Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Applying To Law School

Whether or not you get into a good law school can make or break your potential career as a lawyer. Fortunately, there are many things you can do to make sure that you will get into a good school.

While good grades and a good score on the LSAT are very important, these things do not make you stand apart as an applicant. Most schools agree that the number one thing that can make you stand apart in your application is your personal essay.

In this essay, you have the opportunity to say anything about yourself, that is true, that will make the school say you are the one they want to have study at their school. As there are hundreds of applicants, it is very important that the reader does not fall asleep while reading your essay.

You need to give him or her a reason to be interested in your because your experience or factors other than grades and scores. Some of the things that can make you stand apart include a graduate degree, significant work and leadership experience, and even professionalism in another area.

One of the things that many schools look for in today's society is diversity. You do not have to be diverse in race to pass this qualification, but you do need to show what you have had a diverse array of experiences and life challenges in your essay.

Your essay should portray who you are and what you can uniquely contribute to the classroom. Of course, developed writing skills and few grammar usage mistakes are also important.

In general, you must have a decent LSAT score and academic record as well as a well honed and outstanding personal statement in order to be eligible for consideration for entrance into a school. In addition, most law schools tend to like to see significant work or internship experience.

If this is missing, they like to see that the student spent at least year in graduate school or a year pursuing some kind or research or other productive activity. The deadlines and dates of when you should hear back about your application are all different depending on which school you applied to.

You should make sure that you look up this information before you begin your application to make sure that you can meet the deadline and that all of your paperwork will arrive on time. It is also a good idea to look up the statistics concerning the school and that you find out what the strengths and weaknesses of a school are before you apply.

These things will help you know whether or not you really want to apply to that school. As you decide on which schools you want to apply to, you should make sure you have realistic expectations.

You know which schools are the best and you know how good your grades and your LSAT score are. It can be quite disappointing to set your hopes too high, apply to a whole bunch of really good schools whose applications are quite expensive, and get rejected from all of them.

Apply for some good schools, a few schools you know you can get into, and a few that are between your level and the elite schools. This will give you a good mix to choose from when you find out whether or not you are accepted into a school.

In addition, make sure that you are applying to a school for the right reasons. Some people apply to a certain school because that is what their parents expect of them, but that school does not offer the specialty that the student wants to specialize in.

There are many other similar scenarios in which a student applies to a school that is not appropriate for him or her. In addition, law school is hard so you will want to make sure that you want to be a lawyer and that you have the motivation to study as hard as you are going to need to when you go.

This is critical to do or you could spend a lot of time and money before you realize that you do not want to do it because it is not worth it. Going to law school is going to take sacrifice and you need to be willing to sacrifice what is required if you want to be a lawyer.

It can also help to have a goal in mind. You will want to decide specifically on what kind of a lawyer you want to be.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Student Loans And Bankruptcy

In 2008, the average graduate from a four-year college marched down the aisle with more than ,000 in student loan debt on their shoulders. That's a lot of debt to start out with. And the need for student loans is rising as tuition costs rise. Unfortunately, also rising is the default rate on these student loans. With this newly graduated life comes new responsibilities - car, family, home. Student debt often gets pushed to the bottom of the list of bills. In the past, student debt was discharged in bankruptcy cases, but not so much anymore with the reforms to the US Bankruptcy Code from 2005. Federally funded loans - the most common, even when supplied through third party lenders - are now aggressively pursued for recovery and student loan is much harder to discharge. A deferment, or an official delaying of the repayment of the debt, is available to some who meet specific criteria, such as military service, a return to school or other extenuating circumstance.

For everybody else, there are two options other that Detroit bankruptcy lawyers can recommend:

Forbearance


Forbearance is when your lender gives you permission to stop making payments on your loan for a specific period of time, usually to a maximum of one year. Unlike deferments, interest does continue to accumulate, increasing your debt. However, forbearances are easier to obtain than deferments because they are not subject to so many conditions and are not tied to the type of loan and when they were obtained. Forbearances may be granted on federal loans for reasons such as illness, financial difficulties, inability to pay within the maximum time allotted for the loan and if the collective payments total more than 20% of the borrower's income.

Unlike deferments, forbearances may be granted even if you are in default of the loan. Forms to request a forbearance are available by contacting your lender or from Detroit bankruptcy lawyers.

Cancellation


Cancellation of a student loan is dependent on specific conditions, much like a deferment. Just like it sounds, cancellation of the loan means you no longer have to pay all or part of the balance. Detroit bankruptcy lawyers offer these conditions under which all or part of the loan may be cancelled:


Death - if you die, your executor or estate will not have to pay off the balance of your federal loan.


Permanent, total disability - if you become permanently disabled and cannot work or are disabled to the point that the disability will result in your death, you can cancel your student loan. You must have become disabled prior to receiving the loan, though. You will need a form from your lender filled out by your attending physician to qualify for this cancellation.


