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Related Discussions
Harvard Waitlist Guidelines
Seeking Perfection
Alum Member
I don't know whether I would attend Harvad Law or not if admitted off the waitlist. Harvard sent me an email with the following guidelines asking me to remove myself if I cannot agree to accept a position if offered off the waitlist.
"By remaining active on the waitlist you agree to:
-Accept an offer of admission if it is extended to you; we will ask that you accept the offer of admission within 24 hours.
-Accept the offer before you have received any information about your financial aid package at HLS. Please keep in mind our financial aid packages are need-based and therefore are not affected by the admissions timeline—packages for waitlist admits are determined in exactly the same way as those admitted earlier in the cycle.
-Accept the offer before you have a chance to secure housing. Historically this has not been a problem since three housing options (HLS dorms, Harvard University Housing, and the private Cambridge housing market) typically remain very active throughout the summer.
-Withdraw your seat at any school to which you have committed if offered admission at HLS.
-While this process is very time-sensitive, please understand that we operate on this timeline in order to get our waitlist admits fully situated before classes begin in the fall. If you have concerns about the above guidelines, or if you have new information about your plans for this fall that prevents you from remaining on the waitlist, please visit your status checker and complete the waitlist withdrawal form. If you are comfortable with these guidelines and wish to remain active on the waitlist, then no action is required at this time."
I don't think they have any way to enforce this guideline. I'm generally predisposed to oppose the creation of unenforcable guidelines or rules. However, I don't want to be on the waitlist in bad faith.
I will be attending University of Michigan Law School with a $150,000 Dean's Scholarship unless I end up attending Harvard (or Yale which I have not heard back from). I think this is an option worthy of being undecided about whether to attend Harvard.
- Should I withdraw myself from the Harvard Law Waitlist in accordance with their guidelines?60 votes
- Yes36.67%
- No63.33%
Comments
.
Maybe I'm thinking of another 7Sage member here, but I think I saw a post where you said you loved Michigan/Ann Arbor. Is this correct? Have you visited HLS as well?
Man, that's a really tough call. I think I'd say, if you genuinely would seriously consider attending Harvard if they accepted you, then I'd stay on the list. At this point, since you already have everything lined up at Michigan and are ready and able to attend there, then it's a bit less of a risk. I feel like the worst case scenario here is if you are accepted off the WL and decide that you would rather stay with Michigan. I don't think Harvard could force you to attend there, or do anything really to retaliate. I guess maybe they could report it to LSAC? But I kind of doubt that would happen, and I don't think you'd see any negative consequences at Michigan.
I feel like I would say you should withdraw if you are sure that you would not attend, or if you thought there was any chance you might withdraw altogether and reapply next year. Could be more of a risk burning that bridge.
Stay on the waitlist.
If you are certain that you would withdraw from U Michigan and attend Harvard if given the option, then stay on the wait-list.
Otherwise, I think it would be better to withdraw. While I agree that Harvard is unlikely to do anything to enforce the policy, it's good to remember that your staying on the wait list likely affects other Harvard hopefuls in some way or another.
Also, if you have even a sliver of a chance of withdrawing from all schools and reapplying early next cycle, then I'd imagine that staying on the wait list in bad faith would tank your chances next year.
However, would sticker at Harvard be out of the question if you are not awarded a grant?
That's the thing. I don't think it would be out of the question. I think it would be a tough decision to make within 24 hours, but one I would happily make one way or the other. But, I can't guarantee that I would choose Harvard.
I'm not sure I can make that decision ahead of time without knowing whether or not I will be admitted. So if staying on the waitlist means promising to accept, I cannot do it.
After all, I think that it would be easier and just different to evaluate Harvard as an option rather than as a mythical place looked up to in awe and that I could better do that once admitted. How can I promise that a decision I reached now would be the same as then?
Additionally, right now I feel predisposed to like Michigan because I'm thrilled to have the opportunity they have given me and am looking forward to going there. If I was accepted at Harvard those happy vibes would extend to them too, making the decision more fair.
The main thing is just that it seems wrong of them to demand that we should make a decision on them when they have refused to make a decision on us. Anger at that would probably color any decision I made now too(despite trying to be reasonable).
