Hi all!

I applied to a total of 12 schools back in September / October. I’ve since heard back from 8/12 (woo!) and have a few financial aid offers (most of which are pretty good, but not enough for me to go to the given school - based on where I fall in their percentiles I’d probably want a full ride). I’m waitlisted at my dream t14 school and have gotten into a few schools ranked higher than this. I’m waiting to hear back from a few T5, but don’t have high hopes at all.

I’m currently in a rotational program at work that is supposed to go until June, but recently learned we are starting the application and interview process for our next role (that would start in June) the first week of April. I obviously won’t be applying for this role, so I need to tell my manager / people at work soon (they have no idea I’m leaving), but I don’t have a concrete answer on where I’m going.

My dilemma is two-fold:

It’s now March (ahhh) and some of the schools I have gotten into have upcoming seat deposits, and I haven’t started the money negotiation process. Should I start this now, even if I don’t have any idea of where I’m going? What’s the best timing for this (before vs. after seat deposits)? Also, how strict are school about seat deposits?

For the dream school, I don’t have an admissions decision so I obviously don’t have money prospects here yet. Has anyone ever actually reached out to a school about a “timeline” / deadline? They say to keep them posted about other things that impact your timeline, and this is a big looming thing for me, but I don’t want to get rejected just because they don’t know their answer yet.

Any advice on my novel / word vomit is greatly appreciated! Feel free to PM.

THANK YOU!

Hi everyone,

On Thursday, March 7 at 9 p.m. ET, I'll host a webinar with Julian Morales, Director of Admissions at Penn State Law. Julian will give us a five-minute presentation on Penn State, and then I'll ask him some of the questions you're dying to know:

You'll get a chance to ask your questions at the end.

:warning: You’ll have to register for this webinar in advance.

:cookie: After the webinar, we'll award one attendee a free Edit Once (see https://classic.7sage.com/admissions/enroll).

→ Please register for the webinar (March 7, 2019 @ 9:00 p.m. ET) here: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/3fe1b3f716828578d746f627e8486654

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

Zoom might prompt you to download something before you can join the webinar, so I’d advise you to show up a bit early.

I hope to see you there!

You are invited to a Zoom webinar.

When: Mar 7, 2019 9:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Topic: Webinar with Julian Morales of Penn State Law

Register in advance for this webinar:

https://zoom.us/webinar/register/3fe1b3f716828578d746f627e8486654

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

Spivey got the new US News Rankings! Officially out next week, but here's the scoop:

https://blog.spiveyconsulting.com/2020-usnwr-rankings-2019-release/

Hi all,

I am applying to basically all the California schools. How did you guys get your admission decisions? I've been checking the status checker and my email CONSTANTLY and I was wondering if I should be looking out for snail mail too?

Thank you,

QUICK QUESTION!

I was planning to start my negotiations this week. Is the typical person to send them to the dean of admissions at the particular law schools or someone else. Also is email the method of choice or is sending in a formal letter?

Thanks a bunch!

I know this might be a silly question, but do letters of recommendation need to explicitly say that anywhere on the letter? I ask because I understand there is a distinction between a letter of reference and a letter of recommendation, and one my recommenders included "this reference is provided at..." It would be easy enough to have them change it and maybe this is trivial, but I'd appreciate all of your input. Thanks!

Do LORs need to be in any particular format; addressed to each school, LSAC? How long should they be (roughly)? I understand you should not fill a paper with empty words, but how concise is too concise?

Also, is it important that the letter actually say somewhere "letter of recommendation"? I had one recommender put "in reference to: my name", "asked to serve as a reference," etc.

I'd appreciate any input. Thank you!

Hi all!

At my smaller state school a lot of the teachers that taught my department's classes were non-tenured adjuncts. Thus, there are only 2 full time faculty I could pull an LOR from. Lucky for me (sarcastic), 1 of those two faculty members and I did not click due to our differences in appreciation for his teaching style.

