So, I got Wait-Listed at 5/9 Law Schools (so far) . . .

[PosImpos]

I'm making this post primarily to vent, because I'm pretty frustrated with my law school admissions process at the moment.

I applied to 9 schools in February, which apparently is fairly late given rolling admissions, even though it was before the deadline.  My numbers were decent to great for all of the schools that I applied to.

So far, I've been wait listed (or, in one case, put on hold) at 5 out of 9 of them.  This includes one school that I thought I had a really good chance of getting into, given my numbers.

I'm not putting the schools I applied to or my numbers (LSAT etc) because the purpose of this post is not to brag or flash credentials. I'm just frustrated.  I feel as if I did everything I was supposed to, worked hard and all of that, and I'm now facing the prospect of potentially getting wait listed or rejected at every school I applied to. 

I know that being put on the wait list doesn't necessarily mean I won't get accepted eventually, but with the volume of applicants this year I don't feel very optimistic.  I'm also not really clear on all the things I can / should do in order to help get myself off the wait list or how I should do them.  I tend to be good at the academic / test taking stuff, but less so at the politicking / schmoozing / getting myself noticed type stuff (skills I'll need to learn eventually, I know).

Anyways, I just wanted to vent, because I'm frustrated.  If anybody on the site has had experience with this sort of thing, perspective or advice would be appreciated.  If you would like to know where I applied and all of that, I'll tell you.

Blah.

[barefacedmonk]

I haven't been in a similar situation but I can understand and appreciate the frustration when your hard work doesn't show desired results. All I can say is, don't give up...and try, try again. Good luck!

[csfansince60s]

I'm making this post primarily to vent, because I'm pretty frustrated with my law school admissions process at the moment.

I applied to 9 schools in February, which apparently is fairly late given rolling admissions, even though it was before the deadline.  My numbers were decent to great for all of the schools that I applied to.

So far, I've been wait listed (or, in one case, put on hold) at 5 out of 9 of them.  This includes one school that I thought I had a really good chance of getting into, given my numbers.

I'm not putting the schools I applied to or my numbers (LSAT etc) because the purpose of this post is not to brag or flash credentials. I'm just frustrated.  I feel as if I did everything I was supposed to, worked hard and all of that, and I'm now facing the prospect of potentially getting wait listed or rejected at every school I applied to. 

I know that being put on the wait list doesn't necessarily mean I won't get accepted eventually, but with the volume of applicants this year I don't feel very optimistic.  I'm also not really clear on all the things I can / should do in order to help get myself off the wait list or how I should do them.  I tend to be good at the academic / test taking stuff, but less so at the politicking / schmoozing / getting myself noticed type stuff (skills I'll need to learn eventually, I know).

Anyways, I just wanted to vent, because I'm frustrated.  If anybody on the site has had experience with this sort of thing, perspective or advice would be appreciated.  If you would like to know where I applied and all of that, I'll tell you.

Blah.

Hey Pos..........I can be empathic towards your situation both because I went to law school and went through the process (25 yrs ago), and also because I have 2 kids in college, one who got wait-listed at a few schools he absolutely should have gotten into....in my other life as a guidance counselor, I have called many Admissions Offices advocating on behalf of my students, but until last year, not for any of my own....one office I called in particular, where I had cultivated a good contact told me this: kids are applying to twenty (exaggeration) colleges nowadays...we know this, so we don't take everyone we would have taken before, especially those who we might think would go somewhere else.

These are the words he spoke to me: If your son will commit to us he'll get an acceptance letter.....It wasn't my son's first choice so he declined and never got off the wait-list.

My point is that colleges very much want to know that they are your first choice. I am pretty removed from the law school admissions process, and therefore don't know if this philosophy applies to them, but my advice would be to start at your #1 choice and speak to an admissions representative and tell them that they are your first choice and are ready to commit, if they are. If they put you off, go to choice #2 and so on down the line.

Good Luck!!!

[Rondo2287]

I'm making this post primarily to vent, because I'm pretty frustrated with my law school admissions process at the moment.

I applied to 9 schools in February, which apparently is fairly late given rolling admissions, even though it was before the deadline.  My numbers were decent to great for all of the schools that I applied to.

