Tuesday, November 29, 2005

|The Deal.|

So, I emailed the Dean at Wisconsin asking for further explanation of the fellowship offer he indicated when he emailed me to accept (!) me.

The non-resident cost for tuition at Wisconsin is about $28.8k. They waive the non-resident "portion," leaving just the resident portion of $11.6k. Then they give a monthly stipend that, in total, adds up to the resident portion of tuition -- actually, it was a little more at $11.7k this school year and is expected to go up as the cost of tuition is expected to go up.

What he said was that most students who receive the fellowship use federal loans (which I'm all about because my credit sucks) to pay the $11-12k that in-state tuition costs and then use the stipend to cover their own costs, which are an estimated $14k for the year (books, food, housing, travel, etc.). I would, then, only need to take out loans for $14-15k: the $2k of estimated costs not covered by the stipend + the $12k of tuition.

And at most I'd only need to do that for the first and 2nd years because the summer after the 2L year, students make, I think on average, $20-30k. So I could come out of law school with a starting salary of at least $100k with only $30k in debt. That's, like, unheard of.

And pretty fucking sweet. Now, the big question: Will I take the Wisconsin offer? Tune-in in about 5 months to find out.


promulgated by SWS2.1 at 02:33.
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Friday, November 25, 2005

|So maybe I'm asleep...|

And the past two months have all been one crazy LSAT induced dream.

I just got into another law school: The University of Wisconsin. With full non-resident tuition covered (and maybe a stipend?). That was perhaps the greatest email I'd ever received or will ever receive.

No, this must be a dream. It's the night before the LSAT and the stress has gotten to me.

Or it's real and my life (much like myself, if you ask Dean Hall of Wisconsin or Dean Zearfoss of Michigan) is awesome.


promulgated by SWS2.1 at 19:55.
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Thursday, November 24, 2005

|Just when I thought I was out...|

Only minutes after the last post did I head off to school. Habitually, when I arrive to school I check my mailbox as I've finally started receiving law school spam here in Paris. Be it a Tier 1 or a Tier 4, it's nice to feel wanted.

There was nothing in my box and I was turning to leave when the desk woman shouts to me, "Jason, yes? You have a packet." And I thought, "Oh, alright. I guess a school sent me a viewbook too big to fit in my box." And she pulls out a UPS package. And my heart started to beat. FAST.

It was from the University of Michigan. It was big. I cut it open. A large, white envelope with something hard inside. Literally, my hands started to tremble. But in my head I tried to remain rational, "It's probably just the letter saying that my file is complete."

No. It was a letter saying that I have been accepted into one of the greatest law school's in the country. With a hand-written personal note saying that they would really like me to attend, with the word "very" in the first line of the otherwise standard acceptance letter underlined in the same pen that wrote the note.

I started screaming. And then I ran into the garden, saw that there was no one I recognized, and still shouted, "I just got into law school!" I was still shaking.

And then to top it off, I passed by the front office and the woman stopped me because a second package had arrived: the kindest care package from the kindest girl in the world. Maria had sent me a Halloween package, two weeks before Halloween (but French customs are hell to get through), filled with candy, cinnamon sticks, a new cookie recipe, tea and, I could hardly believe it, vanilla pudding mix! Oh, and a tiny pumpkin.

Today might actually be the best goddamned day of my life.


promulgated by SWS2.1 at 07:54.
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Wednesday, November 23, 2005

|The New "Scared Straight."|

So of course I immediately hopped onto LSD to post about my Cornell "deferment." Apparently everyone has been "deferred" and so, collectively, we've decided it is probably just a bug.

Whether it is or not, the fact remains that I've slacked this semester because 1) there was no work to do and 2) I've been so terribly distracted by law school. And being confronted with what I already knew was possible, the fact that law schools will most likely want to see this semester's grades to determine whether or not to admit me, I realize I need to kick it into high gear.

All semester there has been almost no work. But apparently that's just the way they do it here (typical French efficiency), because school ends three weeks from tomorrow, and in that time I have 2 papers, a translation project, a final presentation on the heroification of Jean Moulin, and 2 compositions due. I also have smaller homeworks and finals to contend with. Every grade can still, conceivably, become an A at this point. And would or would that not totally rock my GPA?

So, I am taking a break from blogging. I realized that seeing you (the internet) as an audience for my "voice," I use posting as a distraction as much as I use looking up law school data. You'll read no more from me until school is over or I get into a law school. Whichever comes first.