I am debt adverse, perhaps more than the average person, but not to an unusual degree. I view it as an extremely close decision that I can't fairly make right now. $150,000(less because of any financial aid, more because of cost of living and tuition differences) is a lot of money to probably end up in the same type of job at the same starting salary since I am thinking I'll do Big Law for a few years before attempting to get a government or public interest job. I realize the Harvard name could help with the initial job placement and somewhat with lateralling which is extremely valuable. But if I follow the path I expect to, that couple years of Big Law money goes into my loans if I go to Harvard and ensuring a retirement if I go to Michigan. Having a retirement savings created and ready to grow would certainly free me up for lateral opportunities in its own way.
I realize the LRAP and starting out in public interest could work from Harvard too, but that still leaves me locked into the law for at least 10 years. That's fair, but the Michigan route leaves me free to leave the profession entirely without crippling debt if it turns out I don't like law as much as I expect to(like the majority of lawyers). If I went to Michigan and left the profession after three years in Big Law I would have made money and gained work experience in my six years of law school and legal work(I'd be 27 and would have plenty of time to carve out some other career). At Harvard I would have to stay either until I had paid off the debt in Big Law or for the minimum of ten years before forgiveness in public interest(I would be 34 with little to no retirement savings trying to start a new career). So at Michigan, if I dislike practicing law, I can bail after 6 years and be well financially positioned to start a new career doing something else. The same cannot be said for Harvard.
For these reasons among others, if I had to choose today, I might lean toward U of M. But while those reasons won't fundamentally change, I might be stressing different reasons(those in favor of Harvard) were I to make the decision in the future after a hypothetical admission off tthe waitlist.
They care too much about their yield rate. Oh well.
Qualitatively, I don't think the decision is all that much different, tbh.
I'm not sure if I said it, but I like Ann Arbor and love the state of Michigan. It's my home state and I have lived here my whole life.
I haven't visited Harvard Law school as an applicant, but have been to Cambridge before and like that area as well. It is not home though.
I won't reapply next year. I'm going to attend U of M barring any surprises. And there is definitely some chance I would attend if admitted. I just don't feel I can know right now.
I figured you would say that. But I think if an acceptance off the waitlist at Harvard and $150,000 at U of M as your best options you would pick Harvard easilly. Would you stay on the waitlist even if you were not as sure about that?
I'm not certain.
It seems unlikely that the 24 hours would cost anyone their spot, but the possibility of harming others definitely merits consideration.
I won't be waiting a cycle. For me the only options better than what I have at Michigan are the Darrow at Michigan, and possibly the Hamilton at Columbia, the Ruby at Chicago, the Furman at NYU, Harvard, Stanford, and Yale. With the exception of the Darrow, I'm not sure how much better those are for me as a Michigander who probably will want to return to the state someday especially given the low cost of living. I would also say that of all those options I think a Harvard acceptance is actually the one I would be most likely to obtain in a future year. All the others are far too eratic to count on getting especially with weak softs which would likely still be relatively weak. And if I were willing to withdraw from U of M for a shot at Harvard, I would definitely be staying on the waitlist. So no sliver for me.
Stay on the wait list. Especially if you are still figuring the decision out. Plus, even if you do stay on the WL, it's far from guaranteed you'll even have to make the decision. Don't get too emotionally attached to the desires of the school and its business. Do what is best for you.
I'm gonna be selfish and say withdraw from the waitlist so my chances are higher
I think I'm going to stay on at least for a while.
@paulcaint I promise if they let me in and I reject them I'll do it in a timely fashion. I'll have to anyway.
I think this is right. I wished they had worded it that way as opposed to how they did, but I guess they have a financial interest in making sure everyone on their waitlist will attend if admitted.
Nonetheless, I have other news. The only remaining decision for me just came in.
@goingfor99th I've been waitlisted at Yale. Since Yale would be even more tempting if accepted, I am going to accept a spot on their waitlist. And if I already have to write updates on Spring grades and letters of continued interest for one school, I might as well do it for two.
Buried in the very nice Yale waitlist email was actually something else I found interesting which some of you might want to know about. Yale offers an abbreviated fast-track transfer application to the 100 or so people waitlisted there each year. I imagine that could be a good additional motivator to try do good in 1L and form good relationships with profs regardless of if I applied and was admitted as a transfer applicant.
Congratulations! That's a big deal. :]
Well since I expected a rejection, it is finally a school where I have exceeded my expectations. It also brings me to a total of 8 waitlists, 1 rejection, and 4 acceptances.
Unless you goals in academia or unicorn PI, stick with michigan. Even if you enjoy law, servicing a six figure loan is never fun and can take a serious toll on ones life.
The thing is like many I would be interested in both academia and some of the unicorn PI jobs. But, I doubt that interest is deep enough to merit spending the money. Additionally, I don't think my two bachelors degrees provide deep enough experience for academia as a goal out of law school. I'd probably need a PhD.