So far, I've been wait listed (or, in one case, put on hold) at 5 out of 9 of them.  This includes one school that I thought I had a really good chance of getting into, given my numbers.

I'm not putting the schools I applied to or my numbers (LSAT etc) because the purpose of this post is not to brag or flash credentials. I'm just frustrated.  I feel as if I did everything I was supposed to, worked hard and all of that, and I'm now facing the prospect of potentially getting wait listed or rejected at every school I applied to. 

I know that being put on the wait list doesn't necessarily mean I won't get accepted eventually, but with the volume of applicants this year I don't feel very optimistic.  I'm also not really clear on all the things I can / should do in order to help get myself off the wait list or how I should do them.  I tend to be good at the academic / test taking stuff, but less so at the politicking / schmoozing / getting myself noticed type stuff (skills I'll need to learn eventually, I know).

Anyways, I just wanted to vent, because I'm frustrated.  If anybody on the site has had experience with this sort of thing, perspective or advice would be appreciated.  If you would like to know where I applied and all of that, I'll tell you.

Blah.

Hey Pos..........I can be empathic towards your situation both because I went to law school and went through the process (25 yrs ago), and also because I have 2 kids in college, one who got wait-listed at a few schools he absolutely should have gotten into....in my other life as a guidance counselor, I have called many Admissions Offices advocating on behalf of my students, but until last year, not for any of my own....one office I called in particular, where I had cultivated a good contact told me this: kids are applying to twenty (exaggeration) colleges nowadays...we know this, so we don't take everyone we would have taken before, especially those who we might think would go somewhere else.

These are the words he spoke to me: If your son will commit to us he'll get an acceptance letter.....It wasn't my son's first choice so he declined and never got off the wait-list.

My point is that colleges very much want to know that they are your first choice. I am pretty removed from the law school admissions process, and therefore don't know if this philosophy applies to them, but my advice would be to start at your #1 choice and speak to an admissions representative and tell them that they are your first choice and are ready to commit, if they are. If they put you off, go to choice #2 and so on down the line.

Good Luck!!!

Very good advice here, TP, a woman i worked with's son applied to 12 schools last year.  Its getting crazy.  I applied to 4 and I thought that was alot

[csfansince60s]

Also, in speaking to an admissions rep, always ask them if there is absolutely anything that you can do to enhance your candidacy and make you a more attractive candidate for admission.

[Roy H.]

For undergrad, I got wait-listed at four school, and rejected at two.  Luckily, the one school I did get into was a great fit.

I'm sure you're going to end up in a similar boat.  With the economy terrible, more and more people are putting off entry into the "real world", and that means law schools are getting a crush of applicants.  However, there's a school out there that will take you, and you'll be happy to go there.

Also, regarding wait lists:  I applied to six law schools.  One was a reach, four were in about the tier I belonged at, and one was a safety that was a tier below what my credentials suggested.  I got into the four schools in my tier, was rejected at the reach, and was wait-listed at my safety.  Why?  Because I'm sure they knew they were my safety.  You could very well be experiencing the same thing.  If you don't get in anywhere -- and I expect you will -- contact admissions and tell them that they're your first choice, and you'd really like to be reconsidered.

Lastly, when you do get into multiple schools, go to the one that feels like a better fit, not the one with the higher ranking.  As a few of us BC Law grads found out, rankings can change, and oftentimes for the worse (although BC is moving its way back up the ranks again, thankfully.)

[csfansince60s]

I'm making this post primarily to vent, because I'm pretty frustrated with my law school admissions process at the moment.

I applied to 9 schools in February, which apparently is fairly late given rolling admissions, even though it was before the deadline.  My numbers were decent to great for all of the schools that I applied to.

So far, I've been wait listed (or, in one case, put on hold) at 5 out of 9 of them.  This includes one school that I thought I had a really good chance of getting into, given my numbers.

I'm not putting the schools I applied to or my numbers (LSAT etc) because the purpose of this post is not to brag or flash credentials. I'm just frustrated.  I feel as if I did everything I was supposed to, worked hard and all of that, and I'm now facing the prospect of potentially getting wait listed or rejected at every school I applied to. 

