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Hi, I’m a bachur in yeshiva and have been looking during last few weeks into different options towards college. I can possibly get a btl from past yeshiva credits. I know there is a lot of opinions if this works or not. I know there are a lot of guys in same parsha contemplating between working towards a real BA (with using yeshiva credits) or settle for a BTL. Please post if you have applied to grad school, which one, for what and what happened. All detailed reply’s will be appreciated. THANX!!!
It depends on what your goals are, what career you want to go into, what school you want to attend, etc. In most cases, I would recommend a Bachelors of Arts and would try to use yeshiva credits towards fulfilling some core requirements. However, a lot of good schools are not giving credit for yeshiva nowadays. It all depends on your particular matzav.
Hi, I’m a girl so I dont have a BTL. However, I know that a lot of guys who go to Law School use a BTL. In order to get accepted to Law School you need a BA and you need to pass the LSATs (obviously the better the mark the better the Law School) the BA really doesnt matter (you can even have a BA from one of those 1 year fly by night programs)The main focus is the scores on the LSATs, so if you are considering Law BTL is more than perfect.
I feel like an ignoramus. Here I am a former professor, my daughter just started both BY Seminary and Sara Schenirer School for Special Education to receive a BS with both college and seminary credits, and I don’t have the slightest idea of what a BTL is. And here I thought some Jewish guy wanted to know if he could have a Bacon, Tomato, and Lettuce sandwich. Whew. I do know that my family practices BTL, basic torah living. Actually advanced but oh well.
Definition
BTL Battle
BTL Bottle
BTL Between the Lines
BTL Buy To Let
BTL Below The Line (advertising)
BTL Bubba the Love Sponge
BTL Biomass-to-Liquids
BTL Bolsa de Turismo de Lisboa
BTL Bridge-Tied Load (amplifier)
BTL Between the Lions (PBS children’s TV show)
BTL Build-Transfer-Lease
BTL Bataillon (German: Battalion)
BTL Bell Telephone Laboratories
BTL Bilateral Tubal Ligation
BTL Built-To-Last
BTL Better-Than-Life
BTL Backplane Transceiver Logic
BTL Beyond the Limits
BTL BACnet Testing Laboratories
BTL Biomass to Liquid Fuel
BTL Belize Telemedia Limited
BTL Blue Trunk Library
BTL Between the Legs
BTL Born Too Late (band)
BTL Bowel Tolerance Level
BTL Building Tightness Limit (building air exchange)
BTL Branching Temporal Logic
BTL Bipolar-Transistor Logic
BTL Brian Thomas Littrell (singer)
BTL Basic Termination Liability
BTL Battle Loss
BTL British Telecommunications Laboratories
BTL Birla Technologies Limited
BTL Batlagundu (parish)
BTL Big Time Loser
BTL Baltimore Tank Lines, Inc. (trucking company)
BTL Bachelor of Talmudic Law
BTL Billing Term Liability (Sprint)
BTL Begining TAPR Label
BTL Bible Translation & Literacy
it always helps to have a BTL. it looks good on the resume and can help for future credits.
What would be the downside to getting it?
I think it stands for Bachelors in Talmudic Law, and New to the Scene, I am THRILLED to see your post.
mod 80
looks like you have a lot of time on your hands.. though i must say that the list was pretty amusing.
just for the record, theprof1, i have no idea what BTL means either
Bachelor of Talmudic Law
but by all counts, a BTL is really a BS
OK got it. They had the BTL back when I was in yeshiva (ain’t gonna say when that was). Many guys in Baltimore used it to get into Loyola. Sacrilege is very right about using a BTL for law school. They don’t care care as long as you get high LSATs. But New2 it all, grow up first. You want a BLT and then what? No grad school cause you’re such a great business mind that you don’t need an education. You aren’t studious but wow are you ever a leader. Right. Grow up. Quickly. Before the real world hits you smack in the face.
“I’m very business minded, and can see myself running a company, with my leadership skills and sharp business mind. I still cant see myself doing an MBA program”
I’m really not sure what company would hire you to run their company without an MBA. With todays Job Market so tight you really need any advantage you can get.
Than again, you can start your own company.
Is a BTL the same as First Rabbinic Degree (FRD)?
With over 100,000 MBAs handed out every year, it is a degree with diminishing or even questionable value. Unless it’s from a top 4 school.
Plus, MBAs don’t look so good on grads with no work experience. It is considered meaningful when a working stiff gets the MBA during his/her career.