I think you should stay on the waitlist. If I were in your situation, it would be an extremely tough call to make based on hypotheticals...I too would have to wait until the actual moment of potential acceptance to really know. I think it will become clear then, like when you are torn between two options so you flip a coin to see what you truly want when it's in the air..something about being in the actual moment always seems to make decisions easier.
I understand from Harvard's perspective why they are so serious about only having100% would attends on their waitlist, makes it much easier for them as they try to fill out the class as efficiently as possible. But it's not like you are a guaranteed no and you just want to find out if you could have gotten in to boost your ego or something...you still seem to be at least slightly in the land of quandary and potentially would accept an offer.
And if you ultimately don't accept the offer, I imagine you will respond swiftly so as not to delay acceptance to another hopeful. No harm no foul in my opinion. Harvard just may have to send a few extra emails !
Yep, i think it would be in bad taste if you knew that you wouldn't go... but as long as you are putting effort into making that decision in the meantime, before the decision comes, I think you will be doing the right thing. Harvard has a large 1L class to fill and the motivation for their WL e-mail has probably come from years of absolute agony dealing with students who ghost/communicate poorly... Those students were probably their target audience. You might be overly worrying about the situation for yourself.
That's the plan now. I took that coin flip thing to a whole different level in undergrad. I flipped a penny about 10,000 times. It turns out pennies are more likely to land tails side up or head side up if you flip it over without looking at the end(which I do). They are a little heavier on the head side. I ended up deciding it by negotiating my scholarship since I was pretty perfectly unsure and didn't feel myself preferring one way or the other.
I'd be miffed by this arrangement, too. To ask for binding commitment, but offer no details where it comes to cost / fin aid, is completely unfair in my mind.
I'm kind of a "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush" type of person. A full ride at a good school I'd like vs possibly full sticker at a college I hear is fantastic but have never seen? No comparison in my mind. I'd take the debt-free option. But that is a major factor for me. I do think people underestimate the importance of retirement savings earlier on, though.
"Here's an example of what a big difference starting young can make. Say you start at age 25, and put aside $3,000 a year in a tax-deferred retirement account for 10 years - and then you stop saving - completely. By the time you reach 65, your $30,000 investment will have grown to more than $338,000, (assuming a 7% annual return), even though you didn't contribute a dime beyond age 35.
Now let's say you put off saving until you turn 35, and then save $3,000 a year for 30 years. By the time you reach 65, you will have set aside $90,000 of your own money, but it will grow to only about $303,000, assuming the same 7% annual return. That's a huge difference."
http://money.cnn.com/retirement/guide/basics_bas_ics.moneyma_g/index.htm
What, honestly, can Harvard give you that is much more substantial than what the other school can? That's a question you should ask yourself, I think. Is it worth potentially a decade of more of your free choice? Is it worth a massive chunk of retirement savings, too? If you feel that it is worth that, then you have your answer, and you should stay on the wait list and absolutely go! If you don't feel it is, then that's your answer there, too.
Either way, I am so excited for you, and I wish you complete happiness in your career and school paths!
I hope you update us on your choice so we can celebrate with you.
The reason these T3 schools don't care if you know about your financial aid package before you accept their offer of admission is because they only offer need-based aid. They are not lying; they are very strict about this and for good reason.
There is virtually no difference between committing to H before they offer admission v. after if financial aid is the only thing you're worried about.
@"Seeking Perfection" should not commit to H's waitlist, though, since he is now on Y's.
The really strange thing to me is to ask for me to commit to definitely go if I get in when they have no way to enforce it. It's not like I'm signing a contract or anything so it isn't actually binding, unless I consider my word binding. But I have not even had to give my word. They didn't ask everyone to agree to come to get onto the waitlist; they asked us to get off of the waitlist if we didn't agree. So if I had not read the email there would be no quandry about whether to stay on the waitlist.
I definitely agree with you about the value of starting a retirement savings early especially since we are not talking about $3000 a year for ten years and starting earlier or later.
Instead it is more like starting my career by saving $50,000 to $70,000 a year for a 3-5 year stint in Big Law. (It would take about this long to pay off the debt with $50,000 to $70,000 paid a year and that is about how long people who get Big Law and want to transition elsewhere or who won't make partner probably have in Big Law on average). So leaving Big Law, shortly before age 30 I could have $150,000(3 yrs saving $50,000 average) to $350,000(5 yrs saving $70,000 on average) plus interest in savings if I went to Michigan. Alternatively, I could have anywhere from some debt left if I went to Harvard or Yale to around $70,000 in net savings.
