Michigan voters this week passed an amendment to the state constitution to "ban public institutions from using affirmative action programs that give preferential treatment to groups or individuals based on their race, gender, color, ethnicity or national origin for public employment, education or contracting purposes." The amendment comes in the wake of the Supreme Court decisions on affirmative action at the University of Michigan. The Court's opinions about admissions practices at the University of Michigan Law School in particular make for fascinating reading, as does the district court's opinion. Opponents of the amendment are now challenging it in court.

On another note: In this weekend’s Wall Street Journal, Dan Golden continues his efforts on the college admissions beat in an article called “Is Admissions Bar Higher for Asians at Elite Schools?” Interesting tidbits:

• In 2005, of applicants with a 3.2 GPA and a 1240 SAT score (on the old 1600 point scale), the University of Michigan admitted 10% of Asian-Americans, 14% of whites, 88% of Hispanics, and 92% of blacks, according to a study by the Center for Equal Opportunity. A spokeswoman for the school said she “utterly reject[s] the conclusion” that the university discriminates against Asian-Americans.
• The Asian-American student who currently is suing Princeton for discriminating against Asian-American applicants seeks to suspend federal funding to the university until it ends not just racial preferences, but also legacy preferences and athlete preferences.
• In 1990, a federal investigation concluded that Harvard was admitting Asian-American applicants at a lower rate than white applicants despite slightly stronger test scores and grades.
• In 1992, the federal government pressured Boalt Hall (Berkeley’s law school) to end a policy
  that put a cap on Asian-American enrollment by comparing Asian-American applicants only against each other rather than the whole pool (a practice that used to be applied against Jewish students at elite American universities – see The Chosen by Jerome Karabel for more on that).

I was surprised today when I opened the New York Times and read the following in an article called “The Dos and Don’ts of Looking for Work”:

Q. Is it possible to provide prospective employers with too much information?

A. Absolutely. Ms. Ivey said that personal details about hobbies, marital status, political affiliation and religion had no place on a job application.

I agree with the “absolutely” answer to that question: there is absolutely such a thing as too much information in a job search, and for the New York Times interview I discussed that phenomenon in the context of the now infamous Vayner video resume, in which the applicant’s taped montage of himself lifting weights and hitting the dance floor resembled a Saturday Night Live routine.

I was recently interviewed by WCBS in New York City (by Cindy Hsu for her "Family First" series) about the college admissions process, and they posted some of my interviewing tips on their website. Because the tips apply to graduate school admissions interviews and professional job interviews as well, I'll repost the tips here (with some slight modifications so that they're not tailored just to the college applicant crowd).

Later this week, I'm off to Notre Dame Law School to conduct mock interviews with their 1Ls and give them feedback on their interviewing skills. South Bend, here I come!

1. Show up on time.

This is not a casual chat, so treat your admissions and job interviews with the seriousness they deserve. Leave yourself plenty of time to get lost, ask for directions, find parking, etc. If something totally unforeseen happens (horrible accident on the freeway, exits closed with no detour signs, etc.), make sure you know how to get in touch with the interviewer so he or she doesn't feel stood up. As an admissions officer and also as an employer, I've been stood up on a number of occasions, and in all but one case I did hold it against the candidate.

2. Dress appropriately.

Even though students around you will be dressed very casually when you go to an on-campus admissions interview, you'll need to dress more formally. The same is true if you're meeting with a local alum for an interview at Starbucks. That means no flip-flops, jeans, shorts, camisoles, chunky jewelry, gum, or sunglasses perched on your head. You don't need to wear a suit, a tie, or double-stranded pearls, but you don't want to look like you're headed to the mall either. Khakis or a nice skirt, a polo shirt, button down shirts, or sweaters are always safe. For professional job interviews, however, business casual is not appropriate; a suit is a must.

3. Don't bring mom.

Mom and dad are welcome to drop you off, but they should not come into the interview with you, or ask to join in. I saw this again and again as an admissions officer, and I hear about this phenomenon from HR directors as well. Bringing your parents makes a terrible impression.

4. Why School X or Company Y?

The most important question to nail is why you're interested in that school or that company. Do your homework, and sound passionate about what the school/company has to offer. Do your research and understand how it's different from its peers.

5. Be Yourself. (Unless You're a Total Weirdo, in Which Case Listen to Your Friends.)

That's easier said than done, I know, but let your personality shine through. There's nothing worse for the interviewer than someone who sits there like a bump on a log and gives robotic responses. Also make sure to be able to talk in some detail if asked about any experience, achievement, activity, or hobby you list on your resume (or, for college applicants, your "brag sheet") -- you should never sound caught off guard about something you yourself offered up for discussion. And finally, never answer with a mere "yes" or "no" -- expand on any answer you give.