I know that being put on the wait list doesn't necessarily mean I won't get accepted eventually, but with the volume of applicants this year I don't feel very optimistic.  I'm also not really clear on all the things I can / should do in order to help get myself off the wait list or how I should do them.  I tend to be good at the academic / test taking stuff, but less so at the politicking / schmoozing / getting myself noticed type stuff (skills I'll need to learn eventually, I know).

Anyways, I just wanted to vent, because I'm frustrated.  If anybody on the site has had experience with this sort of thing, perspective or advice would be appreciated.  If you would like to know where I applied and all of that, I'll tell you.

Blah.

Hey Pos..........I can be empathic towards your situation both because I went to law school and went through the process (25 yrs ago), and also because I have 2 kids in college, one who got wait-listed at a few schools he absolutely should have gotten into....in my other life as a guidance counselor, I have called many Admissions Offices advocating on behalf of my students, but until last year, not for any of my own....one office I called in particular, where I had cultivated a good contact told me this: kids are applying to twenty (exaggeration) colleges nowadays...we know this, so we don't take everyone we would have taken before, especially those who we might think would go somewhere else.

These are the words he spoke to me: If your son will commit to us he'll get an acceptance letter.....It wasn't my son's first choice so he declined and never got off the wait-list.

My point is that colleges very much want to know that they are your first choice. I am pretty removed from the law school admissions process, and therefore don't know if this philosophy applies to them, but my advice would be to start at your #1 choice and speak to an admissions representative and tell them that they are your first choice and are ready to commit, if they are. If they put you off, go to choice #2 and so on down the line.

Good Luck!!!

Very good advice here, TP, a woman i worked with's son applied to 12 schools last year.  Its getting crazy.  I applied to 4 and I thought that was alot

Things really have changed. The advice we usually give kids applying to colleges is to apply to 2-3 "reach" schools, 2-3 "50-50" schools and 2  "safety" schools.  That's 6-8 schools per student, minimum.

 Colleges have caught on and are reacting to it via their admissions decisions, because some kids take it to an extreme.

[blake]

I can imagine that with the current job market, there are droves of people trying to get into graduate programs and thus making it harder for you to get in.  That being said, one of my good friends applied after the deadline his year and was still accepted even though his grades and test scores were only slightly better than avg. for a law school applicant.  Why?  Because he knew someone who knew someone.  What you mentioned as your weakness, was his strength and really is an important thing to work on.  Unless you are a Mark Zuckerberg of the world, then you will have to play by everybody else's rules in order to get what you want.  So basically, what I'm saying is that although it sucks to have to play the game the majority of successful people in the US have had to jump through some hoops and use favors.  So get out there and network as much as you can and pull as many strings as you possibly can.  You have done all the hard work that was possible to this point by getting good grades and good test scores, but now you must work even harder to finding yourself a way in.  I would look up who is on the board of each law school you applied to and play 5 degrees of separation with each one of them, until you find a way to talk to one of them.  If you get just one of them to talk to and you relate to them, you can pretty much guarantee they will find a way to get you in.  Good luck.

Also one other thing that I have seen work is to write to your undergraduate's president with all of your accomplishments, philanthropic efforts, etc and request a letter of recommendation.  I have another friend that did that and received a boilerplate letter of recommendation back.  He used that letter of recommendation to write his meal ticket for anything he needed at that university from then on.  He had never interacted with the school's president before that, but school presidents want to see their students succeed.  

I hope some of this helps.  I can't imagine your frustration at the moment.  Stick it out and whatever school you get in, work your ass off and get in the top 5% of your class.  

[Rondo2287]

also Pos, Im really not trying to be a jerk here but just wanted to give you a heads up.

My Dad is currently in a pre-retirement phase at the lawfirm that he works at.  He currently works 3 days a week in Boston.

He has been talking recently about how much difficulty law grads are having coming out of school.  

When he graduated from BC Law about 11 years ago, he got a job a big time law firm downtown in Boston and was making over 100k.  A great deal of the people he graduated with got similar jobs.

