Top Law Schools

It seems that waitlist activity has been nearly nonexistent at a number of T14 schools. I am waitlisted at 6 T14s and have yet to hear of much post deposit deadline movement at most of them (UVA-apparently none coming, Duke-apparently none coming, Penn - email from them said they would likely admit some, Northwestern-WL letter said they would admit substantially, Michigan-some admits to summer but none for fall yet, Gtown-a few admits).

Schools seem to be about a week behind last year's cycle in general, but I am starting to get concerned by the silence. Anyone care to add some color on this? Has anyone heard anything from the above schools particularly?

I think there have been less deferrals “due to the economy” at Top 5 schools which have caused a lack of a cascading waitlist need. Meaning, in the past people have deferred from HLSCC and those schools have gone to their waitlists to fill the class, causing lower schools to have to fill previous spots who are now attending higher schools, now that higher schools don’t need to go to their WLs so much, lower schools won’t have to either. This may change as Yale hasn’t finished their waitlist activity yet, so likely neither has Harvard and the cascade hasn’t taken place yet. Harvard did go to theirs a little bit already and that will likley cascade down the T14, as those students had put down deposits at other schools that they haven't broken yet. It is just uncertain how much it will matter at this time.

Just my wishy-washy opinion though. It is very unlikely UVA (at all) or Duke (may in the single digits) will go to their WLs.

An example of the WL cascade effect:

Yale takes 10 students off their WL, causing Harvard to take 6 and Stanford to take 4 to keep same size class "Students who had committed to attend, but now are going to Yale." Now Penn has to take 2 off theirs, NYU must take 4, and Columbia must take 4 "Students now going to HS". Now UVA must take 3 ... and so forth.

So those 10 students taken off one WL will cause a lot of other WL activity

Possibly true, but concept of "cascading" isn't the driver behind initial post deposit deadline movement. It has an effect on post 2nd deposit deadline movement, but initial yield is what moves waitlists at first.

noname4 wrote:Possibly true, but concept of "cascading" isn't the driver behind initial post deposit deadline movement. It has an effect on post 2nd deposit deadline movement, but initial yield is what moves waitlists at first.

You make a good argument. Congrats, there's no hope.

noname4 wrote:Possibly true, but concept of "cascading" isn't the driver behind initial post deposit deadline movement. It has an effect on post 2nd deposit deadline movement, but initial yield is what moves waitlists at first.

Sorry I didn't see your reply, I edited my post then went away.

The initial yield movement ship seems to have sailed already. Sorry..... Be hopeful for the cascade effect.

I love how people who aren't dealing with the law school application process think that making it to the waitlist at these AMAZING schools is a great thing.

"Ohmigod, you're on the waitlist at all those great schools! You're definitely going to get into one of them!"

Unitas wrote:

noname4 wrote:Possibly true, but concept of "cascading" isn't the driver behind initial post deposit deadline movement. It has an effect on post 2nd deposit deadline movement, but initial yield is what moves waitlists at first.

Sorry I didn't see your reply, I edited my post then went away.

The initial yield movement ship seems to have sailed already. Sorry..... Be hopeful for the cascade effect.

While I think this may be true at some schools, I'm not sure it's the case across the board. Michigan's fall WL, for example. They're solely concentrating on making sure summer is set, but there will be both initial yield movement/cascade for fall once that's done. Northwestern was still making some initial decisions very recently as well - WL movement hasn't started for them yet, but that doesn't mean it won't happen at all, etc...

UChi hasn't had any movement, and doesn't anticipate any in the immediate future.