Minnesota Decision

It is possible to get accepted at Minnesota with a personal statement that is less than two pages (granted, it's short by a few lines) that does not address a specific reason for applying to Minnesota. I got the call that I had been accepted a few days before Christmas. My package arrived in the mail today with a scholarship offer of $18,000 a year. I thought that Minnesota was the most likely after UVA to reject my application. Now I've been accepted and offered a pretty nice scholarship. There is an applicant on LSN that has numbers very similar to mine (and a few schools that overlap, It will be interesting to see how his cycle compares to mine as he is still in undergrad). He was given a scholarship for $12,000 a year. I guess my career experience and PhD bought me an extra $6,000.

Only IU-Bloomington and Washington University are pending. Once rejections start going out I'll be able to see how much of a boost my PhD gave me in my cycle.

Promotion

I have achieved one of my personal career goals by getting a promotion to Sr. R&D Scientist. This is the first time in my career that I have been promoted. I left my first job after a year and a half and left that second job for graduate school after two years. I just finished my third year in my current position. Getting this promotion was my major short term career objective. My long term career objectives have evolved with law school in mind. Now I'm wondering if I should use my short term achievement to further my long term goals. Do I tell schools where I am still pending about my promotion?

I knew that I had been put in for a promotion while I was finishing up my applications, and I thought about how it would be nice to mention a promotion in my resume. Schools are looking at my file. I recently went complete at Indiana, and my Minnesota status checker recently showed my In Review date switching to December 11. Every school tells you to let them know if anything in your file changes. I always thought that this was mostly about addresses and things like that, but maybe this kind of information counts. My instincts tell me to just let things be, but a part of me thinks that it might help me at a UVA. Maybe I'll start a thread at TLS. I haven't done that yet.

UVA Applicant Profile

My assertion that I will be on the accept/reject borderline at UVA is not just wishful thinking. I have three reasons for feeling this way. One, my LSAT score is competitive. It's a little below the median, but it's definitely in the competitive range. Two, I am a Virginia resident. This could be a significant factor in the evaluation of my application. Three, UVA's applicant profile in the official ABA guide to law schools. (Use this link to access a list of schools, click on the school, click on the Law School Description, and scroll to the bottom to see the applicant profile.)

This is most of UVA's applicant profile. After stating that they use more than LSAT and GPA to make admissions decisions, they provide this information:

Each applicant is assessed as an individual, taking into account not only LSAT scores and undergraduate grades, but also the strength of an applicant’s undergraduate
or graduate curriculum, trends in grades, the maturing effect of experiences since college, the nature and quality of any work experience, significant achievement in extracurricular activities, service in the military, contributions to campus or community through service and leadership, and personal qualities. (Click here to see the entire profile)

I take them at their word. In looking through these attributes, I think I will get a little positive credit for curriculum strength, maturing effect of experiences since college, and work experience. All of those individual factors don't mean much by themselves, but taken together, they could really make a difference to my application. In any event, that's why I think I'm on the fence.

UVA application strategy

I have mentioned that I am complete at UVa, but I neglected to mention my application strategy. I'll give a quick review of what I've done for other schools before getting into my UVA application.

Early on in this process, I planned on sending a variety of essays with each application. I nixed the diversity statement (for the reasons given here). I wrote the optional essay for W&M (I used a personal statement draft), but I did not write the optional essay for W&L (they say that there is no penalty for not writing it). I have submitted my resume with every application. My personal statement was just under 500 words (thanks to the limits imposed by U of R and George Mason (although Mason just wants something in the ballpark of the 500 word limit). It's not quite 2 pages. Minnesota suggests 2 to 5 pages. I like my statement the way that it is and thought it would be a mistake to tack something on just to make it 2 pages. I had not written an essay expressing my desire to attend a particular school, until UVa anyway.