Gone Scholarin'... or En train de me scolariser, veuillez de patienter. (that doesn't really work, does it?)


promulgated by SWS2.1 at 19:51.
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|Too smart for my own good.|

So I've been calculating and figuring and doodadding to guesstimate what would happen to me with these Early Action applications. The whole point of applying Early Action was to get some sort of gauge on what might happen to the rest of my non-EA applications.

I had this idea that chances are I'd get a lot of deferrals and waitlists this December, because my numbers aren't that strong for these schools, though people have gotten in with worse (I think). They probably want to see if I'm the most interesting of the hard luck cases they'll get this whole cycle and/or they want further proof that I can keep my grades up. Which means I'm probably going to have to have my transcript sent to LSAC again which means this process is far from over.

And on the Cornell Online Status Check Site: "Your application is ready for review by the Admissions Committee. Your application was held over to the regular decision application pool. If, your application was complete by February 1, you should receive a written decision by the next 8 to 12 weeks."

So, looks like I was right. I tend to be. But only when being right isn't really something I want to be.

It's a curious curse.


promulgated by SWS2.1 at 17:20.
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|Am I really that much older?|

Okay, so not only do members of my fellow classmates refer to Jem like she and her holograms are some retro fad (those that know what I'm referring to when I say, "Truly, truly truly outrageous," that is...), but apparently they don't even remember Mac and Me.

Or maybe I'm just the only one who saw this movie?


promulgated by SWS2.1 at 16:27.
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Tuesday, November 22, 2005

|Le y en. Easy as 1 2 3.|

The student said, "Je me le souviens-"

The prof said, "Non."

She said, "J'y me souviens?"

He said, "Non, encore." He walked to the chalk board and rewrote the first half of the original sentence. "je me souviens de c----"

He asked, "Maintenant?"


promulgated by SWS2.1 at 02:31.
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|Not that I thought I would get in...|

And not that I think there's no longer any chance, but with so many kids already getting into school, it's getting harder and harder to keep my chin up.

Between the people getting called by Harvard and now people getting into Stanford, and throwing in Georgetown, Fordham, and Berkeley into the mix (plus a slew of schools that I did not bother to apply to), it's shaping up to be a long admissions cycle. I mean, let people in early, by all means. But we haven't even carved the turkey yet and people whose top choice schools are THE top choice schools already know that they are into two or three of them (except for the ones who are already into Stanford, who are using UChicago, #6 by USNWR, as their "safety").

::sighs::

And it's only about to get worse, as, according to LSN, Harvard and Wisconsin (and we no Wisconsin is out!) are also going to start sending out those letters this week.

::double sighs:::


promulgated by SWS2.1 at 01:59.
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Sunday, November 20, 2005

|It's like a magic eye picture.|

If you stare at law school admissions stats long enough (sort, re-sort, by sent date, LSAT score, complete date, applied date, GPA, etc.), things start to become clear, defined, predictable.

IF I am getting into Georgetown University Law Center (Why not "School"? You got me.), then the glorious letter with the oh so friendly hand-written note from Dean Cornblatt should be put in the mail next Monday and given the proximity of D.C. to Paris (or NYC, not being quite sure where it will be sent) sociopolitically, I expect that IF I am getting into Georgetown that I will have a letter from them in my mailbox by Saturday, Dec. 3rd.

Am I jinxing myself? Probably not. There are the following caveats:

1) A top law school with my GPA? That's already not likely.
2) Being black is a constant source of vexation for predictions. In fact, someone has gotten in with a lower LSAT score than myself so far, but apparently his extracurriculars are off the charts. He declined to list them. Of the other URM (that's the new "colored" if you didn't know) applicants with scores in my LSAT/GPA range, one has not gone complete at GULC yet (so he can't hear back) and the other has not heard back.
3) Just because I do not get a letter now, it does not necessarily mean that the letter I get from GULC later in December will be a rejection. (Is this third one a caveat?)

I will know if my prediction for next week will be right based on how my predictions for other applicants this week turn out.

Stay tuned.


promulgated by SWS2.1 at 19:20.
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Saturday, November 19, 2005

|The Brunch Experiment.|

It's not enough for me to plan events and attend them and oversee them. I want, nay, crave a challenge.

So, The Brunch Experiment.

