MrsMalaprop (2022-2023)

Background - The Extended Remix:

Undergrad was a long time ago, but for what it's worth (probably not much), at the time I was heavily involved in theater and the arts, had leadership positions and all that jazz.

Academically, I did all right, although I was not (in all honesty) the most diligent student. FWIW, I was in my college's honors program, and received department honors in both majors, and had a few other academic honors/awards and graduated somewhere in the top 10% of my class (we weren't ranked beyond that). Good enough to get into a good grad program shortly out of school (well, GRE helped), but nothing special, to be sure, compared to the competition at the law schools I applied to - just well enough, I suspect, to show an acceptable level of aptitude for schoolwork. (And lucky for me, I'm still good at standardized test-taking.)

I completed my Master's part-time while working full-time on Capitol Hill as a graduate intern (i.e. unpaid research assistant and coffee-fetcher) so I ran up a lot of debt, thus making it very difficult financially to continue in nonprofit/political work, or to go to law school as planned.

So I jumped on the dot-com bandwagon for the $$, and held on longer than most (thanks to being in management), though the result was the same in the end. I've been a "management consultant" since mostly marking time until I can (finally!) start law school, but also trying to switch gears out of technology. For the last year and a half, I've been doing regulatory compliance & corporate policy.

Outside of work, I'm involved with a major theater arts nonprofit organization (on the Advisory Board, write/edit for publications, assist with planning events, also administer their database and provide software support). Also involved in political and social causes as time permits though they tend to get more $$ out of me than time (they don't seem to mind much).

In a Nutshell:

B.A., Very Small School (1994)
M.A., Johns Hopkins (1997)

Virginia resident.

10 years work experience, including management positions. Currently doing Sarbanes-Oxley compliance work for a large corporation.

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Postcards from the edge:

12/23 - Called HLS Admissions Office to follow up on missing Dean's Certs (they sent an email a couple of weeks ago). The one from my ugrad finally arrived today. So, that should make my file complete. Columbia wouldn't give me info over the phone - same Dean Cert issues there.

12/29 - Complete at Columbia (email).

1/6 - Officially complete at Harvard (email).

1/27 - Yale application is finally in. They got a brand new personal statement, since I ended up using a fragment of my old one as the basis for the 250-word essay. The Yale PS actually sounds like me - I like it better than my other ones.

On the down side, when I did a final proofread on my materials, I found a fairly obvious typo (in my resume of all things - I don't even know how it got there, as it's not on the longer version I use for real life) that had been submitted to my other schools. I swear that everything I sent out was proofread by at least three people - usually multiple times. Dammit. Harvard/Columbia/Penn - Please love me anyway!

3/02 - Penn and Columbia loved me anyway. (Whew!) So how about it, Harvard? :)

And Yale: Please complete my file already!

3/08 - Still not complete at Yale. Also, I really hate all of my essays now. Especially the early ones - of which Harvard's is one. I know where I was going with it, but it doesn't work as well as I would have liked in 2 pages (even with my tiny margins and smallish font). I tried to cover too much ground, and ended up not developing a couple of important points. Dammit. If I'd known how long my ugrad would take with my Dean's Cert, I wouldn't have been in such a rush to submit it.

My advice to future applicants: don't read your files after you've submitted them! Nothing good can come of it.

3/14 - Finally complete at Yale!

3/24 - So, I did get a small envelope from Harvard - but not THE small envelope. A new LOR was sent on my behalf last week, and I FedEx'd out a new essay today. The problem with writing new essays like this is that they make me fall in love all over again. I'm still hoping that Harvard is just playing hard-to-get, and that my love will not remain unrequited. Perhaps they're just saving the best for last...? ;-)

4/4 - Well THAT didn't take long, did it? Oh well. (** Powers up the spin-machine **) Yale probably wasn't the best fit for me anyway. I thrive on intense competition. Yeah, I know. That's what they all say.

One real reason it's not so bad: it wouldn't have been good for my husband, who will be applying to law school for 2006. Not many other choices in New Haven, and his chances at Yale are even slimmer than mine were. I really wish that I hadn't agonized over my Yale app for so long, however. Though I think there's something to be said for having put in my best effort on it - I don't have to wonder what would have happened if I had put in a better application.

In other news, I visited and really liked both Columbia & NYU. Leaning heavily toward Columbia (housing options are better than NYU - otherwise, I liked both schools equally), unless Harvard blows me a kiss. UVA gave me a scholarship, which in addition to the in-state tuition rate is tempting, but (in addition to the fact that I'd rather be in NYC than C'ville) I think that CLS will be better able to help me meet my educational and career goals in the long run. At least I hope so - it's going to cost me!

4/27 - I heard from Columbia fin aid this week, and received a more substantial award than I expected from them. (OK, I expected nothing, considering my GPA - so it's actually MUCH more than I expected!) It's still a lot more expensive overall than UVA, but I have decided that it's more than worth it. Sent my seat deposit in yesterday and applied for housing.

Barring any unexpected calls from Cambridge, I'll be in the Big Apple next year.

05/05 - Waitlisted at Harvard, letter dated 5/2. Not a big shocker; after seeing several people with superb numbers get waitlisted, I figured this would be the best-case scenario for me. If I were wise, I should probably turn down the waitlist and focus solely on going to CLS. But I'm the sort that would torture myself with "what if" for the rest of my life, so while I don't have my hopes up, I'm going to stay on the waitlist until August, just to see what happens. Once I've actually moved to NYC however, I'm staying put.

And if this proves to be the end of the line for my admissions season - well, there are worse fates. I'm the very first person from my UG to get into ANY top-10 law school - EVER. Considering that, I had a very good run indeed.

6/8 - OMG OMG OMG -- Harvard called! Same drill as those called before the WL letters went out - checking to see what my level of interest is (um, HIGH!), and whether I would be likely to attend if admitted (um, YES!). I think I babbled a little too much, but hopefully didn't make too much of a fool of myself. I'm sending a (hopefully more coherent) follow up email, just to be sure I got the (YESIMGOINGTOCOMETAKEMETAKEMETAKEME!!) point across.

I was told that I would hear back within a day or two...

6/10 - And as promised, I got another HLS call today. I think I may have made a bigger fool of myself than the first time, but that's OK because: I'm IN!

Don't even need to think about it (well, more than I have already done over the past many months). I'm there.