Thus, I am in a conundrum where I have potential LOR's from my work place (will be out of school for 4 years by the time I start Law School in Fall 2020), but I will only have 1 from my college faculty. Based on the admissions course I realize I will need more academic "beef" to make my application stand out.

What are everyone's thoughts on an AP teacher from high school that I still talk with regularly or an adjunct professor from school? Both would be able to speak to my academic chops as well as the other issues that are discussed in the admissions course. My hesitation is that both may not be considered "academic" enough for admissions officers to take seriously. Looking for some advice on if I should ask one/ both of them for an LOR!

Anything will help! Thanks!

Best,

Jonah Chadwick Griego

Hi 7sage,

I am a senior undergrad at a small private school in the Midwest with a 3.82 gpa and a 171 LSAT. I applied to all the T-14 schools in the first week of December. So far I have been accepted by Georgetown and waitlisted by Duke and Michigan. Columbia and NYU have emailed me to say that my application is on hold which I imagine means I still have some chance of being accepted there. I haven't heard anything from the others. If I do not get any more acceptance letters, I am wondering if waiting a year and reapplying in September could give me better results. I am not an underrepresented minority, my personal statement is probably average and I could raise my gpa a couple points in my final semester. Should someone with my numbers expect multiple offers from the t14? I'm afraid of selling myself short.

Woo! With a scholarship too though they said they'd FedEx the deets so I'm not sure for how much yet. Of course I still need to hear from everyone else but I was thrilled that I really did it and got into a high enough ranked school because my UGPA is mediocre, my undergraduate school unheard of and I had a very tight study schedule for the LSAT so, I wasn't sure I'd get in anywhere while I was crunching the core curriculum, but, fuck yeah! I shall be an attorney.

Hey guys and girls, quick question:

How often do you check the status of your applications? I do it about once a month so far. Is there any reason to check it more often?

Thanks =)

My undergraduate alma mater (top 10 school) received my LSAT score, emailed me a fee waiver, and told me the application deadline is tomorrow. Every instinct in me is telling me no, but an internal devil is telling me WHAT DO I HAVE TO LOSE?!

GAH.

Hello, I'm sorry if this question has been already asked. I go to an UK university where it has its own gpa conversion scale. Even if my school calculates gpa for me, do I still have to send my transcripts to LSAC so that they can evaluate my grades? I still have one and a half year left; if my gpa is somewhere between 3.4 and 3.5 with high LSAT score above 172, will I have chance for tier 14 law schools?

We just posted another success story—this one about an international applicant. I recommend this to anyone who's in the process of negotiating for financial aid, because this applicant did an amazing job of maximizing her scholarship.

https://classic.7sage.com/international-applicant-success-story/

Hi everyone,

We've posted a new law school success story about an applicant with a very low LSAT score and a just-above-median GPA who got into a T-14 school.

https://classic.7sage.com/law-school-success-story-low-lsat/

I've read a lot of advice online - people saying that the best time to negotiate is right after the seat deposit deadline. Problem is I'm between two schools and one of them has a $500 non-refundable, which is pretty steep for me. Is it worth it to try a week or two before the deadline?

Hi everyone,

A few years ago, we worked with a remarkable non-traditional applicant who wound up attending Northwestern with a significant merit scholarship despite a below-median LSAT score. I posted an account of working with him, along with his personal and diversity statements, here: https://classic.7sage.com/law-school-success-story-the-non-traditional-applicant/

Hi all,

I submitted late (mid-Feb) and I was hoping some 7sagers could share their stories? Particularly their results.

Obviously there's nothing I can really change but it'd be nice to hear from people who were are currently in my situation or were late applicants in the past.

So my application status was updated on Friday to "Decision rendered, letter mailed" good, bad, or ugly? It sounds like a nice way of saying no but the office claims they send it to everyone.

Hi everyone,

Does anyone have insight as to the best way to approach the "post-college activities" section on the Yale app? I'm not sure if they want something very brief and matter-of-fact or something more like an additional essay which [however concisely] explains important motivations, lessons learned, etc.

Any advice would be appreciated!