I shall invite friends and acquaintances (maybe you know one another, maybe you don't) to brunch. I won't be there, since I'm in Paris and you're all in New York. I shall pick a place that I hope you will enjoy and I will try to pick people that I hope will enjoy each other (or, if I'm feeling devilish, who I don't expect to enjoy one another). You won't know who's coming until you get there (unless you talk to one another about it, but hopefully you won't).

Despite that parenthetical, the idea is to see breads broken and friendships forged. Who knows what will happen?


promulgated by SWS2.1 at 17:49.
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|Maybe they'll find it funny?|

Still avoiding the paper I've been avoiding all week (in case you were wondering about the spike in posts), I decided to check over the application that I sent to the University of Wisconsin Law School over two months ago. You know, to see if there are any errors (that somehow I'd be able to do anything about now, two months later?).

All was fine and good. Until the last page. The signature and date line. There was no signature, but there couldn't be because it was an electronic application. But on the date line, if only you could have seen how fast and how far my jaw dropped:

"Vanderbilt Personal Statement." No, not "September 15, 2005," but "Vanderbilt Personal Statement." Not "09/15/05," but "Vanderbilt Personal Statement."

Vanderbilt Personal Statement.

Vanderbilt Personal Statement.

Vanderbilt Personal Statement!

Even a post-modern, "09.15.2005" would have been preferable to "Vanderbilt Personal Statement." Maybe they'll find it funny?


promulgated by SWS2.1 at 15:20.
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|Veiled? Barely.|

Does anyone else think that Toby Stock's, Dean of Admissions at Harvard Law School, recent post on his blog is a thinly veiled jab at Harvard's primary competitor, Yale?

Speaking of the blog, what happened to it? Before it was simple and beautiful, making good use of lots of white space, with a bar on the side of of horizontal stripes in various shades of red (well, crimson). Now it's dull, looks like the rest of the Harvard Law School web page and hardly stands out as being a blog.


promulgated by SWS2.1 at 07:17.
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|"Honey, as far as I'm concer-erned, the tables have turned."|

The University of Texas School of Law has graciously deemed me as meriting a fee-waiver based on my academic performance as well as LSAT score.

This is humorous to me because, of all 189 (I think) ABA approved and provisionally approved law schools, UT is the one and only school against which I have an ideological stance against applying (although BYU with its "Honor Code" is pushing it).

Two months ago I received their need-based fee waiver application in the mail. Beyond the normal financial situation questionnaire, they also required:

a) the creation of a "budget"
b) an essay-like explanation of why I cannot afford to pay the app
c) that they see a clear reason for admitting me -- in other words, if I'm likely to get in, then and only then will they give me the fee waiver, but that is based on being academically competitive. Apparently I am that, according to the email I received today, but at the time I did not know/think that given my GPA (so I'm really thinking it's the being black that's suddenly made me so competitive) and lack of an LSAT score.

My primary issue with this application is not about me. It's about the truly poor (because, truth be told, I could have paid the $70 -- it would have meant eating breadless sandwiches for a week, but I could have done it) chicano applicant who works 55+ hrs a week (most of his money going to help out his family, because his dad was injured on the job and has no insurance/worker's compensation), whose grades aren't very strong (but who it's clear upon speaking with that he's very bright) who's doing all he can to stay afloat and get himself through school. Are you going to put this boy through all of these additional rings to apply? As if he hasn't been through enough already? Doesn't it occur to them that maybe the mere fact that this person cannot afford to pay the measley $70 application fee that perhaps there are a number of reasons (beyond their grades and LSAT score) why he isn't "academically competitive"? And then, if he doesn't get the fee waiver -- after taking out the time to fill out this extra and extraneous fee waiver application -- then not only are you telling him that he will most likely be rejected, but you are also telling him that he owes you $70 because he had to submit his application for admission along with the application for the fee waiver in order to be considered for the fee waiver.

I have half a mind to apply to UT and then, if I get in, explain to them exactly why I'm not going: "I got into Stanford, but also..."


promulgated by SWS2.1 at 03:42.
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Wednesday, November 16, 2005

|Bad Education.|

Keeping with the past precedent of unintentional cruelty, one of my professors today talked to us about our first papers. He started the class like so:

"Uhm, in America, is it common to have assignments where you discuss a topic for multiple pages?"

Mind you, at this point, none of us knew that he was going to discuss our papers. Someone asked, "You mean, 'papers'?"

