- Submitted! It's so good to say that. Composing applications has-more or less-been on my mind for over a year now. And it's all finished. Now what do I do with all the free time...
- Received LSAT score this morning at 2 am (waited up after returning from a pub crawl). It was a little lower than I expected: 166 as opposed to a 170 . I'm disappointed, but after thinking it through, I'll get in where I'll get in; the only thing in my control is how well I do in law school, and after. That's what matters.
- Didn't think I would update this thing until decisions were rendered; then again, didn't think I would apply anywhere else. Looks like I was proven wrong twice. Today brought me 11 emails with fee waivers, ranging from good (Duke and UVA) to less than spectacular (Temple Law, sorry, and no offense to anyone applying there). So, I've decided to apply to Duke and UVA. Hadn't planned on it, but the reasoning goes like this: a $12 credential assembly fee may yield some scholarship at two schools I would seriously consider attending. Here's to better chances.
Good luck to everyone else!
- First actual update: Converted from Under Review 11/2 to Under Review 12/15 at University of Chicago. Could mean nothing; could be an early decision indication. We'll see tomorrow, when I should get a phone call if I'm in or an email (or lack of a phone call) if I'm not.
- Still no word from Chicago, where I applied early decision. If accepted, you were supposed to receive a phone call on Monday, but no call here. So I'm either waitlisted or dinged; no idea which it is, though. As I write this, two days after acceptances were delivered, I have not received an email or any other indication of a decision. Hope it comes soon! It would be a present just to know where I stand.
- Finally, I heard from UChi--waitlisted and held for review during the regular admissions cycle. Not quite what I wanted, but it sure beats a ding.
- IN AT NOTRE DAME! First acceptance of the cycle (and hopefully not the last). The decision arrived in an email that also said an acceptance packet was in the mail. Really feels great to be in somewhere...I'm at a loss of what else to say.
Alright, time for a quick update. Two decisions have come this week, a week which has been awesome on top of some word out of law schools. We had two snow days in a row. Anyways, was waitlisted at UVA via an email message, and "held" at Columbia. CLS really likes to do their own thing, I'm finding out. "Held" is a unique waitlist, which appears to be a preferred list of sorts. According to them, everyone held is still under review, but not yet on the "reserve list", and neither denied nor accepted. So pretty much nothing happened. At Columbia, I'm in the same position as before.
Been a long while since I've updated this thing. I'm officially closing down my cycle soon, since I'll send in a deposit to Notre Dame and withdraw from every other school, so it's time to write a final post. The reason I have tried to be as thorough as possible throughout the cycle is for future applicants. Like I would if I had seen someone talk through their cycle, I hope those applying in future rounds can use this as an aid--to gauge their chances of acceptance, or, at the least, to see when I heard back in order to ease some anxiety. Now for lessons learned. I have to begin with my cycle's results, which weren't what I expected. In a strict quantitative sense, I was a borderline applicant to most schools; my GPA was above every 75th percentile, while my LSAT was near every 25th percentile. Not a shoe-in by any means, but neither one to be immediately laughed off. I thought I had a decent chance being accepted to at least a third of those schools I applied to, and I thought applying ED to Chicago, my top choice, would have been enough to get me in there. I was wrong. Why I was wrong is for anyone to speculate. To further hedge my chance to gain those acceptances (again, I knew I was borderline) I emphasized what I thought made me unique: an education in accounting and finance, and knowledge in those areas. Most kids applying are poli sci, history, or some other liberal arts major, right? Again, I have no idea where my application went wrong, if it did at all. By "if it did at all", I mean to say it's possible many schools liked my application, but just were not ready to pull the trigger by accepting me; so instead, they chose to waitlist me. Here is what I learned. If you're a borderline case like I was, don't be afraid to aim high. You might be waitlisted, but that is not defeat. I could have chosen to wait to hear back definitively from those schools that waitlisted me, and maybe I would have been accepted. This was not something I wanted to do, but it may be something you want to do. So, in closing, if you aim high, there is a chance you will make the shot. Don't be afraid to dream big. And good luck with your cycle.
Hey! This is your sister's friend Caroline. Good luck on your applications. I got the Duke and UVA waivers too and am now thinking about applying there as well.