Unless you're waiting on something (and it's usually retaking the LSAT), my advice is to aim to submit things a little sooner than that. If you can apply before the end of October, that would be ideal. The reason for this advice is just that the national law school application totals have really sky rocketed in the past two years. Applying by Thanksgiving would place you in the first 35-40% of national apps submitted. While that's good ("Yay! I applied before the halfway mark!"), national apps have increased by about 35% in just the past two years. That's the kind of increase that has real downstream effects on both schools and applicants. So, ideally it'd be great to have your apps in by Oct 31, which is when the law fair schedule really dies down and most admissions offices really start to review apps.

Your mileage may vary (and I don't mean to cause you to go back and change anything) but my advice is that the Why NYU material usually makes more sense in the PS than in a scholarship statement like AnBryce.

The purpose of a personal statement is to explain why you want to go to law school and be a lawyer. You can usually weave a little school specific material into that doc because it's a short jump from "here's what I want to do in law school" to "and here's what your school has that would be a perfect fit for what I want to do." With AnBryce specifically, that's more about a challenge overcome and/or the ideals of the program. That could be related to NYU Law's offerings, but that jump is a little farther than on the PS.

I hope that helps!

First things first - don't beat yourself up! It sounds like you have a full plate of responsibilities and - ultimately - all you can do is your best. Keep your chin up!

Second things second, as the other commenter mentioned, the key thing that admissions officers want to understand if what you've been up to since you graduated. It's perfectly reasonable to hear "helping family with business, some volunteer work, prepping for LSAT and law apps." The best place to explain this would be on the addenda section of the application.

Good luck!

From the admissions perspective, I would advise that both of those prompts are the same! I would only consider a school requiring that you bring in school specific material if they make a more direct call to action like what we see from Maryland in their PS prompt: "In addition, the statement should address why you are interested in obtaining a law degree and, more specifically, in attending the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law."

From the admissions perspective, I'd vote for the person who supervised you because they can more directly speak to what you bring to the workplace on a daily basis. However, I think this is a time where it's alright to submit more than two letters. It sounds like the attorney has reached out to you to write something ("he is offering to write me a letter"). There's no harm taking him up on the offer! I think you can say "thanks!" and then add him to your CAS account.

You can find a lot of resources on our admissions course here!

The other thing to consider is that you don't need to do everything all at once. Just do one doc at a time, and one draft at a time!

I'm on these message boards in a lot of places suggesting that the main goal of a personal statement is to explain why you want to go to law school and be a lawyer. I'd offer that same advice here, while acknowledging that things can be a bit more complex. But just for the sake of argument, let's just say that you can create an outline that ends with explaining the type of legal job you want. Working backwards, you need to lead your audience to that conclusion. What do you do? You explain the personal, academic, and/or professional experiences that you've had that make your concluding point ("here's what I want to do as a lawyer") make sense.

The other docs that you've written to this point have some aspects of docs that could be a personal statement, but are probably more akin to a statement of perspective (overcoming difficulties, how your childhood shaped your worldview). They can be useful for those kinds of prompts!

The tricky thing here, @Marsgalazy04, is that it really depends on exactly the question being asked and exactly how the insitution that you "almost attended" considers things.

Pull up a few applications via LSAC and see whether your top schools ask you to list "schools attended" or "schools enrolled."

If it's "attended," that would fall into the category of "you attended at least one class."

If it's "enrolled," I'd define "enroll" to mean some aspect of "you were there at the beginning of the term, you had paid some sort of tuition/housing bill, the Department of Ed had dispersed loans to your account" etc.

You may also want to contact the registrar at the school in question to see what records they have of your attendance. For example, if you had been there for a semester, there'd be a transcript. If the registrar has zero record of you, I think you can honestly say that you didn't attend.

And even if you do have to mention this situation for a school, it's an easy thing to explain on an addenda. It wouldn't affect your chances of admission!

Unless it's something truly outlandish that would be the equivalent of a thesis (so let's start at 50 pages), no, I would not consider a midterm/final paper to be "significant."

And with the Kira interview, NU will give you instructions about this after you submit your app. The chances of you submitting your app by the 15th and then not doing your interview by the 31st are pretty slim unless NU admissions goofs on something. And in that case, they goofed and you'll have some grace there.

What that means is that you have to have clicked "submit" on your application by October 15th.

By October 31st, NU Law also has to receive your CAS Report.

Most people submit these at the same time, but there can sometimes be a gap because they're taking a future LSAT, they're waiting on a letter of rec, or something like.

Just chiming in from the AdComm perspective to HIGHLY encourage you to NOT submit narrative docs (personal statement, optional statement, addenda) in different font sizes. It looks really, really weird to the readers' eyes when they move from one doc to the next and the font changes. Imagine reading a newspaper or a magazine where the font changed between columns.

The resume can be different since it's inherently a different kind of document. Back to the newspaper/magazine analogy, the resume is like an ad on the page opposite the article. It doesn't stand out as weird because it's inherently a different kind of communication.

The answer is that the schools you've already applied to would get an updated CAS Report containing the new LoR. This happens all the time, especially come Waitlist Season when waitlisted applicants often send in additional LoRs in to the hopes of helping their case.

As to if it's better to wait, I wouldn't hold an app too long past Nov 1 to wait for an additional LoR. The chances that that second LoR is what pushes you from the waitlist pile into the admit group are nil. As such, there's really no benefit to waiting.