I am an older student (almost 40). I dropped out of college in 2001 with a sub-2.0 GPA due to domestic violence/abuse issues. I worked full-time throughout my first stint in college. After I dropped out, I continued to work full-time, and decided to go back to school in 2016 to complete my degree. In my second stint at college, I needed 24 hours to graduate, and although I completed those 24 hours with a 3.5+ GPA, it only raised my cummulative GPA to 2.1. I completed my degree in May 2018. I have taken the January administration of the LSAT. I don't have my score back yet, but have also signed up for the March administration of the test. Assuming I score 165+ on the test, do I have any chance of getting into a decent school? I know my overal GPA is terrible and relatively recent, but the bulk of the damage was done 15+ years ago. Thank you for any feedback you can offer.

Hi everyone,

Been a while since I posted. How's everyone doing? Just wanted to check in, say how my cycle is going, and send love to anyone else out there riding this slow, slow cycle.

I ended up with a 169 LSAT, which was disappointing given my PT average and my last fresh PT. The LSAC engaged in some last minute shenanigans and changed our exam from an afternoon one to a morning one, which didn't exactly calm me down. And I was unwell the week of the test, right through to test-day. In the U.K. we call this Sod's Law.

As for applications, I almost blanketed the T-14, and also Vanderbilt. Let me just say, I was naïve to think GULC, Cornell and Vandy were safety schools. Lord, have mercy. So far I've had 4 waitlists (GULC, Cornell, Michigan, Columbia) and 4 rejections (Penn, NYU, Chicago, Harvard). The Cornell waitlist stung the most as I really liked the school and didn't think my interview went badly. Was pleasantly surprised by Columbia. For context, I don't have a GPA as my undergrad is international.

Hope everyone on here is doing well. Whatever you're doing, just remember that you're a beautiful, valued person who isn't defined by a number! (3(/p)

Hi everyone! Today I got an email from Cornell requesting a Kira interview and started googling it online. What I initially thought would be a simple online interview actually turned out to be a challenging Q&A based on the posts I've found online. I'm really nervous now, can you let me know your experiences about it? Were there current events in the interview process they quizzed you about?

Hi everybody,

I've already written a GPA addendum to explain a chronic disease and how it negatively affected my grades.

My question is... should I also write an LSAT addendum? I got a 169 on the November LSAT but was shooting for at least a 170 so I retook it in January. Instead, I dropped down three points to 166. I was consistently scoring in the 170-175 range on the PT's and so I don't feel like 166 is reflective of my abilities, and it also doesn't look great to have retaken it just to have my score drop. I feel as though I need to explain in an addendum that the 169 is a more accurate predictor of my success in law school than the 166 is, and also explain the decrease.

One of the reasons my score dropped is because my boyfriend that I've been with for over two years/live with lost his job at the beginning of January and had to take a job on the East Coast (while I'm still here in San Francisco). So not only was I not studying much that month because of worrying about his unemployment, I also had the added pressure to get a high score to get into the law school in his new city. Plus, add anxiety about potentially having to do long-distance, breaking up, etc... Basically I was a frazzled anxious mess by the time I took the January LSAT and I think that was a large contributor to my score decrease.

I'm not sure if relationship woes are addendum worthy, but I also feel like the general consensus is that you should explain a decrease. Plus, I definitely want to keep the GPA addendum but I feel sort of weird writing an addendum for both.

Should I write an LSAT addendum, or leave it at the GPA addendum? All advice is appreciated!

Hi all! I submitted my apps late in the cycle (late Jan. and early Feb.) since I was waiting for my January LSAT score. I'm thinking of using the next few Fridays to visit schools since I don't expect to hear back for some time (just went complete) and my LSAT score could've been a few points higher... Before I book transport, do you think it's best to wait to hear back or that it's not worth the money/PTO days? I was thinking of sitting in on classes or speaking to admissions and writing LOCI's to strengthen my applications. Specifically talking about schools in DC (& UVA) and in Boston. Appreciate the input!!