STUDENTS EXCHANGE PROGRAM

BETWEEN

MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY, COLLEGE OF LAW AND GEORGIAN INSTITUTE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, SCHOOL OF LAW AND POLITICS

  1. Michigan State University, College of Law (“MSU-COL”) and Georgian Institute of Public Affairs, School of Law and Politics (“GIPA”) signed the General International Agreement for Academic Cooperation which provides, among other things, for student exchanges.
  1. MSU-COL generously offered to host one GIPA student during one academic semester with the full tuition waiver. One academic semester at MSU-COL lasts for approximately five months.
  1. MSU-COL tuition waiver does not cover travel and living expenses. However, GIPA has procured 5.000 USD grant which will help a selected student to cover the major part of the travel and living expenses.
  1. GIPA intends to organize an impartial and neutral selection among GIPA students to give them equal opportunity to participate in the Exchange Program.
  1. Any GIPA LLM student who has not submitted an LLM thesis is eligible to participate in the selection for the Exchange Program.
  1. The selection process will be divided into three steps: a) GPA ranking; b) evaluation of an essay regarding a general legal issue; and c) an interview.
  1. First step: GPA ranking.

a)GIPA will take into consideration GPA of each student participating in the selection process. GPA’s of the first and the second year students will be ranked together, on one scale.

b)The student with the highest GPA will receive the highest score, corresponding to the number of students participating in the selection process (for example, if 10 students participate, the highest score will be 10, the next score 9, etc).

  1. Second step: Evaluation of the essay regarding a general legal issue.

a)GIPA understands that some students may not have the GPA they wish to have because many students work or are involved in various activities. Therefore, GIPA will organize one additional step in the selection process: writing of the essay regarding a general legal issue. GIPA will select two issues: one for the business law students and one for the international law students. Students will be free to write any of these two issues. GIPA will inform the students in advance regarding the general areas from which these general issues will be selected.

b)All students who participate in the selection process will be invited to write the essay.

c)Students will be given 2 hours to write the essay. Students will have to write the essay in GIPA class, without access to any materials (electronic materials, books, etc).

d)The main criteria for the evaluation of essays will be clarity, conciseness, and the ability to appropriately engage the reader.

e)Before sending of essays to the evaluators, the essays will be numbered and names of students deleted. Therefore, the evaluators will not know the names of students.

f)Evaluations of writings will be made by 3 people (some of them may be GIPA lecturers but independent evaluators will be invited as well). Each evaluator will rank (not grade) the essays. The student with the strongest essay will receive the highest score, corresponding to the number of student participating in the selection process (for example, if 10 students participate, the highest score will be 10, the next score 9, etc). Rankings of 3 evaluators will be compared and the average score will be calculated.

g)After completion of the selection process, the essay of the selected candidate will be sent to MSU-COL as a sample of his/her legal writing.

  1. Third step: Interview.

a)Five students having the highest scores after the first and the second steps will be invited to the interview.

b)The commission will consist of five members. At least three of them will be GIPA lecturers.

c)The criteria for evaluation during the interview, among other things, will be motivation, English language speaking proficiency, willingness to study in the multi-cultural environment.

  1. After the interview, GIPA will select the main candidate and the reserve candidate. The main candidate will be offered opportunity to study at MSU-COL for one semester and will also be offered the grant. If the main candidate denies the offer, the reserve candidate will be given the identical offer.
  1. GIPA will provide the selected student with reasonable assistance for organizing travel and study at MSU-COL. GIPA will also assist the student in contacting MSU-COL and organizing stay in the US.
  1. GIPA intends to make the Exchange Program permanent and organize it every year. However, GIPA cannot guarantee the availability of the grant in the future. Nevertheless, MSU-COL tuition waiver will be available in the future as well.