Texas Tech Dean of Admissions Taking Questions Forum

[skri65]

Thanks for your responses so far.

When a school begins reviewing applications, do they have a specific median LSAT and/or GPA in mind that they are shooting for out of the class? Or is it more likely that schools simply accept the best candidates throughout the cycle and whatever medians they have towards the end is what their medians will be.

An example for when this question would be relevant is in a cycle of declining medians. If a school is shooting to retain their 167/3.7 median (as an example), will they accept people who are at both median early on? Or will they first just accept the best possible numbers, and when they realize they can't boost their medians, they then accept the people who fit the 167/3.7 mould? Does this question make sense?

I guess in the most general sense, do schools have specific expectations in terms of their medians that they base their acceptances/waitlists/denials on from the beginning of the review process? Or do they just accept the best available.

[M458]

Thank you so much, Dean!

[TheJanitor6203]

Two questions:

I am an untraditional student- I'm active duty military and I've been taking online courses to complete a bachelor degree before I get out. I’m also married with kids and will be 27 when I apply. I first completed an associate degree with a GPA of 2.6 but now I'm almost finished with my BA and I've been taking school much more seriously. My GPA for only my Jr/Sr level courses is a 3.7 but my overall GPA is still only going to be about a 3.2. Should I include an addendum because of this or will it be evident that my low GPA is a result of my first few years of school when I probably wasn't as mature as I am now?

Secondly, how much will my military service help me when I'm applying? How do schools consider "soft’s" like mine? Say I've got a 3.2/160 (I haven't taken the LSAT yet but I think that is a reasonable expectation) and the school I'm looking at has a median of 3.5/165. Do you think the military soft will carry me through? That school also has a part time program with a median of 3.3/161.

Thanks for doing this!

[SPerez]

Do law schools care about run-ins with the law?

Yes, we absolutely do care in the general sense. The vast majority of what we see, though, isn't anything that most applicants need to worry about. The top things I see are alcohol related, e.g. minor in possessions, minor in consumption, DWI, dorm rule violations, etc. I also see a troubling number of "Failure to Appear" violations, usually related to minor traffic tickets. This is a maturity, responsibility, and respect for the law kind of thing that makes us grown-ups very leery.

My junior year of high school I got into a fight at a public park and got a citation, along with 6 months of probation. Eventually everything was discharged... I plan on writing a short C&F report about it. In your experience, would this hurt my chances of getting in to TT or any other law school that you know of?

Assuming this is your only infraction, it will be a non-issue. What I look for is a pattern so, using your example, if you later also received citations for assault or drunk/disorderly, etc. then I would be much more concerned. More so if the offenses were recent and/or your C&F addendum did not indicate any contrition for the acts.

Sometimes even a minor infraction can totally turn off the AdCom if it doesn't seem like the applicant is taking responsibility for the offense (i.e. blames the cops) or didn't really learn anything from the experience. I see several applicants every year make what I consider to be a mistake and simply do a "just the facts" addendum without any explanation. I always recommend students explain their offenses.

[rheannabanana]

First of all I would like to extend a huge "thank you" to you, Dean Perez, for all the information you've been so generously sharing. I have learned so much reading through this thread!

Since you are here, I'd love to get an opinion from an admissions standpoint on my situation. To summarize, I have had a pretty rough few years. I struggled through an abusive relationship, some pretty major medical issues, financial troubles, a house fire, homelessness, and then some... While the vast majority of my grades are A's and a few B's, I do have some very poor grades on my transcript that drop my GPA near a 3.5. Some are from community college close to a decade ago (before I grew up and started taking school seriously), and the others were from classes I was simply unable to finish during the above times. I stubbornly kept going back to school thinking life would calm down, so these grades are not all confined to one term. Usually what I did (whether a good or bad choice in retrospect) was concentrate all my time/effort on the class/es that I needed for my degree and had to just let the other ones go. Is there any way to approach this in an addendum without sounding like I am making excuses for my grades or raising a red flag that maybe law school will cause me to spontaneously combust? Should I not say anything at all? Alternatively, some have suggested I use my personal statement to explore some of these experiences in more detail, but I am not sure about that either. Any suggestions?