I'd break this down as:

• If a school asks for any/all criminal offenses of any kind - then disclose. A speeding ticket is a criminal offense (although a very minor one).

• If a school says only misdemeanor/felony issues - this does not fall into that category. Do not disclose.

• If a school specifically says not to disclose minor traffic violations - do not disclose if the issue we're talking about is a regular speeding ticket (and that's what it sounds like!).

This wouldn't be a problem for the schools that don't ask for study abroad transcripts because it would already be a part of your CAS Report. Not a hassle for them at all!

I feel like we're digging more into the weeds here! So taking a step back, the only research projects I typically recommend putting on a resume would be a senior/capstone thesis at the undergrad level, any masters thesis, a PhD thesis, or any significant research that was published in a journal. That's admittedly broad advice! But these are also all significant projects. I leave it to your discretion if something else also crosses that line of significant. For example, I'm seeing a lot of high school and college students being required to make a multi-episode podcast as part of an assignment. These are projects more akin to a five-ish page paper - important but not a huge deal. Other podcast projects last for an academic year and have lots of episodes. I'd say that the former is not on the resume and the latter should be. But - again - I leave it to the applicant's discretion if they feel like it's significant.

Agreed!

First let me acknowledge that things have changed. The last time I was in an admissions office, it was still the old LSAT writing section and that really wasn't useful for anything much more than a glance or two. The new section is at least a more academic exercise. However, I'm guessing instead of "a glance or two," it may be more akin to "let me give this a quick minute as a quality control check" for just the reason mentioned above. If I'm thinking I'd like to admit the applicant, I just want to make sure that the writing section feels like the same person who wrote the personal statement. I'm not really diving into their actual academic argument.

So certainly give it your best shot and don't purposefully try to tank it, but also do NOT stress about it.

@Princess I mean this with the utmost respect because I know that project required a lot of work ... however ... I have a layman's understanding of macro economic principles and your one sentence description of your project didn't necessarily tell me any more or less than the title did. This would be totally different if you were speaking to your people (like a grad program in Econ or a job with a consulting firm).

@Princess In general, you should only give schools the materials that they ask for!

And if the thought is "it's a hassle so let me just send it to everyone!!!!!," here's the counter:

• If it's a transcript that LSAC has received and processed, it's automatically going to every school anyway. So there's nothing else you need to do.

• If it's NOT a transcript that LSAC has received and processed, you would most likely have to email the transcript to individual schools. If the goal here is "minimize hassle," it seems to me like "sending a bunch of emails" is a bigger hassle than "sending out a few emails." But that's just me!

Speaking from the admissions context, I never - in my entire professional life - said "Awwwwwwwwww, YES! Another LSAT writing sample! WHAT A DAY!" :-)

This truly is the least consequential part of the application. As long as you made a reasonably coherent argument on your first take, that will more than suffice for the purposes of your application.

The general rule of thumb from admissions folks is that anything above a 5 or 6 point increase probably merits a brief explanation even though we know the answer - either you changed your study habits and improved, you just had a bad day, or a combination of both.

I'd suggest that you keep it simple:

• I want to explain my test history. You'll note the 7 point increase.

• For context, I was PTing higher as I got close to the second LSAT but it just didn't come through on test day. (And note, I will NEVER encourage ANYONE to lie, but if the biggest white lie you ever told was "to be honest, I was a little under the weather that day and gave it my best shot but the sniffles must have gotten the best of me," you will have lived a good and virtuous life.)

• For the third test, I did perform in line with my PTs.

• Thanks for your consideration.

Good question!

Basically, provide the most accurate information based on the day that you submit your app. In your case, if nothing has moved forward by the time you press the "submit" button, then you would answer "No" to this question. But if something had moved forward, then you'd answer "yes" and would provide an explanation.

If something changes after you submit your app, you would have to send updated CF information to the schools that ask this question and to whom you had already applied. It's no big deal and it happens all the time! For example, you'll notice that every app has some sort of disclaimer saying that you have a continual obligation to report updated CF information. If you submit your app on Monday and then get arrested for running an illegal kitten fighting ring (I'm trying to come up with the least threatening crime possible...), you'd have to contact the schools to update them on your CF information and explain your arrest.

I hope that helps!

@kwasont Just to make sure I'm giving the best advice possible, could you clarify the situation? Is it:

• I studied abroad for a semester.

• The study abroad semester is reflected on my home transcript. Course titles, grades, and credit hours are all there.

• LSAC hasn't asked me for any further documentation for that semester.

Because in that case, there's nothing to say in an addenda because everything is on your transcript. But just let me know what your situation is!

@Princess That's fine! But let me also ask the question - if I am a layman, do I really need a one sentence description? For example, if your senior thesis was "From Runway to the Guillotine: French Fashion on the Eve of the Revolution," the title kinda says it all, right? In the case of a scientific paper or poster presentation, the real key I need to know is that you did the paper/presentation. I don't need to know what it was about and it would take a while for me to understand what it was about. So take that insight for what it's worth, but you probably don't need to be as detailed as you think.

I've answered a few variations of this question on the message board but @CarolineN summed it up pretty well! The only other thing I'd suggest is that you won't know how you did on the September test until you get it back. Your job for today is just to worry about what you can control today (and that's likely working on app materials and keeping semi-fresh with LSAT prep).

And to answer the kinda question at the end - yes, LSAC will automatically send an updated CAS Report with your new score to any school that you've already applied to. Additionally, they'll also automatically let schools know that you're registered for a future LSAT.