jujubean (2022-2023)

application info:
DS and PS everywhere
Why Penn, Why Northwestern and Why Michigan
Yale 250 was risky (pm if interested)

PM me if you have questions about my softs. I am also jujubean on TLS. I'll try to check these on occassion, since I feel like they really helped me during my application process.

fee waivers:
8/21 Duke fee waiver! w/o PT
8/28 Michigan fee waiver! I'd given up hope on this one...
8/29 Received UT waiver, I'd never really considered it before, but I'll definitely look into it now
9/5 Virginia and Chicago fee waivers!
9/9 UCLA fee waiver!
9/15 Columbia Fee waiver!
9/19 NYU fee waiver!
9/26 Penn fee waiver!
9/29 Cornell fee waiver!
10/27 Northwestern fee waiver!

cycle:
10/31 Sent Cornell and Texas to be in time for EA and fee waiver. Going to send most everything else tomorrow, nervous and excited all at once!

11/1 Sent Berkeley, Chicago, Columbia, Duke, Georgetown, Harvard, Michigan, Northwestern, NYU (without scholarship materials), Penn, Stanford, Virginia, and Yale. Four schools already requested LSDAS reports!

11/3 Apps received notices from Penn, Chicago, Harvard, Virginia and Stanford.

11/4 Apps received at Berkeley, Cornell, Duke and Texas.

11/5 Complete at Chicago.
Apps received at Columbia and Northwestern.

11/6 App under review at Harvard! That's like complete, right?
App received at Michigan.

11/7 Complete at Virginia and Georgetown.

11/10 App received at Yale.
Complete at Duke.

11/12 Complete at Berkeley.
Would be complete at Northwestern were it not for the interview.

11/13 TS1 email notice!

11/14 Complete at Yale and Penn.

11/18 TS1 today. Well, at least it's over. I wish I had something more positive to say about it, but honestly, I'm sure I sounded like an idiot.
Complete at UT. And, they were nice enough to check EA for me, which I forgot to do!
Also complete at Columbia and NYU.

11/21 Complete at Cornell. Also, just received the Harvard complete email, but I think I've been complete for a while...

11/24 Under review at Berkeley. I wonder if this means that my app is actually in front of the committee, or will be soon or what.

11/25 Complete at Michigan.

11/26 TS2!!!!!!!!! Ohmigod, I cannot believe my first acceptance is from Harvard!

12/1 Complete at Stanford.
Status checker for Georgetown says "Decision" as of 11/28. Hopefully it's good news!

12/3 In at Georgetown! Got a very nice, personalized note on my letter, too!

12/5 Cornell status checker says decision as of 12/2! This has been an exciting week.

12/6 Finally had my Northwestern interview. It was okay, I was really tired, but the alum was really nice. The interview was just basically answering whatever questions I had.

12/8 In at Cornell! Even better, acceptance letter includes invitation to apply for Dean's Scholarship!
Complete at Northwestern!

12/10 File under review at Duke.
Received my Harvard binder in the mail. It's about 300 pages! Going to make for several weeks of reading.

12/16 Under committee review at Penn as of 12/15.

12/18 In at Berkeley! I'm originally from that area and Berkeley matches my interests so well and yay!

12/19 In at Texas via phone call from Sam Riley! Missed the call, but got a nice voicemail.
Also, received a letter from Georgetown regarding being considered for scholarships!

12/20 In at NYU! Received my large purple envelope in the mail. I still have not sent in the RTK essay, which should hopefully be easier to do now that I know I have been accepted.

12/24 In at Duke via email! Email says I will likely qualify for a scholarship, which I like to hear!

12/29 Finally sent my PI scholarship essays in to NYU. Looking at the previous winners, I doubt I even have a chance, but who knows...

12/30 Logged into Michigan's admitted students page! Excited for my sweet flash drive! And yes, the daily round of status checkers includes every admitted students page I can find the address to. For those interested, my status checker simply says complete.

12/31 Got a little information package from NYU.

1/2 Received my Michigan stuff in the mail! They sent me an article related to something I wrote about in my essay. Can that admissions office be any more amazing? I think not.

1/9 Darrow invite!

1/10 Chancellor's scholarship at Texas!

1/14 Penn status checker updated, but still just says that I'm under committee review.

1/21 Sent my Darrow essay in. Dean Zearfoss sent a nice little response email.

1/24 Columbia with a full Hamilton!!!!!!!!! I cried.