Evidently our papers were so horrendous to him, as a collective, that he was forced into wondering if we'd ever written papers before -- if it was an academic practice in the states. I do not know what was supposed to be on tap for today (I misplaced my syllabus long ago), but the remainder of class was spent with his teaching us the proper form for composing a French paper, a form which looks unsurprisingly similar to the structure I was taught in middle school. Some of the students became angry. Some just highly frustrated. I've decided to chalk it up to the French experience and rather than remaining comfortably in the "my way or the highway" idea that non-Americans often ally to the American ethos, to see this as yet another avenue to la vie française. Besides, I only have school for five more weeks.

Our next assignment: correct (read: rewrite) our old assignment.


promulgated by SWS2.1 at 11:42.
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|"You've gotta know the rules if you wanna play the game." Part II.|

This is actually what the last post was intended to be about, but I got side tracked by the diversity discussion.

The USNWR takes into account factors other than LSAT score of admitted students in its methodology. One other factor is yield or matriculation rate. In other words, how many people who get into the University of Michigan actually become Wolverines? The problem with being any law school other than Yale (this includes Harvard and, to a lesser degree, Stanford) is that you are very likely to lose a number of students any given year to schools above you. At the same time, this should mean that, for any given school, you should be getting students from schools below you. And that is true, but conceivably you only want so many of them because the ones who are going to schools above you are the ones with the better scores and, logically, the ones being pulled from schools below have lower scores. Starting to grasp why "game" analogies are so pertinent?

On Brian Leiter's blog (a University of Texas law professor who publishes his own rankings, which curiously enough put UT at a much higher spot than the all too respected USNWR [8 vs. 15, I think]), a number of students wrote him last year complaining of the fact that they did not get into schools where they should have been a lock and that, in their opinions, the schools violated their "contracts." These kids complained, "I got into Harvard and NYU and Columbia, but was 'priority waitlisted' at UPenn and UChicago. What gives?" That's nothing close to a direct quote, but you get the gist. What gives is that those schools might have been engaging in what is called "yield protection."

Some members of the admissions committee out there in Hyde Park thought, "This kid is not coming to Chicago. No, she's going to go to Columbia and possibly try to leverage any money from us to get more money from them. Well we're not falling for it! Oh, but what if she does want to come to Chicago. Oh, we know, we'll 'priority waitlist' her. And we will give her the 'option' of writing another essay. If she writes it, clearly she does want to be here and we'll accept her post haste. Brilliant!" And the admissions committee was right. This girl isn't upset about having to go to Harvard. She's upset about not getting the acceptance letter she fully believes her $70 deserved. She doesn't care that she and they all knew she would not be matriculating. As far as she is concerned, she paid to have her qualifications for the school evaluated and because she got into Harvard she clearly must be qualified and that's all there is to that.

Now, it doesn't take a pre-law applicant to point out the problems in this logic, but before we go there, let's look at "yield protecting." I'm a law school, and I want an academically fortified and richly interesting entering class. And I'm small. My entering class is only about 250 students. There are far more students with the qualifications to be in my class than I can accomodate. Ahh, but how many of them want to be here? How many of them will stay if I let them in. They've paid me to evaluate them and I evaluate them as not being interested and that is something that I consider to be a very important qualification of getting into my institution. Worse still, what if I don't think they want to come but I let them in anyway because I suspect they won't come, but they do. EVERYONE DOES. Now I've got too many students and I have to build new dorms and make additional sections and reduce the number of 2L and 3L courses because I need to pull those teachers into teaching Contracts and Torts. Ahh, but if I don't let these kids in, then I don't have to worry about overenrolling. Better yet, if I waitlist them and they express interest, then if I am facing underenrollment, I can go to the waitlist, and I have right there a reservoir of high scoring kids who now want to come to me. And if they turn down my offer, I can just go to the next names on the list. Perfecto. Rah.

I dunno, yield protecting just seems like good business to me. The only real problem I see with yield protecting is that a school might turn down someone thinking he'll go higher when, in fact, the higher schools don't want him. But presumably they only out right reject people they don't want, that should not pose a problem. The student the school wants but does not think will matriculate will be waitlisted, and when he expresses interest, chances are he'll be accepted.

