boushi (2022-2023)

Non-traditional but high-level work experience, unconventional language skills, sympathetic lower income background, thesis.

Post-Cycle Debrief:

I also had a fairly strong PS (praised by admissions people at two schools), though it did contain one small typo about which I am pretty embarrassed (just a minor tense thing in a complex sentence). I'm not sure if that affected me anywhere or not.

I also didn't send a DS anywhere and may have had a few small irregularities or such in the actual apps. I spent so much time on the PS itself that, in my eagerness to submit the apps by the end of October, I had sort of taken the apps themselves for granted and rushed them a bit. I urge others to put some more time into those apps; I noticed that the apps I submitted later on were noticeably better formatted, etc. than the first couple of apps I submitted. It turns out that there is something of an art to making most of those LSAC forms. (Of course this is to say that I regret submitting to Harvard first.)

Another thing that I didn't mention on here previously is that I went to a relatively unknown liberal arts UG school. I suspect very few if any people from my alma mater apply to these schools and I wouldn't be surprised if that aspect of my background was held against me.

In any case, I think the main-takeaway from my cycle is that it is certainly not just a numbers game, either for admissions or scholarships. Many people on here with very similar numbers did better or worse at certain schools on both counts. There really are substantial variations and that should compel everyone to make the best apps they can and not rely on their numbers to carry them. Conventional wisdom is wrong, wrong, wrong.

I hope this was helpful. I may not be fast to respond on here in the future, but please feel free to leave a message or comment if you have any questions.

Cycle timeline:

4/15/2008: After an intense week of calls and emails to alumni, professors, students, etc., I finally made the call for Chicago. In the end the choice really boiled down to the fact that Chicago had a program and faculty that were extremely well-suited to both my interests and learning style. Though I know the loans will be burdensome for a while, the education and the experience will be forever, so I decided to pay a premium to be where I most wanted to be.

Honestly, however, it was extremely hard for me to turn down UVA's very generous offer. For whatever reason, the UVA admissions people seemed to really want me to be part of their community (I feel I over-performed there on $$$ relative to my numbers); in contrast, Chicago's admissions people never reached out to me and their financial aid department was nearly non-responsive, even refusing to acknowledge that they had made a gigantic error by never informing me via the status checker of my scholarship acceptance deadline. The fin aid department also straight-out questioned my sincerity in wanting to attend Chicago when I admitted I was torn between them and UVA given the scholarship gap.

In any case, I was sincere with them about my desire to attend (I have made a point of not misleading any school via LOCI or otherwise, which you can see in how I let Berkeley and Columbia fall through and didn't attempt to negotiated with NYU or Duke), and, looking beyond the scholarship, I'm confident that I made the right choice on the merits of the program itself.

4/14/2011: Managed to get a slight bump in my scholarship from Chicago ($60k -> $69k). I really love their program, but I'm still balking big time at a COA of $145k, especially since I already have 40k in UG loans and the UVA and NU offers on the table. Gonna have to sleep this one off.

4/13/2011: Reserve email from Columbia. No surprise -- I didn't send a LOCI because I couldn't muster a promise of attendance given that I probably wouldn't receive aid and wouldn't attend over my other options without aid. I will probably withdraw sometime in the not-too-distant future.

4/13/2011: Withdrew from Duke. Hopefully that frees up money and a spot for another LSNer. Good luck everyone!

3/21/2011: Getting into crunch time and a world of good-but-hard choices... FULL SCHOLARSHIP offer from Northwestern via email today.

3/11/2011: Email re financial aid from NYU... (drum roll)... "[W]e're afraid we're unable to offer you an institutional scholarship..." Youch. 70k per year on loans? No thank you. Unless they up their offer later on, NYU has just moved from Greenwich to withdrawville.

3/1/2011: Letter received at my NY address via snail mail... FULL TUITION SCHOLARSHIP at UVA! Woohoo! I'm over the hill about this. I don't know why they love me so much more than other schools this cycle, but I sure appreciate it.

2/19/2011: Chicago Scholarship info via email: $60,000. In previous years, I think I could be pretty content with this, but -- looking around LSN and TLS -- I've seen a lot of people with similar numbers get offered 75-90k as well. It's a solid offer, but not enough to make Chicago a hands-down front runner for me or anything.

2/10/2011: Dinged by Berkeley via Email. This one is actually neither a surprise nor a disappointment to me. I kind of applied on a whim after submitting my other applications, didn't extend my PS (submitted a 2 page, Harvard-style one), and didn't have a DS. I only really submitted an app in the first place because a Berkeley alum I met had convinced me it would be a great place to keep studying languages; however, while researching in order to write the LOCI I knew my application would need to make up for the short PS and lack of a DS, I really didn't feel I wanted to attend sincerely enough to muster the effort and sort of let the whole thing die of benign neglect.

2/7/2011: Stanford rejection letter received and confirmed at my US address. Le sigh. For what it's worth, I didn't tailor any of my materials to Stanford beyond having my LOR writers use their special cover sheets. Still, looking at my little red dot out there alone by itself on the graph at this point, I'm assuming there was something else they just didn't like about my application (It seems I am the first reject reported on LSN with both GPA/LSAT at or above Stanford's medians, ouch!). It's weird how my decisions at the outset of the cycle seemed to indicate my app was pretty strong and these last two indicate the exact opposite. In any case, it at least stands as pretty good evidence that it isn't just a numbers game. It also saved me $100 on applying to Yale.