And just out of curiosity, how do you feel about humorous personal statements? Are they too big of a risk given the potential for complete train wreckage? Or do you actually get some good ones?

[SPerez]

Thanks for your responses so far.

When a school begins reviewing applications, do they have a specific median LSAT and/or GPA in mind that they are shooting for out of the class? Or is it more likely that schools simply accept the best candidates throughout the cycle and whatever medians they have towards the end is what their medians will be.

An example for when this question would be relevant is in a cycle of declining medians. If a school is shooting to retain their 167/3.7 median (as an example), will they accept people who are at both median early on? Or will they first just accept the best possible numbers, and when they realize they can't boost their medians, they then accept the people who fit the 167/3.7 mould? Does this question make sense?

I guess in the most general sense, do schools have specific expectations in terms of their medians that they base their acceptances/waitlists/denials on from the beginning of the review process? Or do they just accept the best available.

Sort of both. Every law school has goals for the year. Of course, in a perfect world I'd have exactly 240 students with an LSAT range of 160-170 and GPAs 3.5-4.0, I would admit them all, and they would all attend. I'd be done by Christmas. It would be awesome.

But alas, that doesn't happen. I imagine most schools' goals are relative to where they were the year before. No school wants to drop ever (but it happens) so I'd guess most schools do admit most everyone who is above median on both GPA and LSAT as they receive them. (The exact process for each school is different. Some go first in-first out, others in groups, others best-worst, still others some combination of all of those depending on the time of year.)

We definitely start the year with an idea of how many admits it might take to hit our goals. Then I adjust it as the year progresses. Applications might be down, but if my deposits are way up and it's only February then I need to "take my foot off the gas" so to speak (i.e. stop admitting, waitlist more).

If you look at our stats over the last 3 years, our medians have been pretty stable and class sizes have been pretty stable, but the number of admits it took to get those classes ranged from 559 to 810. Each year is an adventure. We think we know how things might go at the macro level, but it's hard to predict it at the school level. I'm already running stats weekly, in March that becomes every few days, and in summer I'm probably doing them daily. It's a lot like law school. A whole year preparing, but your final "grade" is based on a single result at the end of the year.

[owlie]

Thanks for your responses so far.

When a school begins reviewing applications, do they have a specific median LSAT and/or GPA in mind that they are shooting for out of the class? Or is it more likely that schools simply accept the best candidates throughout the cycle and whatever medians they have towards the end is what their medians will be.

An example for when this question would be relevant is in a cycle of declining medians. If a school is shooting to retain their 167/3.7 median (as an example), will they accept people who are at both median early on? Or will they first just accept the best possible numbers, and when they realize they can't boost their medians, they then accept the people who fit the 167/3.7 mould? Does this question make sense?

I guess in the most general sense, do schools have specific expectations in terms of their medians that they base their acceptances/waitlists/denials on from the beginning of the review process? Or do they just accept the best available.

Sort of both. Every law school has goals for the year. Of course, in a perfect world I'd have exactly 240 students with an LSAT range of 160-170 and GPAs 3.5-4.0, I would admit them all, and they would all attend. I'd be done by Christmas. It would be awesome.

But alas, that doesn't happen. I imagine most schools' goals are relative to where they were the year before. No school wants to drop ever (but it happens) so I'd guess most schools do admit most everyone who is above median on both GPA and LSAT as they receive them. (The exact process for each school is different. Some go first in-first out, others in groups, others best-worst, still others some combination of all of those depending on the time of year.)

We definitely start the year with an idea of how many admits it might take to hit our goals. Then I adjust it as the year progresses. Applications might be down, but if my deposits are way up and it's only February then I need to "take my foot off the gas" so to speak (i.e. stop admitting, waitlist more).