There is a debate raging over on TLS on whether or not it is prudent to submit a Why X statement with every application. The debate was prompted by somebody posting that an admissions dean at Harvard said a Why Harvard statement will only hurt an application. These posts (here and here) were clearly written after reading the Harvard post and freaking out about writing one for UVA. UVA is an interesting application because, while they do not request an essay explaining why you are applying to UVA, the admissions dean gave an interview and said that they will look at them if they are in the application. You can read the entire interview here, but this is the relevant portion to the Why UVA question;

TLS: Since UVA doesn't have an optional "why UVA?" essay, what are some good ways applicants can indicate a strong interest in UVA?

Applicants can and do submit “why UVA” essays all the time. We just do not specifically ask for them. I also get a number of “why X Law School” essays all the time, where X is (accidentally) not Virginia Law. That is a sure way to get yourself wait-listed or rejected.

I almost submitted my application without the Why UVA essay. I was one click away from submitting my application when I remembered that I wanted to submit that additional essay. I thought about not writing it, but then I realized that I could address my motivations for law school in the Why UVA statement. I also knew that I could write an essay that would be more than I really like the campus and think I would like living in C'ville for three years. I want IP and UVA has TWO IP clinics. I also have family reasons for staying close to central Virginia. Those three elements, I want IP, you have IP clinics and your location works for me, are the three paragraphs of my Why UVA statement (although I called it a Statement of Interest in my actual application). I feel like it adds something to my application. How likely is it that somebody else will have the same essay in their application package?

My take on the Harvard comment is pretty simple. How unique is each Why Harvard essay? Would you really want to read a few thousand essays that all pretty much say the same thing? Why put something in your application that just makes you look more like everybody else? I wrote one for UVA because I suspect that I will be very much on the borderline of the admission/waitlist//reject line. I wanted to have something in there that will help give the committee more insight into me and my plans for law school. If you don't have anything unique to say, don't say anthing at all.

Why I'm OK with Applying in mid-October

There is evidence on TLS that quite a few people are trying to get their applications in as early as possible. My reference book for applying to law school discusses when to submit applications in nice detail, and I have no reason to question her advice. Ann Levine says that it really doesn't help to apply as soon as a school starts taking applications. Besides needing to work a few bugs out of the system at the beginning of the cycle, the people who will be making the admissions decisions aren't even in the office. They're on the road trying to recruit new students. Here is a list of the schools that will be at William and Mary's graduate and professional school fair next month. These people aren't going to be reading files. In Ann's opinion, your application is still in plenty early if it gets there before Halloween. Getting it in before Thanksgiving is still early enough to take advantage of rolling admissions (there are more seats available at the beginning of the cycle).

I've discovered another reason to hold back on submitting applications. Fee waivers are still rolling in at a nice clip. I got three today for crying out loud (Cordozo, St. Louis, and the one I'm about to mention)! I thought I was set on which schools I would be applying to, but just this evening I got a fee waiver from Washington University in St. Louis. I will definitely take them up on their offer. I also got a letter from U of R letting me know that they'll be at VCU's law school fair. If I pay them a visit at said event, they will happily provide a fee waiver. Seeing as they were the only school that I did not have a waiver for, I will pop on over there during my lunch break on October 1 and say hello.

GPA Addendum Decision

One last benefit of my visit to U of R. Given that my undergraduate GPA will not be taken too seriously, thank God, I will not be writing an addendum to address my sophomore year dip. This was something I debated doing earlier. My visit clearly indicates that I don't need to put too much emphasis on anything relating to my grades.

Controlling a big variable

I knew going into this that I needed to find a single resource that will give me some insight into the law school application process. I would hate to do something stupid that would kill my application regardless of my numbers. This is a single replicate experiment so there will be no second trial. I read plenty of forums and follow a few blogs. Ann Levine's book seemed like the best choice for my go to guide for how to navigate this process. Her book is short but the information is dense. She has a nice breakdown of the relative importance of LSAT score and undergraduate GPA. The book is more guidelines than specific steps. I like that. I recommend taking a look at it if you are so inclined. You can buy it her site or Amazon.