2/5/2011: Well, there are good weeks and there are bad weeks. This would be a bad one: the ominous "Decision Letter Sent" has appeared on my Stanford Status Checker. I was in the middle of drafting up a LOCI and arranging a targeted LOR to be sent next week, but I doubt having done those earlier would have made a difference if I wasn't even WL material.

2/2/2011: Held at Columbia via Email. This is maybe my first true "surprise" of the cycle. With a median LSAT, above 75th gpa, and solid, internationally-focused softs, I thought CLS would really look favorably on my application. Don't count your chickens before they hatch and all that, I suppose.

1/10/2011: In at Chicago via email (living abroad so no call). The email seems to have come at the very end of all of the phone calls that were going out to people on TLS, for what it's worth. Taken with the hold at Harvard, another great day for me.

1/10/2011: Held at Harvard. Going on what Mr. Rubenstein has previously said about that status, I take it as the best outcome I could have expected for now. I realize I am extremely borderline there from a numbers perspective. While I do not believe numbers are all that matters, I have felt my chances at Harvard would be greatly improved if they end up with a projected median GPA falling back down to Earth by .01 points (it was 3.89 last year). I have, however, moved to a new country and started a new project since I applied, so I will detail that in a LOCI before the end of the month. Here's to hoping the Rubensteins, stronger preferences among applicants for scholarships at lower ranked schools, and a slightly smaller applicant pool overall will work in my favor this spring.

1/7/2011: In at Northwestern via email. This nicely rounds out a very active day in the law school app world for me.

1/7/2011: UChicago status date updated to 1/7 (second update from the original date as far as I know). I guess that means I am part of the discussion at the committee meeting they tweeted about today? Fingers crossed that someone on the committee likes me.

1/7/2011: Missed a call from UVA on 1/6 and, instead of starting a game of international phone tag, UVA sent me an email this morning offering acceptance and a $30k per year scholarship. I am really stoked. I was pretty worried that my lack of a Why UVA might have made me waitlist material, but I am definitely really interested in UVA and glad they took a chance on me.

1/4/2011: UVA status remains File Complete, Pending Review/Decision, but the date has been updated to 1/4. Not sure if this means much, but at least they are back from vacation and checking through apps again.

12/20/2010: UChicago status remains at Under Review, but the status date has been updated to 12/20/2010. Thought I'd note it since it seems people on TLS like to scrutinize this type of info.

12/14/2010: Purple envelope from NYU in the mail (postmarked 12/11/2010). Very happy to see it.

12/9/2010: "Decision letter sent" via NYU status checker. Given that I'm above both medians and just went under review, I'm going to be optimistic and assume it is an acceptance. I will confirm once the letter arrives (sometime next week, I'm guessing).

12/2/2010: Under review at NYU via the status checker.

11/24/2010: Under review at Chicago via the status checker.

11/22/2010: I ended up emailing Stanford on 11/19/2010 about the missing app components I had sent and they very quickly found them and sent my app for review. Also, Columbia and Berkeley both emailed to say that my app was complete today without any prompting from me. Only waiting on Northwestern and NYU now.

11/19/2010: Just a brief update -- still waiting on Columbia, Stanford, and NYU to confirm my apps are complete and move me under review. I sent the foreign transcript requested by Stanford a few days ago, but haven't seen any movement via the status checker. My Columbia status checker is still stuck at "*Completion Pending," though I'm not sure if that's because they may also want the foreign transcript or because i submitted during a wave of ED applicants and there is just a backlog. For NYU, my application is still being processed. If none of these three move before the weekend, I'll probably reach out and check in with admissions staff (hard to weigh when to do so since I don't wanna make their lives any more hectic, but my snafu sense is tingling).

11/13/2010: Finished my NU interview today. It was really laid back and fun. My interviewer had a very interesting background and a real pragmatic outlook on the legal profession. Definitely made me more interested in NU. I expect this will get my app moving along within the next week or so, though my interviewer told me that NU usually doesn't start acceptances until mid-January.

11/11/2010: Since I live overseas, Duke admissions emailed me pdfs of my admissions packet along with a personalized note from Dean Hoye. It's those little touches that make this whole dehumanizing, numbers-based fiasco of a process tolerable. Much appreciated.

11/11/2010: Complete Email from Harvard. Previously had mistakenly considered the 11/3/2010 under review status as indicating completeness. Corrected my chart. Game on.

11/10/2010: (Unexpected) Email from NYU with status checker info. I didn't think they used a status checker system. The times they are-a-changin'.

11/10/2010: Stanford app. is held up due to their request for transcripts from a foreign post-bacc intensive language program. Given the bureaucratic inertia at my foreign university, however, I don't think I can get copies until Thursday. Hopefully, I can get them mailed overnight and have things moving along again before the weekend.

11/09/2010: Duke acceptance came via Email. Good to have one in the bag.

11/08/2010: NU held up as I arrange an off campus interview. Hopefully can get it done this coming weekend.