1/29 Decision pending at Chicago! Eep.
Also Northwestern status checker updated to complete as of 1/29.
Withdrew from Texas, Cornell and Duke today.

1/30 Phone call from Ann Perry! A little awkward since she called my work line and I sit in an open area with other coworkers, but hey!
In at Northwestern via email!
Received withdrawal acknowledgments from Texas, Cornell and Duke.

2/2 Withdrew from Georgetown. This one was hard, since it was a school I really loved for a lot of reasons. But their scholarship application was due today and I was thinking all weekend and I really could not imagine that I would have taken an offer from them over the Hamilton, so... Hopefully someone else can get in, or get some money!

2/5 Received withdrawal acknowledgment from Georgetown.

2/6 Full Darrow!!!!!!!! I sounded like such a fool on the phone.

2/13 Scholarship from Chicago!

2/18 In at Stanford via email from Fay Deal!!!!

2/25 Withdrew from Chicago.

3/2 Received withdrawal acknowledgment from Chicago.

3/11 Withdrew from Northwestern.

3/12 Received withdrawal acknowledgment from Northwestern.

3/16 Waitlisted at Virginia via email.

3/17 Withdrew from Virginia.
Received withdrawal acknowledgment from Virginia later on the same day.

3/20 Got an AMAZING financial aid package from Stanford. I'm not going to put it up in the scholarships section since it's need-based, but it makes the difference between Stanford and Columbia rather small.

3/26 Received my Harvard financial award. It's about $6000/ year less than Stanford, which is significant. But they do have the PSI which I'm pretty sure I'll be taking advantage of, so maybe that's not that big a difference in the end.

3/27 Waitlisted at Penn via email.

3/28 Withdrew from Penn.

3/30 Notified by NYU that I am not a finalist for RTK. Not really surprised, especially since it's after the interviews. I still love you NYU, please give me a Dean's scholarship!

4/1 Received withdrawal acknowledgment from Penn.

4/15 NYU Dean's Award scholarship offer. It's $25,000/$25,000/ $12,500, and another $12,500 if I do public interest during my second summer, which is my intent.
Waitlisted at Yale via email. I don't know why (probably because I'm delusional) but somehow, I'm heartened by it.

4/20 SLS 2012!!!!! I am so unbelievably excited. I will be withdrawing from everywhere else as soon as I return home and mail my deposit.

4/21 Withdrew from NYU and Michigan.
Also, sent in my Yale waitlist response form. I've decided to stay on for now.

4/22 Received withdrawal acknowledgment from Michigan.

4/23 Sent my deposit to Stanford!

4/27 Withdrew from Berkeley, Columbia and Harvard. Even though I'm so thrilled with Stanford, it was hard saying goodbye.
Received withdrawal acknowledgment from NYU and Berkeley.

4/29 Received deposit acknowledgment from Stanford.
Received withdrawal acknowledgment from Harvard.

random thoughts:
9/9 Asked for all of my recs. Hoping to get them all by mid-October.

10/1 I decided to apply to more schools, just in case.

10/8 My 1st recommender emailed saying she sent my rec, now I get to see how long it takes LSAC to process it...

10/10 Yay LSAC emailed me that the first rec is in!

10/17 Two more recs in, waiting on one more. I think I may be ready to finally submit some schools on Monday. I'm nervous just thinking about it!

10/20 Ugh... so my other recommender kinda forgot about the letter. It's one I want to use at most schools, so I'm waiting. She says it'll be in by Thursday. I guess it's for the better since I'm sure everything could use another review (not to mention I should really figure out what all of those NYU scholarship things are all about).

10/24 Rec won't be in until Monday. I was really hoping to be able to maybe hear something before the holidays from at least a school or two and that possibility seems to be slipping away now.

10/29 Arg... last LOR faxed and LSAC says it's damaged or something so now my recommender has to refax and it'll take several days since they're busy. November it is then.

10/31 My last rec processed!

11/1 Submitted a whole bunch of other schools. Now I just have to do a few more and write some scholarship essays.

11/7 School supposedly has my dean's cert ready to go...

11/12 School actually sent my dean's cert.

11/20 Okay, so I know it hasn't been that long, but waiting sucks!!! I'm really grumpy at that one recommender who kept me from submitting for 2 weeks right about now. And I've got that awful TS1 performance still tormenting me.

12/1 I am still in shock about Harvard! I cannot be happier right now.

12/8 I just noticed that the Harvard status checker says my binder was sent on 12/5. What can I say, I like to see it say Admitted. Maybe it will be there today!

