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3 Likes
Distracting admissions chatter thread
LSAT_Wrecker
Member ⭐
So, we're into the final testing, application preparation, and waiting portion of this year's cycle. I figured we needed a space to talk / complain about the funny things that have happened / we have learned. Here is today's annoyance:
I'm pending at Iowa Law. The last two days, I have received two emails from the Iowa University Financial Aid Office notifying me that they are unable to consider me for financial aid at this time. Why? Because I have not been admitted to a degree program for the 2019-2020 year...
Thanks for the reminder. Do you want to kick my dog, too?
How about you guys? What funny or educational things have happened to you?
Comments
I've never unsubscribed from so many emails in my life...
I hear you. I opened up (went public with) my CRS after the September LSAT. After about 3 weeks of being bombarded, I closed it again. I'm still unsubscribing from emails.
Hm well I was assured by the asst dean of admissions that my ED app would be processed and completed by COB Friday that week (on the Monday prior). Friday came, no decision. Next week came, same dean said I’d have an answer by CON Friday of the week, no decision. He said most of the staff was out due to illness. I’m past the ED decision deadline listed on the app, which is DIFFERENT than the ED decision deadline listed on the website. I don’t know what to do and have just started sending out all my other apps. So over this whole proces.
I got one from Ave Maria and the banner on my phone simply read:
They're really streamlining the process, lol.
Omg. Right???
https://media1.tenor.com/images/7feaf3a79f6df23474d4f4b3d6ddb3a9/tenor.gif
So the bar passage rate at one of my top choices just dropped by 14%...
https://www.reactiongifs.us/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/What-Star-wars.gif
https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2018/12/july-2018-california-bar-exam-results.html
Pithy gifs aside, as an applicant looking at both southern California and a mid-west market (St. Louis), how does one justify the huge premium California schools charge when looking at their outcomes (lower bar passage rates and overall JD required employment numbers)? I know the California bar is the hardest bar in the US. Is it just a case that if you want to live and work in southern California, you have to be willing to pay up and risk a lower chance at getting a real lawyer job?
I was accepted into one school in less than a week of applying. I just wish my other schools could get back to me as quick. When do you think the next wave of decisions will go out after the New Year?
Man it’s tough. The one thing is, if you do want to work in CA, you should definitely go to school there. Because if you look at a lot of the CA bar passage rates at out of state schools.... yiiiikes. It’s often in like the 30s. So, the 70s and 80s rates at the CA schools are pretty good, comparatively. That said, it’s also worthwhile to keep in mind that that number is first time bar passage rates. It doesn’t account for people who pass on the 2nd try, which I have known multiple people in CA that ended up that way. Obviously, not ideal, but the CA bar is a beast. The CA schools best prepare you for it, though you may end up having to take it more than once.
Also, it’s sort of the same thing for employment. The rates may not always look great, but trying to get a job in CA after attending a law school in another state is suuuuper hard. There are just so many law schools in CA that employers have lots of local options.
All that to say, I think that’s why CA costs are justified. Because if you do want to work there, attending a local school vastly improves your chances at both passing the bar and getting a job there.
However, if someone would be just as happy elsewhere and not putting all your eggs into the CA basket, then it is what it is. Might make sense to go somewhere else.
I think it really varies by school. To put it bluntly, I think the higher up the rankings you go, the more time schools take. They have that luxury because they get lots of quality applicants and can be patient to "see how their class looks." I suspect we'll see some waves starting the second week in January. Admission offices will have recovered from the holidays by that point.
Good luck. May the admission decisions always be in your favor!
A healthy dose of harsh reality... blah.
So at one school my application is under review. It went under review sometime last week, and then updated again this week, with the new date. Does that mean anything? Is this school actively reviewing my application? Should I hope for a decision soon. I only applied two weeks ago, and this is a top university.
Thank you !
One popular theory is that date changes usually mean a different reader / reviewer is looking at your materials. However, that may or may not be true. I would not place any hopes on the timeliness of decisions using this as a data point.