If you look at our stats over the last 3 years, our medians have been pretty stable and class sizes have been pretty stable, but the number of admits it took to get those classes ranged from 559 to 810. Each year is an adventure. We think we know how things might go at the macro level, but it's hard to predict it at the school level. I'm already running stats weekly, in March that becomes every few days, and in summer I'm probably doing them daily. It's a lot like law school. A whole year preparing, but your final "grade" is based on a single result at the end of the year.

At first glance, the bold sounded like a fun game. Then the final line made me laugh out of self-pity. Laugh so you don't cry, or something like that, hah. YAY LAW SCHOOL!

[SPerez]

Should I include an addendum because of this or will it be evident that my low GPA is a result of my first few years of school when I probably wasn't as mature as I am now?

I can say that I would definitely want to see an addendum, even if just to confirm what I assume was the situation. You never know if a reviewer is going to make an assumption about your grades in your favor. For example, someone could just as easily look at an upward trend and think, "Oh, as he got to classes more specific to his major he did better. He only tries when he is interested in the class." You want to use an addendum to eliminate assumptions and frame things in your own words and in a way that puts you in the best light.

Secondly, how much will my military service help me when I'm applying? How do schools consider "soft’s" like mine?

Softs are just that. Soft. I don't think there are any rules for Military > Teach for America > Bank Teller > barista or student government > Frat/Sorority involvement > full-time work, etc. Your experience will be a plus, but only so much. Even among veterans, I'm sure you know that there can be a wide range for the quality/impressiveness of experience (e.g. special forces, multiple deployments, decorations vs. career reservist w/ mainly desk & clerical duties). As I tell people all the time, if Mother Theresa had a 120 and a 1.90 GPA she's not going to law school. Heaven, surely. Just not law school.

The way I look at it, all that stuff is out of your hands so there's no point worrying about it. (Yes, easy for me to say, I know.) You can't go back and be MORE impressive, and you have absolutely zero influence over how any particular reviewer (let alone all the reviewers at a particular school) will feel about your application.

Good luck to you! Keep your head down, come back safe, and thank you for your service!

[itachiuchiha]

Hi Dean!

If a student was to get 4 B's in a community college during high school as part of a dual enrollment program. Then went on to college to get 75 credits worth of A's and A-'s. Would an addendum be needed for the student to explain the B's during high school dual enrollment? Would those B's be "overlooked" since the upward trend in grades?

THANKS!

[ScottRiqui]

Dean Perez,

On the C&F portion of an application, how damaging is incomplete/incorrect data regarding minor offenses in the distant past? I'm not talking about intentionally omitting something in the hopes it won't be discovered, but rather a situation like "was that speeding ticket in 1986 or 1987? Was I going 13 or 15 MPH over the limit?", or not knowing whether "entering or remaining in a public park after closing" was a misdemeanor in Texas in 1991.

[jetsfan1]

Dean Perez,
First of all, thank you for being here and answering our questions. Mine has to do with the quality of your undergrad institution- are all treated equally? Or does looking at a 3.8 from Harvard give the applicant a greater advantage than a 3.8 at school-not-as-good-as-Harvard? I know TLS says it makes absolutely zero difference, but I think it would be fruitful to ask someone who actually makes these decisions. Thanks again!

[SPerez]

First of all I would like to extend a huge "thank you" to you, Dean Perez, for all the information you've been so generously sharing. I have learned so much reading through this thread!

Since you are here, I'd love to get an opinion from an admissions standpoint on my situation. To summarize, I have had a pretty rough few years. I struggled through an abusive relationship, some pretty major medical issues, financial troubles, a house fire, homelessness, and then some... While the vast majority of my grades are A's and a few B's, I do have some very poor grades on my transcript that drop my GPA near a 3.5. Some are from community college close to a decade ago (before I grew up and started taking school seriously), and the others were from classes I was simply unable to finish during the above times. I stubbornly kept going back to school thinking life would calm down, so these grades are not all confined to one term. Usually what I did (whether a good or bad choice in retrospect) was concentrate all my time/effort on the class/es that I needed for my degree and had to just let the other ones go. Is there any way to approach this in an addendum without sounding like I am making excuses for my grades or raising a red flag that maybe law school will cause me to spontaneously combust? Should I not say anything at all? Alternatively, some have suggested I use my personal statement to explore some of these experiences in more detail, but I am not sure about that either. Any suggestions?

