Ah...Mr. Tennis, even though you're words are quite wise - as usual, but the outcome of the dtruggle is not always left in the hands of the privileged....sometimes, those of us with tenacity breach their ranks because they also need us, the common man.

So, chin up, young blue-collar rebel. Pick a goal, stay focused and remember the fight is difficult for most of us; the fight is even difficult for some of those in the top one percent of the nation. They just don't show their scars as readily as we do.

The skills required to pass the bar are not at all similar to those required to excel in law school. Just do exactly what the instructors and workbooks at Bar-Bri (or whatever bar review course you are taking) tell you to do, and you will pass. And even though you are a good writer, do not be seduced by the essays; your study time is much better spent on ensuring that you ace the multi-state multiple choice section.

I love how all the lawyers responding have to make sure to tell the LW that they, too, are super duper smart in great detail, before they bother to provide any useful advice. Apparently, insecurity from grad school never goes away, no matter what claims to the contrary. Apparently, a lot of people out there still have their ego wrapped up in that 4.0 that they earned years ago.

I don't see a bunch of letter writers who have moved on from grad school. Rather I see a lot of people who are still invested in the image of them as special, a cut above the common herd. I'll remember this and not be intimidated if I ever need to hire a lawyer.

Hey there. My experience was much like yours. A little practical advice: First, get the computer-based bar prep course (MicroMash, as I recall) unless you are already in a class. The classes would probably have helped me by making me show up at a certain time, but in their absence, the computer-based quizzing was invaluable, and also helped me know how close I was to pass-worthy.

Second, don't settle into a job until you find your place. Very cliche, I know. I just barely scraped by on my bar exam. So, when I wasn't very good at my first job, I figured that fit. But then I jumped rather impulsively for a public defender position, which turned out to make me feel--tada!--smart again. It was wonderful--my strengths showed and my weaknesses were minimally noticable. I even got the praise I badly needed. So hunt around until you find your place.

Good luck.

After all, you are contemplating becoming a lawyer.

That in itself is legitimate cause for low self esteem.

I’m remembering now why I quit reading salon.com a couple years ago. It’s because of the vast number of bits they waste on whingeing of the sort found in this letter to their advice columnist, Cary Tennis.

Do take the time to read the entire thing if you haven't already. Only then will the true mean-spiritedness of my reply make sense. Here it is:

You, young man, are an insufferable boob.

Allow me to summarize in one short paragraph what took you pages to accomplish:

“Look how special I am! I’m a rebel — but smart, really REALLY smart! And misunderstood! Damn those Catholic school nazis! They didn’t appreciate my specialness. But I’m special alright. And a really REALLY deep thinker. AND! I feel things much more deeply than other people, too. Because I’m so special! Oh, woe is me! How can a super-special and smart and deep-feeling person such as myself possibly survive in a world where I’m expected to…you know…work for a living?”

To make matters worse, Cary Tennis then goes on, for far too many paragraphs himself, reinforcing this nitwit’s inflated sense of self worth.

Sigh.

Here’s what the guy needed to hear — perhaps accompanied by a swift smack upside the head.

Wecome to the real world, chum. Everything you’re feeling has already been felt by thousands of law students before you. You are not unique. You are not special. You’re just another person who’s worried about passing, worried about making a living, worried about paying his bills. Get over it already. Whether you succeed or you screw up, either way you’ll have plenty of company. Just do the best you can and deal with the consequences — whatever they are — once they’re manifest. There’s no point in freaking out about the unknown.

Gee. And it only took me a single paragraph to answer the guy. Sometimes I think Cary Tennis must get paid by the word.

Oh yes, the good old "impostor syndrome." I could have written this letter (except that I am female and am in a field other than law). I too am a high school drop out. I dropped out of high school in what would have been the middle of my senior year, except at that point I had failed so many classes that I was classified as a junior. I too went the community college route, then to a state university where I broke the curve in every class (except for French and Algebra, everyone has their limits) and won admission to a highly competitive graduate school. Long story short- I have a GED and PhD and I am now a university professor.

Like the letter writer, I did not discover I was smart until college. However, "knowing" and "feeling" you are smart are two different things. If you don't FEEL smart, you look around and compare yourself to your peers. It is easy to feel smart in undergraduate school, where the full range of intellectual ability (and motivation) is present. As a university professor, I can tell you that many people who graduate from high school couldn't string a coherent sentence together to save their own life. Grad school (and I assume law school) is another matter. Graduate programs get to pick the cream of the crop. We get to choose the BEST of the curve breakers from schools around the country. In graduate school, there is no such thing as a "normal" distribution and the letter writer should not be ashamed of being "average" in such a rarefied pool of people. Honestly, I was about the middle of the pack in grad school and briefly considered dropping out while I was working on my MA thesis (as did just about everyone at one point or other).

As I said, it is one thing to "know" you are smart and another to "feel" smart. Even though I am by every reasonable measure very successful, old fears of being a loser sometimes seep into consciousness. It usually happens when I have screwed up something or failed to live up to some standard. I think almost everyone feels this way at some time of another. I once asked a successful colleague when he stopped feeling like an impostor. He said, he still did. But, at some point he decided that even if he was an impostor, no one else was going to figure it out. So, his secret was safe.

Cary is right, CBT would be very helpful. I sense the letter writer is ashamed of dropping out. He needs to compose a new social/personal narrative about his history. All my friends and most of my colleagues know I am a drop out. It is part of “my story.” What is important is that I OWN being a drop out and whenever possible try to have a good laugh at my own expense because of it. I never give people the impression that I am ashamed of dropping out. On the contrary, I talk about my rebellious adolescence, “being bored,” having “better things to do than attend classes.”

I also like Cary’s idea of esteemable acts. The letter writer is an amazing success story. He has defied huge odds and become very successful despite an inauspicious beginning (and getting into law school is a sign of success). What a great story to tell while volunteering at the “Boys Club” or Big Brothers” or a local community college?

I went to my 20th high school reunion a few years ago and had a lot of fun. It is much more fun to be the "unlikely success story" than the valedictorian who never quite lived up to "star" potential. Life is short and is a much more pleasant journey if you can embrace the winding road that got you where you are." Jerry and the boys said it best, “What a long strange trip it’s been.”

Oh, and by the way, the combination of a high verbal IQ and a low Quant IQ is incredibly common and signals nothing more serious than being bad at math.