1/13 Wrote an initial draft of my Darrow essay. It is really hard to not be repetitive given my PS and Why Mich essay. Essay writing again is definitely not fun.

1/14 Decided to attend Georgetown's early ASW next week! I'm way excited to start visiting schools!

1/22-1/23 Georgetown's ASW was nice. I heard a lot of stuff I liked (supreme court mootings, clinical program, lots of awesome professors) and some things I didn't (Jesuit influence seems to seep in a bit). At the end though, I'm still unsure.

1/26 I'm in shock about everything still but I think this will be the week of many withdrawals. I've grown a bit attached to a few of the schools I'll probably be withdrawing from. I'm a little sad (and, of course, excited) -- it's time to make decisions!

2/19 Oh my god, I feel so lucky to have all of these options, but I also have no idea what I'm going to do now at all. Any advice is greatly appreciated!

3/4-3/5 I liked Columbia a lot more than I expected to. Despite their reputation, they do seem to have a lot of opportunities for PI work (though it's also pretty clear that most current students are corporate-oriented, but I think that'll be the case in a lot of places). Also, my mock class was fun.

3/14-3/16 Harvard's ASW gave a me a great sense of the school. I was lucky to have a friend who's a current students so Saturday night I met a lot of current students, not just the ones the University puts on the panels. Most people seem genuinely pleased with Harvard and everyone's clearly very smart and impressive. It's also cool that you can definitely do multiple clinics if you want to HLS, which isn't really possible at CLS.

3/26-3/27 NYU ASW was really good. I honestly went to sort of reassure myself that I could withdraw because with Columbia's offer, I can't really logically take NYU unless I get comparable financial assistance and I think that's highly unlikely considering I didn't get any of the named stuff. However, I really liked the school and their commitment to PI came through really powerfully. In my opinion, it really made me see that Columbia and Harvard's PI stuff at the ASW had this for show quality to it, it just never felt as genuine as it did at NYU. I also really enjoyed the current admits I met at NYU, they felt like people I could really get along with. I wish NYU got a bit more interaction with current students into the weekend beyond just the activities fair. If I'm perfectly honest, I think I liked NYU the most so far. Needless to say, I'm not withdrawing any time soon.

4/3 Berkeley ASD was really great (even though I spent about an hour and a half waiting in line to speak to financial aid). At the very beginning of this process, before being blessed with an LSAT better than most of my practice tests, Berkeley was my number one, so I already knew I loved the school. I'm really looking for a school with an active and committed student body and Berkeley definitely had that. It also had opportunities galore in my specific area of interest. I also learned that I qualify for in state tuition even though I haven't lived in California for many years, so yay for that! I will be submitting a matching application any day now (I've grown lazy at the end of this process...). I think if Berkeley matches the Hamilton or comes close, I'm inclined to take it over Columbia, though I still have the Harvard and Stanford thing to sort out.

4/18-4/20 Stanford blew everyone else completely out of the water for me. It's strange because I never had a bad time at any of the weekends and I had my own various reservations about all of my top choices, so I never expected to get this gut feeling. Within a few hours at Stanford, I immediately knew. Everyone I met, admits and current students were so amazingly smart and personable and helpful and happy. The professors were the most accesible I'd seen anywhere else and also made themselves so approachable. I am not a person who can just strike up a conversation with a professor easily, but here I could and did and from what I heard and saw, that is representative of the actual experience. I had some concerns about Stanford not having much in the way of my area of interest, but throughout the course of the weekend, I found out about several activities and opportunities that were not on the website (or at least I didn't find them). Even more impressive, I found several current students, completely randomly, that were doing very similar things and they had similar reservations and felt that they were never borne out. Now I actually feel as though there is a growing community of similarly-minded students and I'm thrilled to join that and help develop it. I felt completely at ease with my fellow admits and future classmates; everyone was impressive but no one was cocky. I feel so blessed to have gotten in here. When I applied, I threw an application to Stanford because, clearly, I was nervous and applying to every school I could think of and I figured why not apply to Stanford too. On paper, I was not in love with Stanford and I felt sure that they would know it from my application. I don't know why they took me in the end but I just feel so incredibly fortunate because I know they are the perfect fit for me.
I will be staying on the Yale waitlist because for geographical reasons, it just might be simpler if it worked out that I happened to get in. Though it would certainly be bittersweet if I did now, so I hope my significant other quickly finds a job in California!