BTL stands for BaTul (just kidding)
personally i got a BTL and i as i see more and more it doesn’t mean as much (a main problem is that yeshivos are accredited under AARTS which is a national acceptance (as opposed to regional which colleges accept)) therefore you have to apply for an exception which, i advise, go to a college that you know will accept it (exception or not)
yes I received a BTL from a yeshiva in israel and i am currently on a very generous academic scholarship at a large prestigious law school in manhattan. it stands for Bachelor of Talmudic Law. that being said, unless youre contemplating law, theres limited use for it, however i do know my friend has the same degree and hes in an MBA program. Additionally, as much as i love the fact that i didnt spend needless years in college, similarly placed students in my class have a leg up because they were accumalating business experience for their resume those years while i was not.
just s/t funny – i have a slight reversal tendency in reading, so i thought the title said ‘does a BLT help?’ and was thinking, like, help what, exactly. LOL!
Squeak – All graduates are having trouble finding jobs now, with little job creation coupled with job cuts we have a BIG problem. However, I dont think you can say that an MBAs value is questionable. Any and every degree you get makes you more valuable which puts you ahead. There are literally hundreds if not thousands of Lawyers out of jobs, the legal field got hit very hard (its only with great hashgacha that I not only have a job but actually just recently FOUND one) are going to now say a Law Degree has questionable value? We are in a bad economy, G-d willing it will pick up, and when it does those with degrees will not be sorry they have them.
New2 – Its nice to hear you are so full of ambition but unless Hash-m has pre-determined for you to become the next Reichman, I think its best to go about this in the most “natural” way.
I was always inder the impression that a BTL helps get you into law school, and that’s about it… but I haven’t looked into it so don’t take my word for it.
I’ll say it: law degrees from many law schools are of questionable value. In any economy.
New2 – I’ll consider your offer 😉 And good luck, my Father (may he be gebenched) is not a college attendee, and he is B”H the Managing Partner of a successful company, so it can be done, it didnt happen overnight, so keep at it. Much Hatzloch!
Ulisis – Many? as in 2-5, or 49% of all of them in the U.S.? Please clarify your statement.
Nowadays, unfortunately for a lot of Law School graduates only the top 2% from Ivy League colleges are being hired.
While there are many fly-by-night ways to get a degree, and there is even a book on this called the Bachur’s Guide to College or something similar, please don’t think that hiring managers and admissions officers aren’t aware of this, as well. They very well know the difference between a real degree and other alternatives.
The better the school, and the more rigorous your education, the better chances you have of success. Of course some people do well without this, but some people also win lotteries.
Especially in this economy, all fluff is out. You must have skills that make you indispensable and be willing to work hard. All companies are cutting costs and personnel to the bone to raise their bottom line.
Do your hishtadlus properly, and keep davening.
They very well know the difference between a real degree and other alternatives.
I find that is generally the case, in the NYC area and even in large companies outside of NY Metro. But in other regions or smaller companies, they often have never heard of these shortcuts and will treat it the same as any other college they never heard of.
For someone starting in such an area, the pseudo-degree may be the stepping stone into such a company, and the experience there can be the stepping-stone into ANY company.
I thought that sandwich was assur… OH – B T L, NOT B L T! Whoops! ( I just read all the posts before sending this, and I see a few people picked up on the same dyslexic thing as I did).
Sacrilege-
Obviously, more than 100,000 people per year disagree with my assessment or they would not bother putting in the work it takes to earn the MBA.
With that in mind, I don’t think the addition of one or two people here disagreeing with me is going to change my perspective. Which is the other side of the desk.
Bagel, Tuna & Lettuce?
Sure it can help.
You make a Brocha on it.
You can use it to give you strength to do Avodas Hashem.
I’m with Squeak – so many people I work with have their MBA (and from NYU) that its no longer a big deal.
To be fair to the BTL getters – they learn Talmud on a very high level (lhavdil if you were in school for Russian literature, their 400 level courses in Talmud are probably higher or at least as high as Russian LIterature).
Hard work is more important that any degree. But the degree helps you get a foot in the door.
New2, I don’t have first hand knowledge of people with those degrees, but whenever I check my email I see ads for Univ. of Phoenix online degrees. Now, if I see those ads, you can be sure that people doing the hiring and making the admissions decisions also see the ads.
I have recently heard of programs where some colleges come down to a yeshiva for 3 Sundays of all-day coursework, and credit is given for a full semester. All these things make me nauseous. The one good thing I saw in that Bachur’s Guide to College book, which someone gave me as a joke, is in the introduction. It says, Do not show to your parents.
I do not believe it does either limud hatorah or other study any justice to reduce both to these standards. Learning Torah is not somethign that can be reduced to an academic degree. At the same time, you should not be receiving credit for secular areas you do not have breadth and eepth in.
new2thescene:
Unless there is a PHD in your family, it’s not advisable to waste your time with a BTL!!!
Legitimate graduate schools look at BTL’s as a great money maker. They will simply make you take 30 credits of prerequisites before you can start the graduate program. Unless the BTL includes basic general studies college coursework, you will be forced to pay for real college anyways. Get a real degree instead.
