Withdraw or Ride the Waitlist? Forum

[descartesb4thehorse]

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[bk1]

I don't think it matters for next cycle what you do with wl's.

As for withdrawing, you might as well stay on since it doesn't cost you any effort.

[JamMasterJ]

No one seems to care about previous cycle dings, especially if you do something to improve your candidacy next cycle, i.e. WE, LSAT retake or simply applying earlier.

[bhan87]

Ride the waitlist assuming you won't get in and prepare accordingly (retake if appropriate, find a cool job to do for a year, etc). If you get in, then that's awesome. If not, you don't really lose anything and you'll be ready to try again next year

[descartesb4thehorse]

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[bk1]

Last cycle I applied to Penn but not Michigan/Virginia (I didn't have numbers for Penn, LSAT and GPA below median). Got dinged at Penn.

This cycle I applied to all three (supersplitter) and got waitlisted at Penn but rejected at Michigan/Virginia (I have a sub 3.0 GPA so I expected dings at all of them). I used the same LORs as last cycle and Penn sent me an email at the beginning saying "hey we'd prefer new LORs" and I told them "I don't have any, just use those" so they did. I feel like Penn waitlisted (instead of rejecting) me because I reapplied but who really knows.

Most schools will keep your app on file but I don't think it makes a large difference whether you applied before or not.