And just out of curiosity, how do you feel about humorous personal statements? Are they too big of a risk given the potential for complete train wreckage? Or do you actually get some good ones?

I'll take the easy question first. I tend to steer people away from writing a completely comedic personal statement. Everybody thinks they're funny, but very few of us actually are. It's no biggie to be lighthearted or have a humorous line here or there, but to be funny in writing is very tough. Written comedy is very different from being funny at a party or being good at telling jokes.

As for your academic background, you should definitely write an addendum. You don't have to go into detail on all that stuff in your personal statement if you don't want to. If that's part of "your story", that's cool, but don't feel like you have to mention it. That's what addenda are for.

HOW you do it can be tricky. There are definitely ways to say things that sound more "excuse-y" than others. At the core you just need to be honest and frank about what happened, your decisions, and what you've learned from the experience. It is also good to end with a bit about why whatever happened before won't happen again. For example, in your case you might talk a little about how you realize that your judgment back then wasn't the best and that you shouldn't have focused on certain classes at the expense of others. (An AdCom might otherwise think what's she going to do as a 1L and ALL her classes are required?) I've been in meetings where we have discussed applicants that seem to have lives filled with all sorts of crazy, but very real, drama. The comments made are often whether or not admitting the person with a bunch of outside distractions would be setting them up to fail. (Of course, this discussion happens in the context of their academic credentials, i.e. the more borderline the credentials the more we might worry about their chances.)

In my experience, the addenda that sound "excuse-y" tend to do so because of the reasons given more than how they're written. I.e. they blame others (advisers, mean professors who gave bad grades) or don't take ownership for the decisions they made that created the situations to begin with. Also, those who say "But I wouldn't have done anything different because I learned from it and it has helped make me who I am today"...I hate that. They think that it sounds mature or noble, but all I'm thinking is "No, you should not have been president of your frat and student body president at the same time and you should have had a GPA higher than 2.5."

[wert3813]

.

[SPerez]

Hi Dean!

If a student was to get 4 B's in a community college during high school as part of a dual enrollment program. Then went on to college to get 75 credits worth of A's and A-'s. Would an addendum be needed for the student to explain the B's during high school dual enrollment? Would those B's be "overlooked" since the upward trend in grades?

THANKS!

I think that's something that is worth explaining. You can't assume a reviewer is going to look at your materials closely enough to figure out that those credit hours were earned while you were in high school. The community college grades will still impact you with respect to your overall GPA used by the law school for reporting, but I doubt that they would impact a reviewer's opinion of your actual ability level given your performance later.

Dean Perez

[SPerez]

Can you see how often/when we check our status via the LSAC checker (assuming TT uses one)?

THIS IS MY WORST FEAR.

Haha. No, we can't see how often you check or when the last time you checked in was.

That said, it's not hard to get an idea when we change something on the status checker and get a phone call from an applicant within 20 minutes of making the change.

OMGurd...apparently I lied to you guys. A colleague of mine found a few fields deep in the database that are available for reporting out. The fields are the total number of logins and the date/time of the last login.

So yeah, we could totally know how many times you check your status. Luckily, I can't say that we probably care at all unless something gives us a reason to care.

Dean Perez

[TripTrip]

So yeah, we could totally know how many times you check your status.

So what you're saying is, if we check the tracker over and over, we should submit an addendum explaining why?

I mean, that's what I'm hearing anyway.

[John_rizzy_rawls]

.

[SPerez]

Dean Perez,

Is there any advantage to submitting now while waiting on a December retake? I've heard both lines of thought and there seems to be decent logic behind both answers.

