Ed. Note: This summer, Ms. JD solicited lessons learned from law students across the country. Many students mentioned the commonalties between law school and high school—the gossip, the dating, the lockers, and the drama.

Aileen, University of Pennsylvania, wrote:

“It’s exactly like high school.” Older friends warned me law school was a retreat to adolescence. “Everyone gossips and dates each other. You even have lockers!”

While I have found law school to be a cohesive community, I find these two experiences to be too different to be analogized, even jokingly. We have lockers. And many people date each other. But the similarities, I believe, end there.

Unlike high school, we are all in law school because we want to be here. Few of us can claim we went to high school because of our passion for calculus and pep rallies. Thus, while the community may sometimes feel youthful in its social interactions, academically and professionally we are united in a common, shared ideal.

A UC Davis student thinks it is like high school in many ways—although it’s a lot more work and a lot more expensive:

It is like high school…before school started I was expecting my colleagues to be serious and focused about school. For the most part this is true, but I have been surprised to see that law school (at least at a smaller sized school) is a lot like high school. There are cliques and gossip, and we’re in the same classes with the same people for most of the day, just like in high school. The major difference, of course, is that the work is a lot harder and we’re paying a lot more for the privilege.

A University of Detroit student recalls the first year drama:

Law school is like high school—thank goodness I was never involved in any of the 1L drama, but there sure was a lot of it. I did not even really remember what high school was like before I came to law school, however, I soon remembered. Everyone loves talking about everyone else and every tiny thing they do. I wish I would’ve known this one going in.

Amy, Pepperdine Law School, warns to steer clear of the high school drama:

While law school is a place of higher education, sometimes it feels like high school all over again. With this many people in the same place day after day, there’s bound to be high school drama. Don’t buy into the gossip, the catfights. Be entertained by it, sure. Keep tabs on the inter-section hook ups if you want, but don’t get sucked in. Don’t let yourself be the center of the drama because it only detracts from the overall experience and in the end it’s just not worth your time or energy.