What's Going On in the Admissions Cycle Right Now?

Based on local public health guidelines, some schools may update safety protocols for upcoming visits and admitted student events. Some schools are beginning to communicate that they will be remote through the end of January.

FAQs from Students

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Discussion

In continuing our discussion on interactions with AOs from last week, this week we’ll talk a little more about interactions within the context of waitlist offers, rankings, and LOCIs.

Waitlist Offers

As we move into the second term of application review, the number of waitlist offers will increase. At the time a waitlist offer is made, many schools will include instructions for submitting additional information, résumé updates, and whether they’ll accept letters of continued interest (LOCIs). It’s extremely important to review these instructions—candidates receiving waitlist offers are often provided with response forms that they need to complete or email response instructions that allow a candidate to remain on the waitlist.

If you hadn’t before, it will be important to make sure that the schools you’ve applied to are added to your contacts list—you don’t want to miss an important email because it went to your spam folder. Honestly, even if you’ve added the school to your contacts list, make it a point to check your spam folder regularly anyway. Offers of admission made to people on the waitlist are frequently time-sensitive.

If you are reaching out to the admissions office to maintain contact while on the waitlist, make sure that you’re following instructions. Typically, if a school allows supplemental information or LOCIs, you don’t have to couple that information along with visits and/or phone calls.

Some schools communicate that they don’t want to receive LOCIs or that waitlisted candidates should not visit the admissions office for walk-in appointments. Schools are paying attention to see who follows directions.

Rankings

While some schools don’t rank candidates on the waitlist and consider all candidates as spaces become available, other schools may rank waitlisted candidates and/or place them into quartiles to help indicate the likelihood of a potential call. Some will have a priority waitlist and a regular waitlist. For schools that do rank, instead of looking at the entire pool when spaces become available, they may only look at a subset of the pool—a quartile, a range of numbers on the ranked list, the priority grouping.

As time passes, schools will update their waitlists to reflect candidates who have communicated that they are committed to attend elsewhere. An appropriate time to find out if rankings/quartiles have updated would be after deposit/commitment deadline dates have passed and again in early July.

LOCIs

Letters of continued interest are a way for candidates to reiterate their interest and commitment to attend a law school should an offer of admission be extended. For the schools that invite LOCIs from waitlisted applicants, this is an opportunity for you to share additional information about things that you’ve achieved since you submitted your application, things you’ve learned about the school or interactions you’ve had with students/staff/faculty that have enhanced your interest to attend, etc.

Some candidates who opted not to write a Why X school statement with their application will incorporate Why X school content into their LOCI. If you wrote a Why X statement, are there other reasons that you’re interested in attending that you didn’t have space to mention? Are there aspects of your interest that you can expand on?

If a particular school happens to be your first choice, and you’d immediately commit if offered a seat, communicate that! However, if a school communicates that they don’t want any LOCIs or correspondence sent in outside of transcript or résumé updates, wait until an opportunity presents itself. Some schools don’t accept LOCIs during the spring, but they may be open to them over the summer after commitment deadlines.

Need some more guidance about the whole waitlist process and what to do/when?

We have a module for that.

Events

We will resume Club 7Sage chats on Clubhouse in early 2022. Stay tuned for date announcements this month!

Upcoming Recruitment Events

Here are some of the upcoming recruitment events:

  • The LSAC February Digital Forum will take place online on Saturday, February 5 from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. ET. This will include live and on-demand workshops as well as a digital law fair with schools from across the country (a list of participating schools is not yet listed). Register by February 3.
  • Northeastern University is hosting an online information session on Thursday, January 20 at 5:30 p.m. ET. Join admissions representatives to learn more about what sets Northeastern Law apart, their admissions process, and their co-op. Register here.
  • NYU Law is hosting an information session to discuss the admissions process, application procedures, curriculum, and financial aid on Tuesday, January 25 at 3 p.m. ET. Register by Friday, January 21.