Now, to the students who feel gipped out of their $70 or $140 or $210 because you got into schools 1-5, but not all of schools 6-11: why do you think you deserve to get into those schools? You've assumed that you know the schools selection criteria. You heartily cling to the idea that schools decide things not based on numbers alone -- that is why you volunteered at the soup kitchen two nights a week every week of the semester just prior to your applying to law school, isn't it? -- yet as soon as it becomes evident that this process is about more than numbers, you get angry and bratty. Moreover, you've decided that because USNWR puts Yale at #1 that if you get into Yale, that should mean all 180+ ABA approved law schools below Yale should accept you with open arms. But besides all of the methodological flaws that are constantly pointed out in USNWR (even by you), there are several other (also flawed) methodologies that don't even place Yale in the top 5. But you've assumed that because USNWR says that Yale is THE school, that all other schools obviously must fall in line.

Moreover, why shouldn't your interest in attending the school be evaluated as well? Granted, the school is just second guessing (with the exception of Fordham, who actually asks you for a list of the other schools to which you're applying), but this whole process is guessing. Law schools are guessing you're an interesting or intelligent or decent person. Good grades or a good LSAT score or recommendations do not prove any of that, just suggest it. And if you couldn't think of a reason to write the why University of Michigan essay (or, worse still, coughed up a few quotes from the viewbook), then why should you get in? Just because you have a 3.9/176? No, I really don't think so.

You paid to be evaluated for admissions, but at no point did the law school say how they would evaluate you in anything but uncertain terms. If you want to be upset about not getting into your fifth or sixth choice school, be upset with yourself for having applied to a school you knew you weren't going to attend.*

*In defense of students, no one is an auto-admit anywhere and one can never know for sure where you will end up (unless you're the son or daughter of a very well connected alumnus).



promulgated by SWS2.1 at 08:20.
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|"You've gotta know the rules if you wanna play the game." Part I.|

In an increased effort to not waste time on LSD and instead do my school work, I've found myself reading more and more things on blogs and in papers such as the Wall Street Journal about law schools "gaming" the admissions process. Admittedly, I am getting into the fray a bit after the fact given that most of this dust was kicked up last April with US News and World Report (USNWR) came out with its rankings and a brand spanking new criterion to be added to the mix.

Formerly, one of the criteria was using the median of law schools' admitted students' LSAT scores. The result of such a system was that law schools could fill half of their classes with scores to keep them in a good place in the rankings and then fill the rest of the class with lower scoring students who were perhaps qualified in other ways (the "soft factors" that I am personally depending on: race, age, origins, work experience, etc.). For instance, of Yale's class of 205, 103 could have a score of 180 and the remaining 102 could have 140 and the median would still be 180 and Yale's #1 position would remain intact. Of course, no school stacks its student body like that (for one reason, GPA and LSAT score show some correlation and a class full of 140 scorers is likely to be a class full of low GPAs which one could argue is a class full of kids who do not work hard/well), but the point is that schools could give more spots to applicants with lesser "hard factors."

The change last year went to taking an average from the school's 75th and 25th percentiles to stand as the median. Suddenly that 140 is being thrust into the equation, plummeting Yale's "median" to 160, a far cry from 180 (Yale's median, btw, is not anywhere near 180, just using it as an easy example). The change took place because there was some talk that schools, who were self-reporting their medians, weren't being above board about it. The 25th/75th numbers are reported to the ABA and law schools cannot fudge that data unless they are looking for a smack down.

And with this change there was an outcry. Because schools who expected to rise (or at least not fall) in the rankings were sorely surprised when USNWR hit the stands last April. Now, the interesting thing, is that from sea to shining sea, you would be hard-pressed to find a school dean who defends ranking schools or USNWR's methodology. From Yale to Southern Methodist (Oh, poor Ms. Miers) to Drake, every law school categorically denounces the practice of ranking, saying that every school has its own faults and charms and these things can hardly be quantified (incidentally, they say the same sort of thing about law school applicants, yet strangely LSAT score is more often than not a strong indicator of where a student will end up) into a single numerical standing, especially when it almost implies a relationship that's more than ordinal. The cries also came from the minority camp. Blacks and Hispanics score, on average, 6-12 points lower on the LSAT than Whites (154 for the ave. white examinee, 143 for the ave. black examinee). Law schools have worked for some time to ensure "diversity" in their classes (this is not a discussion of what defines diversity, so let's not go that way) and the former USNWR methodology allowed them to do that without too much risk to their standings, but the new representation makes that much harder. And so it becomes a choice, Ranking or Diversity?

