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I need advice. I'm on a ridiculous number of waitlists. The range from schools I thought were my safeties to schools I'd love to go to, to my dream school. I declined to put a seat deposit down at the schools I was accepted at. I will be retaking the LSAT in June, and am confident that I will get a better score. My big options are as follows:

1. Take a year off, bank on a higher LSAT score, and get better offers next year.

2. Aggressively pursue the schools up to and after my LSAT score, accepting the first offer I get.

3. Wait to make any deposits or decisions until after my June LSAT score.

The biggest issue, obviously, is the June LSAT. If I do stupendously, I'll likely take off a year, but after that the options get tricky.

More problems:

1. Of the waistlists I'm on, there are six or seven schools I would be content to attend next year. I've heard being on multiple waitlists can hurt you.

2. I'm reluctant to put a deposit down at any school before I get my LSAT score back....which makes me reluctant to aggressively pursue the schools.

The issue right now is: How many waitlists should I remain on, and how aggressively should I pursue the said schools?

Would love input.

Option 1> Pursue schools hard. best case you are off the WL and then you can put down a small deposit..if you rock the LSAT (you lose 1k deposit but make it up w/ a 60k schly) or you don't rock the LSAT and then you are in a dream school. so it is all good. worst case scenario you don't get off any of the WL and you are no worse off.

Option 2> Don't purse schools hard. low chance of getting off WL. best case, you are no worse off. worst case...you are still not better off.

Point is this: by not doing anything you can't get anything. I would say try to get off the WL and if you rock the LSAT then you wasted a little bit of time but at least you hedged your bets (biz major here, haha).

Is it possible to put a deposit at a school before your LSAT and then withdraw depending on how you do?

bk187 wrote:Is it possible to put a deposit at a school before your LSAT and then withdraw depending on how you do?

You can always withdraw from a school after paying your deposit, you'll just lose your deposit. Playing this game is costly though.

vanwinkle wrote:

bk187 wrote:Is it possible to put a deposit at a school before your LSAT and then withdraw depending on how you do?

You can always withdraw from a school after paying your deposit, you'll just lose your deposit. Playing this game is costly though.

Is this implying that withdrawing and reapplying is risky because you have no guarantees of where you will get into?

bk187 wrote:Is this implying that withdrawing and reapplying is risky because you have no guarantees of where you will get into?

I mean that paying seat deposits if your intent is to withdraw and reapply is expensive. Deposits are money you don't get back. By the time June scores are released you will have to pay your second seat deposit, so that's $1,000 or more you've put down at a school that you're trying to avoid attending.

Really, that's what you're doing by retaking this late in the game. Be honest with yourself. You're trying to avoid going to the school you'd deposit at and go to a much better school. If that's what you really want, should you be bothering with the school that accepted you in the first place?