Optimal Application Submission Time: Early/Mid/End of Cycle? Forum

[ksllaw]

Is there a best/optimal time to submit your application to law schools?

E.g., Is it better at all to submit at the very beginning of a cycle when apps are first accepted by schools...or perhaps later on? What are the advantages/disadvantages in each case?

[remix]

Early is the best. Adcomms have more leeway to accept scores and more money to give out.

[ksllaw]

Early is the best. Adcomms have more leeway to accept scores and more money to give out.

This was my intuition as well.

But I started wondering about special cases. Like what if you had very borderline numbers (GPA and/or LSAT) and were applying to a school out of your likely reach? Let's just say, for example, 3.4 GPA/179 LSAT. The lower than normal GPA would seem to put you out of reach for HYS. But let's say you wanted to apply there anyways just in case.

If you applied early, would HYS look at that GPA and think to themselves, "No way. We normally get MUCH better applications than this. We have so many more people to look through and choose from later on. REJECT!."

Whereas, if you waited until the middle of the cycle when more applicants had applied and there was a greater sense of how the pool looked and perhaps that year's pool wasn't that great, then would you perhaps have a shot you would have otherwise lost by submitting too early?

Once you get rejected that's it. But would HYS maybe look at your app. in the middle of the cycle when they may have seen so many worse applicants than you (say, 3.2/168....3.3/169.......3.5/167.........3.4/166..............) and perhaps give you that longshot chance they you may have otherwise lost out on by submitting too early?

Just these sorts of situations I'm wondering about. Trying to look at every angle.

[nickb285]

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[ksllaw]

Adcomms will have a sense of what their incoming applicant pool will be like, and will accept accordingly. If they're unsure due to the volatility of the applicant pool at the moment, they'll increase waitslists--they won't be thinking "We normally get better applicants than this and therefore will this year, REJECT;" they'll be thinking "We normally get better applicants than this, but this year is weird--put him on the waitlist for now and we'll see how things go." You're not going to move from a flat reject candidate to a flat accept candidate over three months; you might move from a waitlist to an accept, so you might as well get the advantage of applying early.

Yes, but what if the pool that year happens to be soooo skewed that it really does shift the decision-making? This would probably be rare, but what if that year's pool happens to be an inordinately bad one and what would have been a flat reject (or close to one) may have ended up getting a longshot admit?

Just running all poss. scenarios through mind.

[nickb285]

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[Mal Reynolds]

I've heard that adcomms have promotions for the last submitted application. If you wait until 11:59 on the final day of the deadline, it's an automatic admit. I would look into this.