Speculators are hopeful that Diversity will win out, but I'm not so sure. I do not know what is the case for law schools, but according to an article in the September 2001 issue of the Atlantic Monthly, undergraduate schools are bound to the rankings not just by students and parents responding to the rankings, but outside parties such as donation-happy alumni and banks. Schools will go to banks to ask for loans, and while for you or me the bank might pull out a credit report, for them the banks will pull out a copy of USNWR and say, "You fell two spots in the rankings. Come to us next year when Washington and Lee is back to eating your dust." So it comes down to this: take this black female applicant who has a 2.99 GPA and a 152 LSAT but worked 50hrs a week to put herself through school and take care of her little sister OR decide to be "shocked" by yet another former white Teach for America Fellow who graduated from Princeton with a 3.86 and has a 172 LSAT and also be able to finance the building of a new library next year? You think that one person, one data point cannot make that much difference, but how big do you think law school classes are? Harvard is large by most standards with about 500. Many are below 300 and it's almost avant garde to be below 200 (Cornell is about 180).

I do not admire the admissions dean having to make that call. But, maybe he won't have to. I have heard rumors (and a shallow and cursory googling did not reveal anything to substantiate the claims) that the uproar was enough to make USNWR turn and run scared back to its former methdology. What does all of this up and down and back and forth mean for us applying now? It means I still have no idea where I'm going to get in. It also means there may be some very upset upstarts come April, but that's nothing new.


promulgated by SWS2.1 at 07:47.
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Tuesday, November 15, 2005

I want to preface the following rant with the fact that I think it would be super awesome to attend Harvard and should anyone with the power to do that for me be reading this post, please take no or at least very little offense.

|That's great, Harvard. Thanks.|

Today I received an e-mail from Harvard. You can imagine my happiness upon seeing that pop up in my inbox today, as I have been waiting for three weeks for my application to go "Complete" which is the last step before my application officially gets in line to be reviewed. Without going into even more tedious details about this process, people whose LSDAS reports couldn't possibly have been sent to Harvard before mine have gone complete before me, which I find to be very vexing.

But the email in my box was, in fact, not a complete notice. It was a notice informing me that Harvard has approved my application for a fee waiver, and yet another warning that Harvard is working as fast as they can and would appreciate if I made no attempts to contact them unless it is an urgent matter, and especially not regarding the status of my application (read: "Do not call us just because you want to know if we received all of your materials and if you are complete."), the standard warning at the bottom of any email from any given law school.

So I don't have to pay for my application. That's great, right? Only the thing is, I never applied for a fee waiver to Harvard. Why not? As many probably will not recall, I went through a number of bureaucratic rings of Hell and came back a few years older and a little bit singed earlier this past summer when I attempted to obtain an LSAC fee waiver. I emerged victorious from the expedition, a perq of which is that a number of law schools have it in the LSAC system to automatically give students with the LSAC fee waiver an application fee waiver. These include Boston College, Penn State Dickinson, Columbia, NYU and, oh yes, Harvard (among many generous others). And I appreciate it Harvard, I do.

But, why send me an email telling me that you've approved me for this thing that I never directly asked for that was automatically applied to my application that I sent to you exactly 2 months ago, on September 15th? And do you mean to tell me that it may possibly be the tardiness of approving me for this thing which was applied to my file automatically two months ago that has held up the processing of my application?

I do not want to seem ungrateful, for both the fee waiver and simply for the chance to apply to Harvard. I truly appreciate what they have given me.

No. That's great, Harvard. Thanks. Really. But, uhm, how about an email that is actually of some use?


promulgated by SWS2.1 at 14:37.
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Sunday, November 13, 2005

|"Why are you late?"|

Unable to take my mind off of law school, I managed to stumble upon a dusty recollection in the recesses of my brain from freshman year.

It was in the spring, at a performance of my favorite campus a capella group, Uptown Vocal. We were in the lounge in Hartley (or was it Wallach?). Anyway, there was a long-haired brunette sitting in front of me on an overstuffed love seat, by herself despite the fact that the room was packed full of people. She was defending that seat like it was a Discovery Channel special and the cushion was her young. Not long after the show started, a girl with short blonde hair slid into the unoccupied position on the sofa. She had in her hand a folder with a sticker of the NYU torch on the cover.

Her friend turns to her, miffed and whispers, "Why are you late?" She whispers back, "I got into NYU Law." She was so happy. They hugged -- it was like watching a scene from a feminine hygiene product commercial. The blonde girl cupped her hands over her mouth and whispered, "I can't believe it. I'm so excited."