Thought 1) Schools are just going to stick it in a drawer and wait till you have that LSAT anyway (if you want them to, which I do).
Thought 2) You jump ahead of all the other retakers in the "line".

If the second route is the way to go what is the procedure? Just press submit and immediately email the school asking them to wait on my second LSAT? My fear of course is that a school will somehow end up looking at my application without the second score, although I guess the chances of that are even lower since most adcoms probably aren't working very much between now and January.

With the holiday break coming up so soon, it's pretty unlikely that your file would be reviewed before the December results post (assuming you're not already in review). This Friday is the "official" day most universities are open (and between you, me, and the wall a LOT of my colleagues are already out of the office).

It's hard to formulate a general rule because schools can vary widely in how the go through their files. I'd imagine the biggest "boost" one could get would be by applying via an official early decision program (although even then, ours doesn't really give an admissions boost to ED). Since we're past that, if a school goes purely first in-first out then yeah, you would be ahead of those that apply later.

However, I'm going to tell you not to worry about it and just apply when you're ready. You have no way of knowing at which schools you would have an advantage and we're really just talking about one or two weeks here. NOT going to make a difference in the long run. The Dec scores should post right around the time people start getting back to the office after the new year. I'd say go ahead and apply this week if only to have a chance that your application might get processed before the break. Then the score would auto-update to your file (for paperless schools) after the break. When we get back, there's usually a glut of applications that admissions staff have to process which could delay your review for a few weeks.

Again, we're not talking anything significant. If you wait and end up not getting a decision until April, it won't be because you didn't apply in December.

[SPerez]

Dean Perez,

What is the process like with applicants like this? I ask because I have seen borderline candidates admitted very early to top schools while incredibly stellar ones, in hard numbers and soft factors, wait around for a while. Do you have any idea why this is?

If you have a second, jump to the Harvard thread where you'll see that two of the most impressive candidates of this cycle, Lavitz and elterrible, have been waiting for a while since their JS1 whereas quite a few considerably less accomplished candidates with lesser numbers had a very short turn around. I see this all the time and am just wondering why.

If I could wave a magic wand and change one thing it would be to make all you super Type-A overachievers CHILL OUT. I say that with a smile, of course.

Seriously, this is at the top of my "Things Applicants Worry About That They SHouldn't" list. Do not worry about WHEN you get it. The important thing is that you get in. In your case, you will be admitted to 99% of law schools and get near full scholarships to probably 96% of them. (Try not to focus on the 1% you might not get into.) If I were you I would go to the best school that was free/near free in the geographic region you want to live because that's still going to be a very good school.

WHEN people are admitted is something that NO applicant has control over (outside ED programs, and even then that's sometimes no guarantee). There are literally dozens of things that factor into when files get read and they combine in dozens of different ways at each school.

For example, no one at Texas Tech has gone into review since last week. You know why? Because I was supposed to have laser eye surgery last Tuesday, meaning I was going to be out all week. But then it got canceled, but not with enough time to review new files, and rescheduled for this week so couldn't review files this week either. Now, people on this board could go crazy with conspiracy theories as to why certain people have been reviewed and others haven't, but I'm pretty sure no one would ever come up with that one.

Whether or not people on here are even telling the truth about their numbers is irrelevant because the real reason one gets a decision before another could just be the person that processes apps is out sick with the flu, or the main reviewer is out on maternity leave, or the head of the AdCom already left to Europe for a family vacation, or....on and on.

So, in short, there is usually no rhyme or reason to it at the micro level. There might be a basic structure at most schools, but it's a colossal waste of time to try to figure out what it might be based on anything you learn on the internet.

Dean Perez

[John_rizzy_rawls]

Dean Perez,

What is the process like with applicants like this? I ask because I have seen borderline candidates admitted very early to top schools while incredibly stellar ones, in hard numbers and soft factors, wait around for a while. Do you have any idea why this is?

