Retaking a 175? Forum

[kinge]

The odds that you would be rejected to all nine of those schools with those numbers by random chance are less than 500 to 1. So either you were crazy unlucky or there's something seriously off with your application.

I did not write a Why UVA or a Why Michigan but I did write one for Penn. I also did not tailor my PS for Columbia (although I did address Why Law and wove my personal narrative in there). I found out after I already submitted my app that Columbia may or may not want the PS tailored to their school (https://www.reddit.com/r/lawschooladmis ... statement/), but I also heard that it would be fine if I submitted the same PS to all the schools I applied to.

I don’t think a failure to tailor your application was the issue. Are you sure you can’t think of anything else?

I really can't. I did find out that UVA and Michigan really like Why X essays and I planned to write and submit the essays afterwards but my fall semester classes ended up being way way harder/more time consuming than I thought so I kind of forgot about writing the letters until it was too late.

I suppose the letters of recommendation MAY have been the problem but I'm having a hard time believing that they could have hurt my app so much. The first professor was always happy to talk to me about school stuff, personal stuff, and also law school stuff (his brother is a lawyer, applied/went to law school during ITE). He let me take an advanced course that he taught without fulfilling the prereqs because he saw how I did in another one of his classes and trusted me to work hard. I had classes with both my recommenders during my last semester and wanted to get my transcript in a few weeks earlier and both professors were more than happy to help me with that. I've always heard that GPA and LSAT were 95% of the battle for most schools so I feel like 1 decent LOR and 1 glowing one wouldn't be a net negative.

I will likely talk with my recommenders about reapplying in a few weeks anyways and I'll try to think about what to ask them in the meantime.

[Pneumonia]

The odds that you would be rejected to all nine of those schools with those numbers by random chance are less than 500 to 1. So either you were crazy unlucky or there's something seriously off with your application.

+1

[Slippin' Jimmy]

While you still probably should have had a better cycle, don't underestimate how important sincere and well written Why X essays are for some schools (UVA, Mich and Penn as has already identified but I'd add Duke in there as well). 2 cycles ago I wrote very good and sincere Why Essays to Duke and UVA and got accepted very quickly while I half-assed my Mich essay (or maybe I didn't write one, its been a minute) and got waitlisted while my numbers would have suggested otherwise. OP has a great LSAT but your GPA is still kind of low for these schools, so OP needs to stand out from the other splitters by showing that you actually want to go to these "lower" T14s.

[flashdril]

While you still probably should have had a better cycle, don't underestimate how important sincere and well written Why X essays are for some schools (UVA, Mich and Penn as has already identified but I'd add Duke in there as well). 2 cycles ago I wrote very good and sincere Why Essays to Duke and UVA and got accepted very quickly while I half-assed my Mich essay (or maybe I didn't write one, its been a minute) and got waitlisted while my numbers would have suggested otherwise. OP has a great LSAT but your GPA is still kind of low for these schools, so OP needs to stand out from the other splitters by showing that you actually want to go to these "lower" T14s.

+1 for Duke really liking the Why Duke essay, have heard this from the admissions folks there.