I want that.


promulgated by SWS2.1 at 16:57.
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Saturday, November 12, 2005

|How many more reasons does Yale need?|

Seriously. First, there's just my awesome-ness. Then there was that whole thread devoted to me on LSD. And now, this conversation that I just had with a girl who came upon my LSN profile (lists where I'm applying and other info about me. I get really quite liberal with the amount of information I share on the website -- I mean, if I'm going to get into Yale, people need to know what kind of kid with a 3.02/163 combo can pull that off).

RandomGirl: hey, i got your screen name from lsn... and all i have to say is WOWW
SWS2.1: i'm sorry?
RandomGirl: your stats are very impressive
SWS2.1: hmm... my stats aren't impressive at all... i mean, depending on how you look at it
SWS2.1: but thanks, i guess.
RandomGirl: stats meaning background also
SWS2.1: oh... hmm... that might be true. thanks.
SWS2.1: are you applying to law school now?
RandomGirl: yes, im not on lsn yet, i will make an acct soon
[...]
RandomGirl: well i was also gonna let you know that before i read your profile on there i was a little more close minded -- i didnt think it was fair for someone to get into law school if they had less competitive scores just because they overcame diversity etc etc.
RandomGirl: I thought the "best applicant" was based on scores alone
RandomGirl: and after i read your profile it really opened my eyes to someone having to overcome so much, and i realize now why schools do what they do
RandomGirl: it really made me realize a lot
SWS2.1: lol uhm, that's good, i guess
SWS2.1: i mean, it saddens me that it took me to show that to you
SWS2.1: but whatever works, i suppose.
RandomGirl: yes i know... i guess i never really understood
SWS2.1: no one can understand everything... if you never had to understand it, why would you?
RandomGirl: i guess --- i dont know, i just now think that someone like you should get admitted OVER someone who has had everything handed to them.... i really never thought about it like that before
RandomGirl: i definitely see why schools do it, and i think it is great... i will keep up with where you are admitted.... and I am definitely pulling for ya
SWS2.1: thanks


promulgated by SWS2.1 at 14:09.
0 comments

________________________

|Complete.|

My applications are complete at the four schools to which I applied Early Action: Boston College, UPenn, Cornell and Georgetown.

Of all of them, I'm most likely to hear from Georgetown first. According to LSN, the earliest dates anyone heard from the other three last year were 12/9 for Cornell, 12/16 for BC and I forget UPenn's but it was also in December. As well, UPenn sent out rejections before they sent out acceptances, so I think I'd rather not be included in that first wave of decision letters if last year is at all representative of how they do things.

Applying to law schools is suddenly very real. At this very moment someone might be flipping through my file. Looking at my past coursework, my essays, scrutinizing every move I've made since August 2000 (or earlier, as some schools want to know where I went to high school and even my pre-college work experience). They know more about me than I do, because they know all of this about me, as well as what my professors and dean all of think of me -- information to which I've "waived" my access rights (why do they even make it optional when it's so clearly not an option?).

There have been people to go complete at Georgetown one day, and receive an acceptance in the mail five days later, which means it must have taken Georgetown, at most, two days to decide on them. Knowing this fact only makes me feel less and less special with each passing day. But I have to keep reminding myself that I don't have good scores and it's going to be hard for any school to decide to accept me, so it might take until the last day before I hear anything.

It's going to be a long six weeks (five plus international mail transit time).



promulgated by SWS2.1 at 07:59.
0 comments

________________________

|It's all coming together.|

On the law school discussion forum that I've been reading and posting for the past few months, there have been numerous questions regarding financial aid. In fact, a commonly asked question is, "When can we apply for financial aid? The schools say by March, so can I just apply now? When is the earliest I can file the FAFSA?"

Pardon me, but I was entirely dumbfounded that these people have gone through 4 years of college and maybe some years of grad school and have no idea how financial aid works.

But then I have to remember that LSD is a very self-selecting environment. I would guess that the average stats of those who post (there are many lurkers who never say a word) are in the low-mid 90s percentile-wise of the LSAT. Many of them are kids with 3.7+ GPAs whose resumes already read very impressively. They are the kids whose parents could afford to pay the $1k+ fee for the Kaplan or Testmasters or Powerscore LSAT prep courses.

In other words, of course these kids have no idea how financial aid works -- it was never an issue for them before. A realization that makes me believe all the more in the importance of Affirmative Action (even in its poorly constructed form that is sheltered under the discourse of a half-baked misconception).


promulgated by SWS2.1 at 07:46.
0 comments

________________________

Monday, November 07, 2005

|Les banlieues en feux.|

I'm okay, thanks for asking.


promulgated by SWS2.1 at 08:08.
0 comments

________________________

Sunday, November 06, 2005

|A seller's market?|

LSAT test takers were down this October. They were also down in June and February. Assuming we see a corresponding drop in December, we're looking at a potentially less competitive application cycle.