@LSAT_Wrecker thanks for the insight!
Sigh, the break from status checkers was nice. As hard as I try to stay away from them, I fear that with admissions offices opening again, I'll be back to my daily sweep. Only three remaining, so at least I spend less time doing it now. How's everyone's cycle looking so far?
https://i.imgur.com/ETBpP1o.gif
Hopefully, you can bring it back up by 0.3%. But yeah, everything is harder, more expensive, and riskier in Cali. Live fast, die young. It's the Cali lifestyle tax.
Or maybe they're behind schedule (which seems to be the case for many schools this year... maybe another significant increase in the number of applicants), and just need to push your date back. =/
One school made me chuckle as they had my file recorded as 'waiting TOEFL score'. I'm English, live in England, and went to an English university...
Also, this blog post from Spivey helped calm the nerves that come with waiting.
https://blog.spiveyconsulting.com/this-will-be-a-slow-cycle/
I can definitely understand their concern as you probably speak English. We speak American over here, you may have a hard time adjusting. lol
Caught a nice acceptance to Iowa today. I was looking at their student profile and saw their 2017 student age range of 21-39. I'll be 47 when I start law school. Now, I'm all like
https://thumbs.gfycat.com/FirstGloomyCoqui-size_restricted.gif
For some reason, I see you coming in more like this, Wrecker:
Hi all! I know I don't comment a lot but I've always been lurking and appreciating you all
I really appreciate this admissions thread since for the most part we're no longer LSATers (huzzah!) and I've been mostly going to reddit for admissions info, but I don't feel like I know em like I kinda know y'all.
Anyway I have a silly story, I generally don't look at the status checkers because I figure they'll email me anyway once the decision is made, but after not hearing from anywhere for a couple of weeks (during the holidays) I HAD to check to see what was going on, and saw that I had gotten into Irvine without even knowing. This was 12/28 or so. Yay!
However, I hadn't received an admit email despite the decision date being 12/21... I finally started freaking out today and even looked up the definition of "admitted" to make sure it didn't mean "denied" (talk about how the waiting is making me go slightly insane...). For whatever reason I didn't think of this earlier but I went into my trash folder and searched "Irvine," turns out I accidentally deleted the email with 20 other random law school marketing emails because the subject was just "Let Me Be the First to Congratulate You" from the dean and I thought it was yet another congrats email re: taking the LSAT lol
Tldr: I'm an idiot and deleted my admit email and psyched myself out, let it be a lesson to be thorough when you're deleting those marketing emails from random schools.
Hope this cycle is going well for you all! I am still waiting to hear from 10-12 schools, but so far am 5/5 which has been a pleasant surprise. It will be sad if those T14 rejections all hit me at once though
but still hoping for the best!
Congrats @LSAT_Wrecker on Iowa!!
@sandypants zot zot zot
Congrats! and continued good luck.
When I decided to re-apply this year, I had a goal to have my applications out in October. Instead, I sent my first one in December, the next on January 2nd, and then sent in another 5 last night. Huzzah? At least I can actually, seriously say I am applying this year lol. Still have a number of apps to go, but it's game on now.
@"Leah M B" I don't know if you have already hit submit on this one, but Case Western has sent me snail mail marketing almost every single week (after I unsubscribed to their email list). Its a running joke in my house now, "What did Case Western send today?" Don't forget them!
In all serious, good work so far. Buckle down and get those last ones in!
@"Leah M B"
I hope it's been easier the second time around, although there's not much you can do about the LSAC website being a hassle (AND a hustle amirite). Congrats on getting those first few in, and good luck getting the rest done
@LSAT_Wrecker
Thank you!
@sandypants Oh man, can we talk about how if you let your session time out on LSAC's site, you have to close my entire browser and re-open it, otherwise it'll give an error when trying to re-open you applications? It's the most irritating thing.
@"Leah M B"
Seriously the worst! Especially cause I'm huge into tabs so all my tabs go away also... I think with each app (which I had 17...) I had to restart the browser at least once per session which ended up being too many times.