New2, I think you totally misunderstood my previous post, even 180 degrees. I was not saying that Univ. of Phoenix is a great school because they advertise. I was saying the exact opposite. That if one thinks he can get some online degree and people won’t know the difference, in truth, everybody else knows about online degrees, too, as they see the same ads.
Now the second point is that you mention Wharton as being the top B-school, but come on, you forgot about Sloan, which is MIT’s business school. As they say in MIT, Harvard is the playground down the block.
Third, while it is true that gemara develops the yiddishe kup, but one must also develop skills in secular studies to be able to communicate with the secular world. One does not go around convincing others of his point by waving his thumb in the courtroom or the law firm, as one does in Yeshiva. One must learn to write focused and well-reasoned and well-sourced briefs and documents. This is a skill which many yeshiva bochurim lack, as their English and writing is atrocious. And if you want to go into a scientific or technical field, al achas kamah vkamah that you will need to learn real material in real courses.
Which colleges and/or Yeshivas in the USA offer BTL’s?
Sacrilege – as a recent graduate from a good law school, and as a volunteer in my school’s admissions department for six months, I can tell you first hand that law schools are decreasing the amount of BTL students they accept. NYU, Brookyln Law, Columbia, Fordham Law Schools have all eliminated BTL students or only accept a handful if the LSAT score is above average. The theory is that the law schools want to diversify the student body (there are hundreds of BTL applications each year) and many [not all]BTL student lack english reading and writing skills. While they may have the brains from learning in yeshiva, they lack the formal secular education required for success in law school and the legal profession. In my law school class, one student would frequently use “yeshivish” or yiddish words to the professor. Need i say more?
asking – LOL. I just know that a lot of guys go to Law School on a BTL. I am a girl so this wasnt even an issue for me.
I have actually heard that Columbia is now being more selective, as they have have all ways been the #1 destination for the smarter Yeshiva crowd. It seems as if Georgetown has become the new Columbia in that regard.
BTL is worth very little nowadays (rightly so). The boys may be learned enough to get smicha, possibly (and let them, if they deserve it), but they often have very poor communication and language arts skills, because they are plain and poshut UNEDUCATED in the secular world. If they want a degree that comes from the secular world, they need to do their secular hishtadlus.
I know guys who went to Yeshivah in E”Y for five years to get the BTL, specifically so they could bypass college and go straight into law school. Only one of all of them was accepted, and I am certain it is because his parents are both highly educated and made sure he got a great high school education.
To be successful at the study of law, you need to have a background understanding of the foundations of Western civilization and government, philosophy, etc. (beyond the Aseres HaDibros). While I believe Gemara study is well-suited to this, as is the study of halacha, there needs to also be an understanding of the actual content involved that serves as a precursor to the study to law.
reb d – Whatever you need to be a successful Lawyer you learn in Law School. They re-wire the way you think and attack a problem. It doesnt matter what kind of BA you have, you can have it in Art/Music/Religion it doesnt matter.
taken from wikianswers website (I’m actually trying to use my BTL to get into a masters program)
Without going into the actually history of the two accrediting agencies, there are a few issues that should concern individuals when choosing between regionally and nationally accredited colleges and universities.
For one, the regional accreditation standards are higher than that of the national accreditation agency. Thus, the regional accreditation is preferred by colleges and universities who wish to be recognized as institutions that possess excellence within higher education.
Second is the issue of transferability of credits. Nationally accredited institutions typically accept credits from regionally accredited colleges and universities, where regionally accredited colleges and universities will not accept credits from nationally accredited institution. This means if you have a coursework and/or a degree from a nationally accredited institution, it would be like starting all over again should you decide to transfer to a regionally accredited school (which most all recognized colleges and universities are). This should also be a great concern should you plan on pursuing advance degrees (master’s, doctorate) at a later date. The degree from a nationally accredited school would not be recognized.
Third, employers who are aware of the difference in regional and national accreditations may not recognize your education that was completed at a nationally accredited institution
heres the website
i am about to start classes in touro israel. I am wondering if anyone knows about how accepted a touro degree is. I am potentially giving up a full scholarship to a pretty prestegious university by going to touro, because i want to stay in yeshiva in israel, and i just want to make sure a touro degree is worth something.
Touro israel is another idea for bochurim you can get up to 59 credits towards an american touro degree by taking night classes there. touro also recognizes up to 48 yeshiva credits so a bachur can come back to america and be almost finished his degree.
new2thescene: Congratulations, smart move
yeshivaguy1:
Touro degrees are accepted. They took a ding for the grade scandal a few years ago, but now things are okay. Be VERY careful with reading any financial paperwork they shtup at you.
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