LSAC recom. letters' description: add explanatory addendum? Forum

[jkeller33]

This requires a little bit of background, so bear with me :-S

BACKGROUND: I took the LSAT in February of 2010, and began the application process (acquiring rec. letters, writing the personal statement, etc., etc.) shortly thereafter. At the time I was living in Kansas, and would marry my husband in August of the same year. My husband is active duty military and had been stationed in Colorado prior to our wedding and would remain stationed there until at least 3 months after returning from his 12 month deployment that was set to begin in February of 2011. Servicemembers are typically reassigned duty stations every 2 years (approximately), so upon his return from that deployment, he would shortly be due for a duty station change, a change that (prior to these recent, massive DoD cuts) servicemembers usually had some say in (i.e. a wishlist of ideal duty station locations, and reenlistment contract "negotiations"). With this knowledge in mind, I narrowed my law schools down to two: KU and U of Denver. The latter would require no moving extra moving once I arrived at his current duty station in Colorado, and, if he did have to move after his deployment but before I completed law school, I would be about half-way through anyway. The former offered the advantage of being close to Ft. Leavenworth, a post that was notoriously short on servicemembers of his occupation (so it would not be a difficult post for him to get), so that although I would have to move after he deployed, I could simply remain in Kansas until he was able to receive his new duty station orders for Leavenworth.

IN SUMMATION: I made the [rather idiotic] decision to put "For KU and Denver" in the description section of all 3 recommendation letters. Naturally, since the military was involved in my planning, none of the above worked out (deployment dates change, reenlistment window dates and options changed, etc., etc.); but now that I've found Time and the military powers that be seem to have granted me the opportunity to finally apply (and hopefully attend) law school (we'll be stationed in one location for 3 years), I have that pesky description on my recommendation letters that has nothing to do with the law school to which I intend to apply now.

QUESTION (finally): Do I include an addendum explaining why my recommendation letters all say "For KU and Denver" when I'm applying to X other school? I'm incredibly attentive to these sort of admin. details, and I fear that sending the letters as-is without any explanation looks inattentive, careless, and sloppy. Unfortunately LSAC offers no way to correct the descriptions, so I feel that an addendum is my only viable recourse.

Thank you in advance to anyone who trudges through that logorrhea to actually answer the question...

[EMZE]

Do I include an addendum explaining why my recommendation letters all say "For KU and Denver" when I'm applying to X other school?

That was all your post needed to say.

That said, I don't think schools will see your comments for LOR's. My understanding is that those were just for LSAC so you could sort your recommendations accordingly. Once you apply you release LOR's to schools based on your comments.

[jkeller33]

Haha, yeah that whole "brevity" thing eludes me. A lot.

I had thought ^that^ originally, too, but the LSAC site indicates that law schools will see the descriptions so one ought to "choose [them] carefully." Ugh.

[ColtsFan88]

Haha, yeah that whole "brevity" thing eludes me. A lot.

I had thought ^that^ originally, too, but the LSAC site indicates that law schools will see the descriptions so one ought to "choose [them] carefully." Ugh.

I don't think it will make a difference at all, but I guess you can call LSAC and see if they can change it.

[JasonR]

Are you applying for this current cycle? If not, it would be good just to have your recommenders resubmit their letters with updated dates. Then you can label them what you want and assign only those to your apps.

If you are applying this cycle, include an addendum. But keep it brief and to the point. You can say everything you need to about this issue in four sentences.

[EMZE]

Definitely call LSAC and try to get them to change it. However, I looked through my submitted applications, and didn't see my comments on any of them, so I don't know where that stuff would show..

Where are you applying to/do you live now? I am currently at Carson, and I realize that CU is farther away, but it is also a much better school.

There is one thing that is most problematic about the schools you are talking about, and that is they are regional. Since your husband will be forced to move, it will be very difficult to continue finding new jobs. As an anecdote, the wife of a friend of mine got her JD while her husband was stationed at Ft. Drum, I think from Syracuse. She did well in school, had a job for about 6 months, and then PCS orders came down. She wasn't able to find a job at his next duty station, beautiful Ft. Irwin, and her JD basically expired since she spent so much time out of the field.

Just a warning. There are some programs within the army that you might want to look into that will stabilize your family, but those will depend on your husbands paygrade. The best option, assuming your husband is either a post command/ KD qualified O3 or an E7-E8, would be if he can swing a job at a school as an ROTC TAC. Potentially even better would be a West Point TAC, depending on if he has a degree or not. Last I checked, those guys are automatically granted admission to Columbia for a degree in management or something. For free.

Best of luck.

[jkeller33]

I'll just call LSAC and ask about the letter description's alleged visibility to the schools' committees. It would make more sense to me if it were just an organizational tool for LSAC and me to make sure they're sent to the right school; but it plainly states on the LSAC website that it's visible to the schools. It would really save me a headache, though, if it weren't after all.

We're PCSing to Riley in July/August for 3 1/2 years (his original reenlistment contract was for 2 years, 4 months...but his retention officer indicated that reenlistment contracts can only be for whole years, so it rounded up to 3...??? weird, but it actually simplifies things a bit). He plans on ETSing at the end of that contract, and we're both from Eastern KS originally, so we actually plan on staying in the area. But I definitely see your point, EMZE, about a Washburn degree not having much employment power outside of the KS/MO/NE area.

I'm sure the government will find a way to give him a different set of orders somewhere down the road that will put a nice, big, shiny wrench in all of these plans .

Thanks a bunch again, everyone, for the input.