Tips Forum

[yoshikart]

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[AntipodeanPhil]

Are you referring to this:

People who lie make me angry... You may be wondering how we would ever know. I'll be honest, unless my spidey senses go up when reading an application, I generally don't go around digging for dirt on people. But my friends, you would be shocked at the amount of random information that comes flowing into our office about various applicants, from sources other than themselves. There's more information than you realize about you out there...particularly if you've, you know, been out in public and interacted with people, for example in a law school test preparation class. Anyway, if and when it's appropriate, we do cross-check information we discover with the information provided on the student's application. In 98% of the cases, the information checks out. In the 2% that don't...well, those people get pulled from our pipeline and receive a ding letter. Pretty simple.

I'm fairly sure that:

(1) They're only going to consider information from reliable sources - not your college buddy/acquaintance.
(2) As stated above, they're going to cross-check/verify anything significant.
(3) They're not going to care about random college stuff (whether you drank beer in a dorm room, broke up with a girlfriend by email, et cetera).
(4) They're probably exaggerating a little to discourage lying.

I doubt many or any of the tips they receive are from college friends or acquaintances. My guess is that a lot of this information will come from people who know an applicant (professors, employers) contacting people they know at Yale to try and use conections to help the applicant out.

I was in email contact with a current student at a school I'd been accepted to, and I know she talked to someone in admissions about me - perhaps that sort of thing happens a bit also.

[yoshikart]

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[twenty]

This sounds insanely paranoid. Unless you fail to include some LSDAS GPA-influencing transcripts, a C&F issue, or had your savant little brother take the LSAT for you, the only thing this will affect is your chance at Yale (at the VERY most.) You're not going to be doomed into a TTT law school because Yale found out you're secretly a bad father or something.

Would it be safer to just decline comment to every minimally intrusive question asked by my peers and never tell anyone anything unless they have a need to know?

I'm pretty sure I read somewhere on the YLS admission blog that they don't like assholes, either. So no.

[yoshikart]

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[LSAT Blog]

Would it be safer to just decline comment to every minimally intrusive question asked by my peers and never tell anyone anything unless they have a need to know?

What prevents someone from fabricating false rumors and sending them to admissions' offices?

Safer, perhaps. But a difficult way to make/keep friends and have a happy life.

Nothing prevents someone from fabrication, etc. except libel laws. Although you'll have a difficult time tracking down the perpetrator if schools don't give you the person's name or tell you of the communications in the first place.

What do you think are the types of matters significant enough to warrant a verification?

Probably something that sounds too impressive to be true (e.g. Aleksey Vayner's claims).

(I would suspect that an allegation from a random person probably wouldn't be taken seriously and/or would be investigated - it wouldn't simply be assumed to be true.)

However, something from an employer/professor/undergrad would surely be taken seriously.

I have a hard time imagining a circumstance in which the school would give you the opportunity to "disprove" a claim - I doubt they're going to turn it into a "he said, she said" back-and-forth. They probably don't have time to do that sort of thing.

[yoshikart]

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[Randomnumbers]

How on earth do you manage to build such a relationship with your Dean's office? Remember people - this is why you are always nice to the secretaries.

[yoshikart]

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[dingbat]

How on earth do you manage to build such a relationship with your Dean's office? Remember people - this is why you are always nice to the secretaries.

It is what it is. What should I do about it?

what did you do?

[sinfiery]

I hope you're using a proxy OP.

[manofjustice]

I hope you're using a proxy OP.

Ya. Serious shit.

[oaken]

Probably something that sounds too impressive to be true (e.g. Aleksey Vayner's claims).

I have somehow never seen that before. Thank you, Steve.

[yoshikart]

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[A. Nony Mouse]

I don't have a great relationship with my dean's office--their dean's rec will say nothing but I fear that they might write the dean's rec and then later call YLS's admissions office directly to express their displeasure, even though the exchanges that might have caused their displeasure don't fit any question on the dean's rec (i.e., nothing disciplinary).

What does this even mean? Do you mean you have some kind of misconduct in your past, or something like you complained to them (or keep complaining) about profs/classmates or the like? If they're willing to give you a dean's letter saying you're in good standing, they are NOT going to call random admissions offices to "express their displeasure," in part because they have way too many other things to do, in part because it's good PR for them to have students go to YLS, and in part because if they issue the letter they have to stand behind it. Seriously, though, deans are way too busy and focused on the bigger picture to care about sabotaging individual students' LS apps.

[yoshikart]

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[A. Nony Mouse]

Do you really either hang out with enough jerks or piss off your friends/employers enough that you really think someone is going to complain to a LS admissions office about you?? Do the people you know not have lives?

[yoshikart]

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[A. Nony Mouse]

Except that most people don't keep LS admissions offices on speed dial. If it's some random persecuting soul who has no grounds to think you're a terrible person, no reasonable LS admissions person is going to pay any attention to them. And if you didn't hide/obfuscate anything on your application, again, no one's going to care. (If they'd care, they'd ask about it.)

[dingbat]

what did you do?

nothing that would necessitate a yes to a CF question.

We need a little more than this to know if it's something you should worry about.
If all it was was you being loud and disruptive outside the dean's office once or twice, then that's no big deal, but if you were constantly harassing the staff and had to receive several verbal warnings, that's a different matter

[yoshikart]

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[A. Nony Mouse]

Admissions people will not care what a random fellow undergraduate thinks of you (unless they had dirt on stuff that you'd have had to admit on C&F, which you've said isn't the case). Seriously. They just won't. What on earth could a fellow classmate say that would make you look like a bad candidate for law school? You suck up in class? You were in a group project with them and made them do all the work? You're sleeping with the prof? (Okay, that last might be dodgy... but again, LSs. won't. care.)

[WanderingPondering]

Your paranoia is bordering on "a beautiful mind" status. Either you've done something really messed up that should prevent you from any employment/education, or you are worrying for no apparent reason.

Again, unless you have really fucked something up, no o e is trying to ruin your life.

[dingbat]

Admissions people will not care what a random fellow undergraduate thinks of you (unless they had dirt on stuff that you'd have had to admit on C&F, which you've said isn't the case). Seriously. They just won't. What on earth could a fellow classmate say that would make you look like a bad candidate for law school? You suck up in class? You were in a group project with them and made them do all the work? You're sleeping with the prof? (Okay, that last might be dodgy... but again, LSs. won't. care.)

Maybe if OP earned some extra money by dealing drugs - but that'd be a "he said, she said" argument, which doesn't count for squat

[yoshikart]

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