At a 7 percent growth rate left in savings for 35 years till age 65 I would have $150,000 × 1.07^35 or $1.6 million in retirement savings from just the Big Law savings. Alternatively, if we give me 5 years in Big Law averaging $70,000 in savings per year because the salary gets higher so I could save more, I could have the $350,000 growing at 7 percent for 33 years till the same age. $350,000 × 1.07^33 =$3.26 million at 65. 0 savings would grow to 0 and any debt would prevent me from saving any non-Big Law money for longer. Now obviously it isn't that simple. There are 401Ks, Roth IRA's, the backdoor Roth IRA, and many other ways which some saving would be tax advantaged either not being taxed when you put it in or not being taxed when you take it out. Additionally, if there is inflation and that 7% is a nominal iterest rate we are not talking in current dollars. But, the Time Value of money part is pretty clear. If I have $150,000 more in debt at Harvard(so if savings from any Harvard financial aid balance out the higher cost of living in Cambridge leaving the difference at my scholarship amount at Michigan) then I will have at least 1.6 million more dollars at retirement(and the difference will probably be bigger because if interest on the debt before it is paid off).
Harvard or Yale might be able to cover that difference in the long run if someone stayed in Big Law and made partner, but the odds of that are low and additionally I don't want to be in Big Law forever. When I transition to some public interest job it is not going to pay enough to save that kind of money. So there is no way Harvard or Yale will make up the difference financially. Rather, they have to make up the difference by offering me a better chance at some job I want enough to give up basically an entire retirement worth of early savings.
They are incredible schools and offer better chances at things like teaching law school that sound appealing. Maybe they offer better chances at other things that are even harder to value like making a difference in the world. But I don't know if I value them that much. I kind of doubt it.
I'll stay on the waitlist because maybe it looks different from the other side, but hopefully this reminds people of just how valuable $150,000 is at the very start of your career. If you have two schools you can probably get Big Law from and one is $150,000 cheaper that means a lot.
Indeed. 150k isn't just 150k. It's more like 200-300k in loan total repayment, plus all the lost investment time and money lost while paying that off (as you pointed out with your calculations). It can be a great deal more than a lot of people realize.
Happiness is a very hard to calculate thing and it differs from person to person. Ultimately, you have to weigh it all together and decide what will be the best life for you. It definitely seems like you have been considering all the angles!
On a total aside, what annoys me about the commitment aspect of the email is that I try really hard to honor my word. While there's no legal binding there, I would be compelled to honor it. Maybe I'm just naive and old-school in this respect. I feel when word is given, you should try your best to uphold it. I wonder if that will be an asset or a liability when going forward.
Why do we think a verbal/electronic commitment is not binding?
It isn't that it is verbal/electronic. It is that it is backwards. You can't say someone made a commitment on the basis that they didn't say they were not committing. A commitment has to be affirmative.
So when Harvard says to get off the waitlist if you are not comfortable with waitlist guidelines which you didn't have to agree to, to sign on to, or anything else it can't possibly be binding. They know that. If they wanted it to be binding, they would make you agree to the guidelines before joining the waitlist.
That's the part of it which bothers me. They created an incentive structure where I am incentivized to ignore the email and let it seem like I am committed to going there if they let me in even if I am not sure. And they did it that way because they can't do it in a way that is actually binding without blatantly yield protecting and they know it. However, they can issue these waitlist guidelines and hope to intimidate me off the waitlist using my sense of honor if I am not fully committed to going there.
I don't know if a lot of schools do this or its just Harvard. The only other waitlist I am staying on is Yale's and they have been polite the whole time.
Comes off as rude. Like, yeah, that's what students really need right now: head games and extra worry at this point to extend suffering and make them even more insecure about this process. Really?
I may be misreading it, but it definitely gives one pause to wonder what their aim is, and at very least, how uncool it is that such a misunderstanding could even occur -- assuming that's what it is -- with the world's top people in law education in charge of things. They could be very clear very quickly and easily, if they so desired (as you pointed out). It's the impression I get that it seems like a head game, and I'm rather surprised they'd do that to anyone. Harvard is supposed to be all that and a bag of chips, after all.
Hey, if Yale treats you right, then that's awesome.
One of those schools better wise up and take you and your perfect LSAT score already.
Wii f they don't it will spare me a stressful decision annd save me some money at U of M. So I'm happy either way.