Of course, as the infamous Aleksey Vayner video resume demonstrates, there is such a thing as showing too much personality. It has to be the case that someone, somewhere, along the way told him his clip was a bad idea, but I'm guessing he dismissed them as "losers." Given the hoo-hah and laughter that erupted as that clip spread around the country, it looks as if most people intuitively grasp that his personal touch was way over the top, so blessedly I don't need to beat that horse here.

Am enjoying the electronic publication The National Jurist: The Magazine for Law Students, especially an article called "Read the Right Way" on page 45 of the October 2006 edition.

The Wall Street Journal recently interviewed Catherine Weir, the head of Citigroup Corporate and Investment Banking for Southeast Asia. She oversees activities in Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Brunei. In Singapore alone, Citigroup employs 8,400 people. Her advice to new college graduates:

To those looking for building blocks in their careers, I would say take a deep look at the financial-services market. You can apply your skills in many different ways and in many different aspects. There is investment, consumer lending, corporate finance, of course, but there's also technology, project management, marketing, public affairs and communications.

The industry is growing, and there are very positive growth prospects in Asia for the next decade at least. Growth creates opportunity, and the industry will be an enormous developer of new talents.

Her thoughts on adapting to Asia:

While Asia is Asia, every community is different. We do the same products and services and the strategy is broadly the same. The great challenge is to calibrate to the different culture, the environment, marketplace and client.

For example, I think there is a little bit of cerebralness in the way Singaporeans work. They will study very hard, fashion a strategy and take action. Hong Kongers are more tactical and action-oriented, and they will adjust along the way.

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that Harvard Law School faculty have unanimously approved a new 1L curriculum that will "focus more heavily on international law, problem-solving skills, and modern law-making by governmental bodies."

In my experience, "international law" is a fuzzy concept -- not unlike "problem solving" -- both as an academic discipline and as an area of legal practice. (Most applicants, for example, have no concept of the difference between public and private international law  -- two entirely different areas of study and real-world application.) As a recent law school graduate reminded me, for many lawyers "international law just means sitting in a windowless conference room in Dubai rather than St. Louis, and those conference rooms all look the same." According to the Chronicle, the beefed up international component will involve "one of three courses that introduce global legal systems and concerns." I will be curious to hear about its implementation. Incidentally, to make room for those changes, students will spend fewer credit hours on traditional 1L courses like contracts, torts, criminal law, civ pro, and property.

As usual, this is also a genius move by Harvard on the marketing front. If I had a dollar for every applicant who told me he wanted to study "international law," whatever that is understood to mean...

The Wall Street Journal today writes about graduates of top law schools who turned down fancy private firms to go work for the IRS at half the starting salary ($65,000 - $70,000 for first-year IRS lawyers). The upside of working for the IRS, according to its chief recruiter: "Work a 40-hour week (more or less). Get into a courtroom within the first month. Choose the city where you work." Deborah Egurrola, a 28-year-old who just graduated from Yale Law School, adds: "The IRS really throws you right into the thick of things. At a lot of law firms, you have to start with more behind-the-scenes work. Here you start interacting with attorneys from outside." As the Wall Street Journal points out, however, the reason she could afford to take the job is "because her parents have agreed to help her pay back her $75,000 in student loans."

Contrast her situation to Nina Kang's, a 26-year-old 3L at USC Law School, who turned down an offer from the IRS. She had enjoyed her summer clerking there -- "I didn't think it was worth it to suffer for two years at a private firm and never see the light of day" -- but she has $140,000 in student loans to pay back.

A report from a 1L at George Washington law school:

We have assigned seats. In my four classes I sit next to a Mormon from Idaho who has never tasted alcohol; two army vets, both of whom served in the mid-east; a vegan; and a former aid to a Republican congressman. One of my professors was the Editor-in-Chief of the Yale Law Review.

There was a "how to study for final exams" session a few weeks ago at 8 PM on a Wednesday. Over a hundred people showed up.

My first impression of the student body came when I met a few dozen of my peers for a trip to the zoo on a Thursday afternoon.

Lecherous congressmen are only one species of scary predator. Then there's this expose by Ken Wooden, who wanted to test how easily otherwise smart college students -- Ivy Leaguers and criminal justice majors among them -- could be lured into a total stranger's van. Answer: Very easily. One guy even let himself be tied up with duct tape inside the van. See the exposé on the CBS Early Show here. And then go out and read Gavin de Becker's "The Gift of Fear."

Given all the ink that's been spilled on corporate looting scandals (remember Dennis Kozlowski, with his Caligulean birthday parties in Sardinia and his $6,000 shower curtains, all courtesy of Tyco International shareholders?), it's refreshing that the Wall Street Journal has turned to the spending shenanigans of university administrators.

