of Career Services at slaw_careers@neu.edu or (617) 373-2398.
I
will not be able to do an eleven-week co-op this summer. Can I split a
co-op and do a part-time internship during two academic quarters in
lieu of a full-time eleven-week co-op so that I can graduate on time?
No.
Because of the strict ABA accreditation requirements, all four co-ops
must be completed during an eleven-week period when the student is not
taking classes. Thus, we cannot make any exceptions to the requirement
that all graduating students complete four full-time co-ops.
Career Services
I
know that Northeastern is known for public interest law. Does that mean that
everyone who attends goes into public interest law after graduating?
Not
at all. It is our philosophy that all students graduate from the School
of Law with an understanding of what social justice means and how
ethics apply to the law. We instigate dialogue both in and out of the
classroom that challenges you to define what this means to you and the
way you fit these philosophies into your professional life when you
graduate -- creating "thinking" lawyers, not just practicing ones. We
are proud of the fact that we are also a leader in public interest law
-- graduating three to five times the national average of students planning to
pursue public interest law after graduation (about 15-20 percent of the
graduating class each year).
I heard that Northeastern doesn't have grades. Is that true?
Yes.
When the law school re-opened in the sixties, we wanted to create a
place where the typical adversarial law school environment was replaced
by teamwork and collaboration. In order to do this successfully, we
believed that we needed to remove the ranking of students and
traditional grades. Therefore, we offer students written evaluations in
lieu of letter or number grades. This process:- Allows students the
opportunity to work with classmates without worrying that they are
giving away the opportunity to be at the top of a grading curve. -
Gives students a more thorough review of their work by professors so
that they know just where they are doing well and where they need to
improve performance. - Teaches students, before they go to their co-ops
and careers, how to work well on teams and get more out of their work
because others depend on it.
Does the fact that Northeastern does not have grades hurt students' chances of getting jobs?
Northeastern
has an excellent placement rate, which consistently exceeds the
national average of law schools nationwide. This success is due, in
large part, to the fact that our graduates obtain significant practical
legal experience and make many professional connections through our
Cooperative Legal Education Program.
The lack of traditional grades is relevant to some employers but not to others.
Can a transfer student participate in Northeastern's fall recruitment programs?
Yes.
As you may know, most large firms nationwide recruit thorugh their
summer associate programs. These large firms interview students in the
fall of students' second year of law school for summer associate
positions for the following summer. If you are successful in obtaining
such a position, your summer at the firm "counts" as on of your co-ops.
Students who work as summer associates generally receive offers from
the firm at which they worked for post-graduate associate positions
after the students complete their summer.
Large firms begin accepting resumes for their summer associate programs
in August. August 8th is the first deadline for applying to firms who
participate in Northeastern's on-campus recruitment program (which
includes mostly Boston area large firms) and several other programs in
which our school participates. If you are interested in participating
in these programs, you should contact Randi Friedman in the Office of
Career Services-ra.friedman@neu.edu, 617-373-3707, before the August 8th deadline or as soon thereafter as possible.
Westlaw & LEXIS Accounts
If I transfer to Northeastern, what happens to my current Westlaw and LEXIS accounts?
You
will need to come in person to the library to get new
Westlaw and LEXIS passwords. Please bring your Northeastern University
ID, aka "The Husky Card". Otherwise, if you try to print anything,
the print jobs will be sent to your first law school!
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