Applying Early Decision or Not

listentothewindblow

Have any of you applied early decision? If so, why? Do you think it is true that applying early decision can increase your chances of admission if your LSAT is below a school's median?

noonawoon

From what I have heard from a couple of schools on webinars, applying ED gives you a crumb of an advantage over applying RD. Schools won't admit an underqualified applicant just because they are ED. Applying ED also takes away your ability to negotiate a higher scholarship and locks you into going to a school regardless of the financial outcome. If you are extremely far below the median, ED probably won't be enough to compensate for that. If you are a little below the LSAT median, you still have a shot based on other things like GPA and softs. I don't think applying ED is a good idea

LOWERCASE EVERYTHING

i'm not sure how much (if any) applying ed can increase your chances of admission if your lsat is below a school's median. if your gpa is above a school's median to make up for the lower lsat, though, i wouldn't be surprised if a school would try to lock in a few people with higher gpas through ed.

i attended ucla's webinar, and the ucla's admissions dean rob schwartz did say that he admitted "a few people" whom he'd otherwise would've rejected had they applied later in the cycle. note that he said "later in the cycle" not "regular cycle." so there still remains the question if those people had gotten accepted because they applied ed, or if they had gotten accepted because they just applied earlier. it could also be both.

how much of an increase in chances of admission you'd get from ed isn't too clear and it may depend from school to school, but personally, i'd ed schools only if the school is my number one choice and i'm able to and willing to pay the sticker price for it. for me, this is a pretty tough condition to meet.

maybe this can give you more insight. good luck!!

https://7sage.com/admissions/lesson/apply-law-school-early-decision/

noonawoon

Also wanted to add - if a school offers a substantial ED scholarship (like Northwestern) and you'd genuinely want to go there, then it's a great choice!

canihazJD

Someplace ED can help if your numbers are low, is on the back end. At schools where you get kicked to RD, and they either end up hitting medians with room to spare or need to pull from the waitlist, someone who originally applied ED looks really good from a YP perspective. Spivey mentioned this as a viable strategy... actually aiming for a WL admit.