Top Law Schools

Hi, I applied back in mid-October to the t14+UCLA (excluding Yale) and the responses I've gotten so far are as follows: accepted at Georgetown, priority reserve at Duke, waitlisted at UVA, UCLA, Penn, and UChicago, and radio silence pretty much everywhere else (though Columbia asked for my fall grades several weeks ago). I have a 169 LSAT score and 4.0 LSAC GPA (which will be dropping to a 3.95 once LSAC gets my updated transcript for Columbia ). My softs are fairly mediocre I think, perhaps a bit on the below average side; they include being part of an ethics debate club for three years at my university, being in my school's honors college, a service learning project in which I taught kids at an elementary school a few times a week for a semester, some volunteer work I did at a food pantry over the summer, President's honor rolls, and I won first place in a university-wide philosophy essay contest last year. I wrote "Why X" essays for Penn, Mich, UVA, and Berkeley. Does it seem to anyone like I am underperforming my numbers so far? Or is there a weak spot in my application I'm not noticing? Any insight would be greatly appreciated. Thanks a lot!

Definitely underperforming but not sure why. You should be in at Duke, UVA, Penn, Michigan and probably even Chicago and NYU. You never know with Berkeley. I can see you being out at HS and Columbia, but not sure what's going on otherwise.

ETA: Wouldn't be surprised if UVA is WL'ing you to yield protect. They have earned a reputation for that in the past and arguably do more than most schools to game their USNWR rank. I'd consider writing a LOCI to them at least.

Yeah . My letters of rec were from professors who know me well, so I can't imagine that could be a problem. I did also have Skype interviews with UVA and Uchicago so I definitely wasn't an auto-waitlist with them. Could my lack of strong softs be hurting me a lot?

Shepard42 wrote:Yeah . My letters of rec were from professors who know me well, so I can't imagine that could be a problem. I did also have Skype interviews with UVA and Uchicago so I definitely wasn't an auto-waitlist with them. Could my lack of strong softs be hurting me a lot?

no

UVA and Penn both YP and you're sort of a "reverse splitter". If you had interviews I'd have to wonder if you performed poorly, however unlikely that is.

I thought my interviews went well, but if YP is the reason I didn't get into those schools would sending a LOCI further stating my interest help get me off the waitlist? I don't really have any new developments in my life I could talk about in a LOCI.

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TheRealSantaClaus wrote:

robotrick wrote:UVA and Penn both YP and you're sort of a "reverse splitter". If you had interviews I'd have to wonder if you performed poorly, however unlikely that is.

OP is NOT a reverse splitter for either of those schools in today's climate. He/she is above the median LSAT at UVA and right at the median at Penn.

+1000. To be a splitter you have to at least be over one median and under another, and your real splitters are at/over a 75th and at/under a 25th. I know of at least one person with a slightly lower GPA and same LSAT who got a Dillard from UVA last cycle, so something is definitely up.

OP, the only other thing that could be a slight drag on your candidacy is being K-JD, as law schools have been increasingly skewing towards looking for at least a little post-undergrad experience from candidates. I don't think that it alone would get you a w/l, but perhaps that along with weak softs, and a less than impressive interview might explain it. Do send those LOCI's however. You don't have to tell them anything new about you. It's perfectly fine to just tell them that you're still super excited about their school and really hope to hear good news from them soon.

Thanks so much for the advice everyone, I'll definitely be sending LOCIs to these schools. Also on a side note, I was accepted at Cornell this morning

Shepard42 wrote:Thanks so much for the advice everyone, I'll definitely be sending LOCIs to these schools. Also on a side note, I was accepted at Cornell this morning

Congrats on Cornell! I bet you get SERIOUS money from them ($$$$)