Whether taking a drop year or not is worth is a critical choice which will decide the future course of your life. Therefore, before making this choice, one needs to carefully assess his situation. There are various factors which you need to take account of before coming to a decision. Some of the factors include-
1) Your priorities: At this stage, you have to juggle between your school studies and your CLAT preparation. Both are equally important but, if you are passionate about building a career in law and landing in one of the top law schools, you would have to adopt a plan which gives adequate amount of time to your CLAT preparation.
2) Your understanding of the exam pattern: For aptitude based exams like CLAT, it is pertinent to understand the exam pattern and know the kind of questions that are commonly asked in each section. If you have an organized approach for each section, then preparing for the exam becomes simpler, even if you have got less than 6 months.
3) Stress and pressure: Juggling between two equally important academic and professional pursuits is likely to take a mental toll. If you are not strong-willed or have the ability to deal with this immense pressure, then it might affect your preparation.
Despite these factors, taking a drop year for CLAT is a very common practice. There are several benefits that comes along with it, like-
1) Focused preparation: Taking a drop year will allow you to have one whole year reserved solely for CLAT preparation and you would not have to juggle with your 12th Boards either. This will further help you in getting a better understanding of the all topics.
2) More accuracy and better scores: As you will have a lot of time to improve upon your weak areas, with patience and lot of practice, your accuracy would also improve with time. Meaning, the chances of scoring well in the actual exam and landing a good law school would also increase.
3) Better stress management: With so much time on your hands, you would also be able to cope with exam stress better. You can choose to do other activities like drawing, yoga or follow any other hobbies in breaks, to deal with exam stress.
However, taking a drop year also comes with its own risks and disadvantages, like-
1) Uncertainty: Taking a drop year does not guarantee you a good law school. It only provides you with the biggest resource i.e. time. It is up to you how you make use of this valuable resource to your advantage. And competitive exams like CLAT are also prone to pattern changes, as has happened in the past, so the element of uncertainty would always be there.
2) Likelihood of burnout: If you do not maintain a healthy study-life balance, it is highly probably that you might experience a burnout and that would really slow down your preparations. The best way to avoid such a situation is to take regular breaks, both short and long to keep yourself fresh.
3) Peer pressure: The biggest disadvantage of taking a gap year is that it puts you a year behind your peers. So when you look at your peers advancing towards their careers and education, while you are still preparing for your exam, you might feel disheartened at times. To keep peer pressure at bay, you have to be not only resilient but also have faith in your own goals.
Overall, taking a drop year for CLAT is a personal choice and there is no right answer to this question. It’s an important decision to make and one should properly weigh all the cost and benefits involved. However, it is still advisable that given the uncertainty surrounding this exam, it is always better to have a backup plan and be realistic about the challenges ahead. The decision to take a drop year should align with your long-term career goals and where do you see yourself in the next five years. Nevertheless, one should always remember that taking a drop year does not mean failure, it is only a strategic move.
At Manu Law Classes, it is our motto to prepare students not for exams but for life. We ensure that students are not forced to rote learn, and rather, we intend that students are able to understand the concepts that can help them all their lives. We understand that not every student is perfect in all the subjects, but we all believe that with our common passion for hard work shared with students, we make students ready to beat the exam with success. or any queries related to the CLAT exam or OLET, or even for the purposes of counseling, kindly contact us at +91 9971444054, +91 9971335561, or you can visit our Website and we will be happy to help you.