Dan Golden*, author of the recently published "The Price of Admission," yesterday profiled some of these high rollers:

• the chancellor of Vanderbilt University, who reportedly spent $6 million without full board approval to renovate the university-owned mansion he lives in, and whom the university reprimanded after discovering that his wife was toking up in their lavish new digs, allegedly to relieve an "inner ear ailment" (wonder how many Vanderbilt students will use that defense when they're hauled into student court by their RA's?)

• the former president of American University, who was ousted after auditors concluded he had spent university funds on European vacations at first-class hotels, and whose wife allegedly insisted on a stop-over in Rome en route to a university event in Dubai so that she could have her hair cut by her favorite stylist

• the former chancellor of UC Santa Cruz, for whom the university graciously built a $30,000 dog run (she later killed herself over the scandal); that audit of the University of California revealed a total of $334 million in unreported pay and perks for administrators for the year ending June 30, 2005

• the since-fired president of Texas Southern University, whom a grand jury has indicted for spending $1.9 million of university funds for her own benefit during her seven-year tenure (she's counter-suing for breach of contract -- that's chutzpah right there)

Universities are now considering Sarbanes-Oxley-style regulations to govern themselves -- if the government doesn't impose them first.

Anyone who thinks that non-profits are somehow immune to greed, sloth, hubris, and other assorted deadly sins hasn't spent any time in academia. Something to reflect on as you're writing next month's student loan check.

*Edit/update: Joann Lublin was co-author of the article along with Dan Golden.

My former Law Review colleague (and now smarty-pants law professor) Thom Lambert yesterday posted over at "Truth on the Market" that any collective decision by other elite schools to join Harvard's invitation to end Early Admission raises all sorts of antitrust problems:

Today’s NYT reports that Princeton has accepted Harvard’s invitation to join it in eliminating early admissions. In addition, the presidents of eleven elite liberal arts colleges (including Swarthmore, Williams, Barnard, and Amherst) have met to discuss, among other things, collectively eliminating their early admission programs and reducing merit-based aid.

Just a friendly reminder, guys:

You are competitors. This is not a joint venture. You are agreeing to reduce competition by eliminating a service option that your customers desire and that would be available but for your agreement not to compete. That’s not good.

And as Thom points out in another post:

The Ivies have struggled with antitrust issues before. They used to hold annual meetings to compare financial aid packages offered to admitted students, purportedly for the purpose of ensuring that the aid was distributed equitably. When, in response to a Justice Department challenge, they finally halted that practice, competition for talented admittees increased pretty dramatically.

And more here about collusion among law school administrators.

I was at an alumni picnic recently where I met two recent college grads. One was clerking with a law firm for the summer before heading into his third year of law school, while the other was looking for a job. Meeting them reminded me how little recent college grads understand about networking.

Neither one ever asked me what I did, or what my connection to the school was, or whether I might keep them in mind if I heard of appropriate opportunities, or whether I had any advice for them in their job hunt/new legal career.

Millennials have become just as famous for their helicopter parents as they they are in their own right. According to this HR professional, they combine to create the "Perfect Labor Storm": These kids, our newest wave of employees, are confident, achievement-oriented and used to hovering "helicopter" parents keeping tabs on their every move. Helicopters parents are now crossing the line from being involved with their children's employment to actually running the show for them.

Yesterday I watched a one-hour special on Fox News Channel called "Why Does College Cost So Much, and Is It Worth It?" It profiled a young woman who had spent $138,000 on a college degree from the University of Scranton. She had recently graduated with $80,000 in debt (an amount that could double over the life of the loan after interest payments are factored in) in order to become a special education teacher at a salary of $30,000. When asked if she had done the math before she made those choices, she was very frank in admitting that she hadn't.

Guy Kawasaki is one of my favorite bloggers. Check out his posting called “Ten Things to Learn This School Year,” in which he discusses “what students should learn in order to prepare for the real world after graduation.” Great common sense advice on how to interact with your boss (and how that’s different from interacting with your professor), how to run a meeting, how to get along with co-workers you despise, and lots of other goodies.

David Brooks offers an op-ed in the New York Times today about recent policy proposals that seek to increase the percentage of Americans who graduate from college.

The New York Times published an article today about wedding planners and their finicky clients, including a great anecdote about a bride who demanded the release of live butterflies during the wedding dinner, only to watch them flock to the light fixtures, go up in smoke, and shower her guests with their crispy remains. Less funny was the statistic that the average American wedding now costs close to $30,000. That’s a full year’s maximum 401(k) contribution for the couple ($15,000 a piece), start-up capital for a small business, a year of living abroad and learning a new language, a nice down payment on a condo, or a year of graduate school tuition.