Member of a uniformed service - certain members of a uniformed service, such as the Army or National Atmospheric and Oceanic Corps, are eligible for the cancellation of their student loans. More information on this option is available from your commanding officer.


Teaching in needy areas - Former students who go on to teach in disadvantaged areas are eligible to cancel their student loans.


Providing other assistance in needy areas - providing services other than teaching to disadvantaged groups or populations also qualifies former students to cancel their student loans.


Health care professionals - Some students of the health care industry are eligible to cancel their student loans.


Law Enforcement - Some full time law enforcement professionals can cancel all or part of their remaining older Perkins Loans.


Defunct trade schools - Some students who enrolled in trade schools and obtained financial assistance to do so may cancel these student loans if the school closed before the curriculum was finished. In the past, some students were also falsely certified for these loans. If you are one of these unfortunate people, you can cancel 100% of your student loan.


Identity theft - If someone forged your name and signature to obtain a student loan, you are not responsible for that loan and you may cancel 100% of it.


Withdrawal from school - If you withdrew from school or enrolled and never attended and did not receive a refund for your tuition paid, you may cancel that student loan if you failed to complete 60% of the curriculum.


The Department of Education retains an Ombudsman that may be able to provide you with further assistance. You may contact this person by visiting their website.

Sunday, March 14, 2010

Types Of Student Loans

 


There are not many students who are still in training who do not need a loan to go from one species. The loan they get may fall into the following categories below.
 
Federal student loans: These are loans that are issued directly to the student and issued by the government. These loans are quite small in relation to the amount and the payment default to a later period in the rule.
 
Parent loans: These are loans for students who are parents or carers of the pupils in question paid. These are usually higher in the term to the sum of money that can be borrowed, and payments begin on the receipt of the loan. These are also federally issued loans. It is worth mentioning that it's not the parents who have to pay back these loans to students. This is not a loan in which to pay back the parents co-sign if the student can not make the agreed repayments.
 
Private student loans: These loans are made to the parents or directly to the students either, and they can, from a higher amount. The payments are completed only after the student has failed. However, it is interesting to start, once incurred, as the loan is issued to the recipient. These loans are typically used to supplement the loans received from the Federal Reserve. The private loans are sometimes used to pay off the other debt consolidation loans.
 
It can be connected for a fee with the private loans as some lenders charge an origination fee. With a little shopping around, there's a good chance that you find a lender who offers a low interest rate and find no fee to take the loan.
Since some of these loans are regulated by the federal government loans, the prices are set by federal law. Lenders can lower the fees for the loans, but they are unable to raise the interest rate on any type of student loans. This is to protect the students and allow them to pay back the loan within the agreed timeframe. Some lenders will offer certain discounts or special offers on top of the agreed upon interest to get the students to borrow from them rather than someone else.
 
There are many places to the best deals on student loans. Make sure to look for the best terms rather than just the best interest. The better loans offer the lowest price for the length of the term of the loan offered
 
It is important to consider if the loan must be repaid. Payments may begin at some point before or after graduation. It can offset a good idea, a little money each week or month before the repayments have to be started on. This makes it much easier to budget when the repayments do not begin at last. This is also a good way to save the students about the value of money and money to teach to pay back the borrowed loan.

Sunday, March 7, 2010

Stress Among College Students

Stress among college students happens a lot in our society and is depicted by the image of a student with hands in his hair sat in the library with 2 days until the first of many exams, anxious and nervous. In college we don't seem to get taught enough about controlling our stress. There are no classes on it, yet it is such a huge issue for so many students. Here are a few techniques that I have found personally useful to stop stress among college students.


Time Management - A huge percentage of the time, when we are in college we end up getting stressed because we have tonnes of things to complete and feel time pressured to do then because we don't have enough of it. Outside of education there is actually a huge amount of literature on time management and one of the great laws that they teach is Parkinson's Law.  


Parkinson's Law - This is the law which states that the amount of work that you have will expand to fill the time given for it.

Basically, if you have a deadline in 3 weeks, the work may only take 1 hour of effort but it will expand over 3 weeks. Being a college student myself, I can totally understand this. You can use this law to if you have  a coursework deadline that is 2 months away and it will take you 3 hours to complete. You know that a lot of mental worry is going to come about from this piece of work so why not set yourself a mini deadline and act as if it is real. This way you get it done in a much shorter time.

Rest Yourself, You Deserve It - You have to get enough rest to function at your best on a day to day basis,. When we don't get enough good quality sleep our memory becomes terrible and we cannot concentrate for long enough periods.

This is a nightmare if you are in college and trying to lower your stress levels. Make sure that when you go to bed at night time that your room is as dark as it can get and that you only use your bed for sleeping purposes. I say this because I know many people who do coursework on their bed. When they lie in the bed at night, their body gets confused. Have your bed as a haven for getting some good night sleep and getting away from the stresses of college life.