Those jobs seem to be drying up yet tuition continues to grow.  As you probably know Student loans are not dischargeable in bankruptcy and are pretty much becoming debters prisons.  

Obviously if this is something you have dreamed of, go for it.  But the days of law grads coming out and getting 100-120k jobs out of school are numbered.  

[zerophase]

I too will apply to law school in a year when I graduate college, so I understand your frustrations. My advice is for you to be active with your wait list schools. If you only wait idly, you will most likely get rejected later. I've been told that if you call admissions, you can actually find the person who reviewed your application and talk to them directly and try to convince them otherwise. I have also been told that writing in to the college explaining why they should reconsider and accept you helps you get acceptance.

[nickagneta]

Sorry to hear Pos. Patience my friend. Have patience. Something will open up and given your excellent communicative abilities, I really don't think it will matter where you go because I am sure you will get the most out of any place you attend and become a fabulous lawyer.

As an aside, if the law schools are jammed packed, know that this country and world really could use more engineers and less lawyers.

[Roy H.]

As an aside, if the law schools are jammed packed, know that this country and world really could use more engineers and less lawyers.

Haha.  It's probably true, though.  It's amazing the number of lawyers I talk to who wish they'd done something else.  Like any other profession, it's something people should do because they're passionate about it, rather than because they think they'll make a lot of money.

[ballin]

As a current 2L law student, I for one am grateful that a lot of people go to law school without a love for the law. All that means to me is that in 5 years I'll have way less competition.

[PosImpos]

I'm well aware of all that's been said and written about the law profession these days, and the increasing lack of jobs.  My hope is that in attending a top 25 law school and getting good grades, I will be able to find a decent job, even if it's not making me six figures a year from the get-go (but maybe with some hard work after some years).

It's interesting that there seem to be a lot of BC grads and BC Law grads on here.  I will say that I am a BC undergrad at the moment (graduating soon) and one of the schools to which I applied is BC.  I have yet to hear from there, but I will be very vexed indeed if I do not get in.  My numbers (and the fact I went here for undergrad) should make me a more than ideal candidate.

It could be, like Roy said, that having really good numbers for a couple of the schools might actually lower my chances because they could perceive that I am using them as a safety.  I am concerned that may have been the case with Boston University, which is the school that waitlisted me even though I was really confident I would get in.  I'd like to stay around here, so BU is actually probably my top choice (it's ranked significantly higher than BC), and I'm going to make sure to indicate as much to the admissions office there.

I still haven't heard from 4 schools, but I'm not particularly optimistic.  Aside from BC, the only schools I haven't heard from are reaches.

[Roy H.]

I'm well aware of all that's been said and written about the law profession these days, and the increasing lack of jobs.  My hope is that in attending a top 25 law school and getting good grades, I will be able to find a decent job, even if it's not making me six figures a year from the get-go (but maybe with some hard work after some years).

It's interesting that there seem to be a lot of BC grads and BC Law grads on here.  I will say that I am a BC undergrad at the moment (graduating soon) and one of the schools to which I applied is BC.  I have yet to hear from there, but I will be very vexed indeed if I do not get in.  My numbers (and the fact I went here for undergrad) should make me a more than ideal candidate.

It could be, like Roy said, that having really good numbers for a couple of the schools might actually lower my chances because they could perceive that I am using them as a safety.  I am concerned that may have been the case with Boston University, which is the school that waitlisted me even though I was really confident I would get in.  I'd like to stay around here, so BU is actually probably my top choice (it's ranked significantly higher than BC), and I'm going to make sure to indicate as much to the admissions office there.

I still haven't heard from 4 schools, but I'm not particularly optimistic.  Aside from BC, the only schools I haven't heard from are reaches.

As a BC grad, I would definitely recommend BU, yeah.  I got into both schools, but BC was ranked more highly, so I went there (despite BU offering me significantly more money).  A decade later, and BU has surpassed them by quite a bit.  I still kick myself for that choice, after I'm paying back something like an additional $30k in loans.

BC has a lot of top-notch professors, but I'm not a huge fan of the administration, and the career services office was horrific.  My friends who went to BU have much better things to say.