This is assuming a few things: 1) that the number of applications per applicant does not go up, 2) that the number of applicants who test one year and apply the following year or later does not go up and 3) that the number of December takers does not go up. Although, even if December takers did jump, that wouldn't affect people applying to the top 14 schools (Georgetown through Yale) because these are the schools to which everyone applies early -- while they may not even start looking at applications until mid-November, they've been lining up and December takers have a long line to get behind.

Further, the scales have been getting more and more stringent the past few LSAT administrations. In other words, it's been getting harder and harder to get a higher score. The result is that a number of test takers are "re-takers." So the numbers may be even more depressed than simple numbers indicate.

As well, Georgetown extended its Early Action/Decision deadline by a week. According to the website, they extended the deadline "Due to the volume of applications received." Now, typically such an expression is used to indicate that too many of something has occurred and there needs to be a delay. But what school would extend its deadline if they received too many applications to process? No, this must logically mean that Georgetown did not receive nearly as many applications as it expected to receive under its early program.

What does all of this mean? It means that my 163 is looking a little bit better these days. It may mean little for my success for Georgetown through Yale, but Cardozo through Vanderbilt are looking a lot more likely.


promulgated by SWS2.1 at 14:42.
1 comments

________________________

Saturday, November 05, 2005

|Roman Holiday|

A few things from my adventure in Rome last weekend:

1. Sometimes not getting what is ordered can be enough to make a girl breakdown into tears (not this one). Especially when it really is what she ordered, she just didn't realize it when she placed the order. It's generally best not to trust the English "translations" you read on the menu.

2. Rome is dirty. And Italians love their grafitti. Almost as much as they love their gelatti (gelatto?).

3. You CAN pick up a cute and random boy from off the street (literally) who is drunk and trashed with a creepily sharp and long right-thumb without fear that he's going to kill you. And eventually he will sober up enough for you to figure out what hostel he's staying at and walk him there. But, beware, you will have to hear the story about how he qualified for two of his pub crawl's chugging contests about eight times -- but he tells each rendition as if it's the first time you're hearing it because he doesn't realize that it's not. During times 3-8 you might think to yourself, "Should a 6'1" 130lbs boy really be entering chugging contests?"

4. Rome is not known for it's gaie dance clubs. But keeping to its ancient Roman traditions, you're very likely to find 3-4 bath houses (really sex clubs, though one did have a number of pools) within walking distance of your hostel. When you go to one and manage to make out with 3 of the 4 boys (men, really) who turn your crank, quit while you're ahead. Don't go to another one because you want to make your last night in Rome some kind of special, because you just might end up wasting 3 hours doing nothing. At the same time, something about being in a heated pool while an artificial waterfall cascades over you really makes you not care about guys not wanting to touch your godstick. If only all clubs were bath houses.

5. Rome may not have been built in a day, but you can certainly cross it in a day. And in that day you may encounter: a semi-high speed car chase of South Asian looking men who do their best to avoid dropping their goods (they fail and you see that what they are carrying [absconding with?] are water guns) while holding their sweaters crisscrossed around their shoulders, fountains from "La Dolce Vita," candy shops selling lolipops with the Pope's likeness laser-printed on, and a different homeless woman with the same two dogs that you saw with another homeless woman earlier in the day. You will not find, however, an "I [heart] the Vatican" t-shirt, despite all of your best efforts.

6. Fascism is still alive and kicking in Rome, or so you would believe when witnessing scores of men (and only men) in bomber jackets with shaved heads marching in a parade commemorating fascism in Italy outside the Colisseum. I was looking especially gaie and black when I chanced upon this demonstration. I did not receive the most welcoming looks from all the white bald Italian men.

7. When you leave Rome and return to Paris, you'll be glad to be in a country where you know how to ask, without flapping your arms and pointing, "Do you know where I should put my bag?" even if you use the wrong tense and level of formality.


promulgated by SWS2.1 at 03:13.
0 comments

________________________

|Septimus Warren Smith 2.1|

I went to an Ivy League undergrad.
I go to a top NYC law school.
I date men (well...).
I live in Bed-Stuy.
I don't need more to say,
just more room to say it.
Etc.

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