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I cleared the waitlist at Texas in April, was awarded scholarship $$ in May, and then signed the letter of intent to attend in June. I wasn't entirely intent on attending last month, but wanted to buy myself some more time to decide. In the last month, I've been reconsidering that commitment in light of my location preferences (live in TX but would like a stronger chance at NY/DC in addition to TX), the dimming possibility of clearing a few WLs at higher-ranked schools, and the belief that I underperformed on the LSAT (would be looking to retake after a cancel and 2 scores in the low 160s).

Question is, if I withdrew from UT now and then reapplied in fall 2016 along with T14 schools (wouldn't be eligible to take the LSAT again until next year), would I be basically writing off any chance of getting reaccepted to UT? Not sure how they would view someone who wrote a strong LOCI and committed with a letter of intent before withdrawing the month before classes started.

Has anyone else gone through a similar situation and then wasn't penalized for it on a reapplication?

Anyone? With all of the reapply threads out there, someone must have been in this situation before. Are you an automatic ding if you reapply somewhere after you've made the initial deposit and signed a letter of intent only to pull out in July/August?

Any help would be much appreciated.

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I don't think you'll be rejected (I was admitted two cycles in a row by the same school under similar circumstances) but I think there's an outside chance your future LOCIs in the event of a waitlist would have less impact. Best make sure you do better on the LSAT.

They're not going to penalize you for it. You're not the first person who has done this and you won't be the last. They understand how it works.

Good luck!

See if you can defer non-binding.

Thanks guys. I'm still evaluating my options here, but good to know that the impact of withdrawing will not likely be too negative in a future cycle.

Appreciate the help!

I think that your current numbers are important in this situation. Just how "lucky" were you to get in off the waitlist at Texas ? In short, if you have a high GPA, then it's worth the risk if willing to work hard on improving your LSAT score; alternatively, if your GPA is low by T-14 standards, then count your blessings.

OP: Just read through your brief posting history. With a 3.77 GPA, it is worth retaking the LSAT (162) in order to increase your chances for NYC & DC biglaw & federal government regulatory opportunities. If you suffer from test day anxiety, there are psychologists in every major city who can help prepare you to perform up to your potential on test day.

OP: I'm not sure that you're asking the right question. I doubt that if you improve your LSAT score by 3 or more points that you'll still be interested in attending Texas since you are targeting NYC/DC/Federal Gov't positions. With a 165 or higher & a 3.77 GPA with several years related work experience, you are likely to be accepted to a few T-14 law schools such as Georgetown, Cornell, Michigan & Northwestern. Also, since you're currently on Duke's waitlist, another year of work experience & a higher LSAT score should make you an even more attractive candidate to Duke.

CanadianWolf wrote:OP: I'm not sure that you're asking the right question. I doubt that if you improve your LSAT score by 3 or more points that you'll still be interested in attending Texas since you are targeting NYC/DC/Federal Gov't positions. With a 165 or higher & a 3.77 GPA with several years related work experience, you are likely to be accepted to a few T-14 law schools such as Georgetown, Cornell, Michigan & Northwestern. Also, since you're currently on Duke's waitlist, another year of work experience & a higher LSAT score should make you an even more attractive candidate to Duke.

Agreed, and I've come around to that line of thinking myself, that if I could improve by 6 points or more, I'd probably not be interested in attending Texas anyway. So in the end the question of withdrawing really wouldn't matter. I just need to make up my mind about actually pulling the withdrawal trigger.