rutlemaniac (2022-2023)

Update 4/25/12 - I ended up visiting Duke, Vanderbilt, Georgetown, and Northwestern for their admitted students programming. I sent my seat deposit to Georgetown a couple days ago.

NYU finally gave me word on my application a little over 5 months after I applied. Waitlisted, unsurprisingly.

American waitlisted me, presumably after they looked at the list of other schools I applied to. American accepted me off their waitlist two cycles ago. I promptly withdrew my application once I got the decision this time around.

In the back of my mind, I'm holding out hope that Chicago will accept me off their waitlist. I'm not at all confident that I'll end up getting a yes from Columbia, NYU, Penn, or UVA.

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1/6/12 - Since my last update, I was accepted at Northwestern and Vandy and rejected at Harvard.

It feels bad to get my first rejection of the cycle, even though Harvard was a big reach for my numbers. All the same, I'm concerned that the personal statement that I used for Harvard, Chicago, Columbia, and Penn, which was a description of my personality and work ethic through a description of a hobby, might have torpedoed my chances at Harvard. I used a separate, law-focused statement for Duke, Georgetown, Northwestern, and NYU. I'll have something in my back pocket if I'm waitlisted.

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12/3/11 - I was invited to a group interview for Georgetown, which was on November 16, and I just got my Georgetown acceptance letter today. Feels great! In the past couple weeks, I also got an acceptance from GW and a $30,000-per-year scholarship to DePaul.

I'm both eager and fearful of the decisions that might come in over the next few weeks. All the same, I'm very happy with what's already in my pocket.

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10/27/11 - Just got accepted at Duke! That really takes a lot of weight off my shoulders. I was concerned that I wouldn't be able to crack the top tier. It's all the more satisfying since I had such a disappointing cycle a couple years ago.

I thought that I had all of my apps in as of 10/15, but I decided to apply to NYU as well. I figure I should give myself as many shots at the T14 tier as possible.

I just had my admission interview for Vanderbilt yesterday. I will never have a more chill interview in my life. My interviewer is a Vandy alum who also went to my alma mater for undergrad. I e-mailed him my resume a few days before the interview, and he called me about 90 minutes before the interview to say that he'll give me a great recommendation on the strength of my resume. He said he wanted to leave the interview time for me to ask questions about Vandy and law school in general. He was surprisingly candid about how Vandy compares to other top-20 schools and gave some good advice on planning for recruiting.

I got invited to a group interview for Georgetown, and hopefully I'll get one of the interview slots. I need to look around for more interview opportunities, which I haven't actively pursued so far.

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10/15/11 - I finally got the last of my apps in for this cycle yesterday. I had been tossing around the idea of applying to Yale once their app goes live, but with my numbers that would just be an expensive rejection letter. Duke's fee waiver came with a guarantee that I will receive a decision, non-binding on my part, within ten days. I figure that will be a decent barometer for my chances at the other T14 schools.

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I applied to several schools during the 2009-10 cycle after getting a 165 on the September '09 LSAT. I was a complete doofus about the process. I applied in January and February (pretty much on deadline day for each of the schools), my personal statement was a lame rehash of my resume, and my resume was unimpressive and too long. In that cycle, my results were:

- American: WL, Accepted
- UChicago: Rejected
- Chicago-Kent IIT: Accepted
- DePaul: Accepted
- Georgetown: Rejected
- Loyola Chicago: Accepted
- Northwestern: Rejected
- Notre Dame: WL, Rejected

Instead of rushing into school at a place that didn't excite me and without good knowledge of what I was getting into, I decided to take some time off to devote my efforts to my job as a legal assistant. I also took TestMasters' LSAT course and improved my score by five points in the October 2010 test.

Fingers crossed for this cycle!