If you have a second, jump to the Harvard thread where you'll see that two of the most impressive candidates of this cycle, Lavitz and elterrible, have been waiting for a while since their JS1 whereas quite a few considerably less accomplished candidates with lesser numbers had a very short turn around. I see this all the time and am just wondering why.

If I could wave a magic wand and change one thing it would be to make all you super Type-A overachievers CHILL OUT. I say that with a smile, of course.

Seriously, this is at the top of my "Things Applicants Worry About That They SHouldn't" list. Do not worry about WHEN you get it. The important thing is that you get in. In your case, you will be admitted to 99% of law schools and get near full scholarships to probably 96% of them. (Try not to focus on the 1% you might not get into.) If I were you I would go to the best school that was free/near free in the geographic region you want to live because that's still going to be a very good school.

WHEN people are admitted is something that NO applicant has control over (outside ED programs, and even then that's sometimes no guarantee). There are literally dozens of things that factor into when files get read and they combine in dozens of different ways at each school.

For example, no one at Texas Tech has gone into review since last week. You know why? Because I was supposed to have laser eye surgery last Tuesday, meaning I was going to be out all week. But then it got canceled, but not with enough time to review new files, and rescheduled for this week so couldn't review files this week either. Now, people on this board could go crazy with conspiracy theories as to why certain people have been reviewed and others haven't, but I'm pretty sure no one would ever come up with that one.

Whether or not people on here are even telling the truth about their numbers is irrelevant because the real reason one gets a decision before another could just be the person that processes apps is out sick with the flu, or the main reviewer is out on maternity leave, or the head of the AdCom already left to Europe for a family vacation, or....on and on.

So, in short, there is usually no rhyme or reason to it at the micro level. There might be a basic structure at most schools, but it's a colossal waste of time to try to figure out what it might be based on anything you learn on the internet.

Dean Perez

Great info. Thanks Dean. You've heard it a 1000 times I'm sure but one more cant hurt: it's awesome that you're taking time out to answer our questions. The non-conspiratorial insight into the process from the other side of the table is a big help to all of us. Including Especially us "super Type-A overachievers", who don't quite know how to "CHILL OUT" lol

[knznick]

Dean Perez,

If an applicant has already been accepted, would it be beneficial to submit fall transcripts to help obtain/increase scholarships? If an applicant has not been accepted yet, can fall transcript grades strongly sway the admissions committee to admit/give them a scholarship? In short, how important is it to update your profile after the fall semester?

Thank you!

[SPerez]

Dean Perez,

If an applicant has already been accepted, would it be beneficial to submit fall transcripts to help obtain/increase scholarships? If an applicant has not been accepted yet, can fall transcript grades strongly sway the admissions committee to admit/give them a scholarship? In short, how important is it to update your profile after the fall semester?

Thank you!

I'd say not really. The odds that the impact of one semester worth of grades would change your cumulative GPA enough to change a scholarship decision are pretty small. The only scenario where I see that happening is if a school is using a strict numerical formula to award scholarships, you were JUST under before, and the new grades push you over the magic line. I guess it could also help a tiny bit if your overall GPA is low but you showed improvement at the end, but it was only 1 or 2 semesters. Another semester would further cement that the later grades weren't a fluke.

If we're getting into mega-strategery, if your LSAC GPA would now be over median for your chosen school, you would be helping them out (and possibly, by extension, yourself by helping the school hold/improve its medians) by updating. (Conversely, if it goes down you wouldn't be doing anyone any favors if you've already been accepted.)

Dean Perez

[cahwc12]

I don't have a question but would just like to say thanks for your candor in answering questions. Posters like you are a great resource for this website and people like me really appreciate that you take the time to contribute, even when we just observe.

[Yukos]

I don't have a question but would just like to say thanks for your candor in answering questions. Posters like you are a great resource for this website and people like me really appreciate that you take the time to contribute, even when we just observe.

+1

[ewoods]

Does Tech ever negotiate scholarship amounts or stipulations? I have some offers from other Texas schools and was wondering if I could at least get that pesky top 50% stipulation removed.