William & Mary c/o 2019 Applicants (2015-2016 cycle) Forum

[woodchuck78]

Admitted via email! I submitted early last week. How long does it usually take to receive the admit packet and the scholly info?

Same here! Quick turn around!

They sent my admissions packet via Priority Mail, so you should receive it fairly quickly. Congrats!!

[JuliusCaesar]

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[PatriotP74]

Got my admissions packet today. Scholarship offer is over half tuition for out of state student.

Similar offer here, I was kind of surprised honestly. Didn't expect that much.

[Dexter97]

Does the admissions package include fellowship info? Or will that come out later?

[sarahjm619]

Got my admissions packet today. Scholarship offer is over half tuition for out of state student.

Congras! Would you tell the numbers of gpa and LSAT?

[robertloblawslawblog]

Does the admissions package include fellowship info? Or will that come out later?

After they have made all their admissions offers, they evaluate everyone who applied for the fellowships. So March/April sounds likely.

[imaholagram]

In via email this morning!

[lawandorder2019]

Congrats to all the new admits! I'm sorry I've been a pretty absent OP, if you all have any ideas for the poll or how to make the thread better, let me know!

[Ranlif]

In at 25K a year! Went complete on 1/9 so a pretty quick turn around. The admissions packet came priority mail, so even coming to the west coast it only took two days after the email.

Very excited!

[Captainduff]

in via email this morning! hopefully some $$$$ coming in the mail soon. LSAT > 75th, GPA median>x>25th

[Dexter97]

Does the admissions package include fellowship info? Or will that come out later?

After they have made all their admissions offers, they evaluate everyone who applied for the fellowships. So March/April sounds likely.

Ahh ok, thanks! I got a pretty decent offer already but that extra fellowship $$$ would definitely sweeten the deal.

[yenisey]

Does the admissions package include fellowship info? Or will that come out later?

After they have made all their admissions offers, they evaluate everyone who applied for the fellowships. So March/April sounds likely.

Ahh ok, thanks! I got a pretty decent offer already but that extra fellowship $$$ would definitely sweeten the deal.

I'm comfused with so many posts on this topic. W & M Emailed me saying they don't do rolling process and most decisions will be notified in April. But look at what's happening here! Acceptances are gushing.

[getelodofthis]

Does the admissions package include fellowship info? Or will that come out later?

After they have made all their admissions offers, they evaluate everyone who applied for the fellowships. So March/April sounds likely.

Ahh ok, thanks! I got a pretty decent offer already but that extra fellowship $$$ would definitely sweeten the deal.

I'm comfused with so many posts on this topic. W & M Emailed me saying they don't do rolling process and most decisions will be notified in April. But look at what's happening here! Acceptances are gushing.

yeah! i wanted to ask about that too! is it like if you're scholarship you hear back early and regular hears back later on in the game?

[robertloblawslawblog]

I'm comfused with so many posts on this topic. W & M Emailed me saying they don't do rolling process and most decisions will be notified in April. But look at what's happening here! Acceptances are gushing.

yeah! i wanted to ask about that too! is it like if you're scholarship you hear back early and regular hears back later on in the game?

i wish i had an answer for you, but law school admissions in general is a frustrating black box.

[getelodofthis]

I'm comfused with so many posts on this topic. W & M Emailed me saying they don't do rolling process and most decisions will be notified in April. But look at what's happening here! Acceptances are gushing.

yeah! i wanted to ask about that too! is it like if you're scholarship you hear back early and regular hears back later on in the game?

i wish i had an answer for you, but law school admissions in general is a frustrating black box.

tell me about it!!! i know somebody who only got accepted at Harvard and American!!! shit's crazy

[bdb90]

I'm comfused with so many posts on this topic. W & M Emailed me saying they don't do rolling process and most decisions will be notified in April. But look at what's happening here! Acceptances are gushing.

yeah! i wanted to ask about that too! is it like if you're scholarship you hear back early and regular hears back later on in the game?

i wish i had an answer for you, but law school admissions in general is a frustrating black box.

tell me about it!!! i know somebody who only got accepted at Harvard and American!!! shit's crazy

Yeah, I am way above W&M's 75th percentile LSAT, a little below 25th percentile GPA, and I have been waiting since may application went complete in September.

[robertloblawslawblog]

I'm comfused with so many posts on this topic. W & M Emailed me saying they don't do rolling process and most decisions will be notified in April. But look at what's happening here! Acceptances are gushing.

yeah! i wanted to ask about that too! is it like if you're scholarship you hear back early and regular hears back later on in the game?

i wish i had an answer for you, but law school admissions in general is a frustrating black box.

tell me about it!!! i know somebody who only got accepted at Harvard and American!!! shit's crazy

Yeah, I am way above W&M's 75th percentile LSAT, a little below 25th percentile GPA, and I have been waiting since may application went complete in September.

I think the reasoning for specific acceptances and denials is usually pretty transparent (as any Dean interview on TLS will show you).

What's less transparent is how the timelines around acceptances and rejections work. My sense is, most schools don't want to give out too many admittances or rejections too early because they don't have a full sense of what the applicant pool is yet. So if I were in their shoes, I would do it in waves, accepting the top 25% w/ scholarships (better to get them locked in early) and rejecting the bottom 25% (why leave them waiting), while letting the 50% in the middle sit around a little longer because you don't know what the median of your total pool will be until the end of the cycle. So it would be a regular culling of the stacks of paper around you until you figure out how much of that 50% to let in and when.

Anyway, that's the black box I was referring to. What's above is a guess- I haven't seen any posts anywhere either corroborating it or laying out an alternate theory, but based on my experiences with a couple law schools, it seems reasonable.

[robertwabisabi]

In via email today with scholarship offer. On the status checker site, the "current status" just changed to the following: May 1 is Deadline to Accept Offer.

Submitted: 1/16
Received: 1/19
Complete: 1/25
Offer: 1/29

[redfred22]

Got the decision this morning via email. IN! PM for stats and application information.

Submitted app 1/22 - Friday of huge snow storm in VA;
They received app on 1/25;
Went complete 1/28;
Decision emailed on 2/2.

Very fast turnaround! How long does it take to get the packet in the mail? I'm in VA fwiw.

[Liz18]

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[woodchuck78]

Congrats on getting through the application season and Happy New Year to you all.

I am a 2L student at W&M offering to answer any questions applicants may have. I was successful my first year (top 10%), and have been so far this year as well (although still waiting on some grades to come out for Fall semester). I have been involved in a number of activities at the school, including journals, competitive teams, and extra-curricular.

Happy to answer questions about the school, Williamsburg in general, the job search, etc....
Ask away.......

If you don't mind me asking, are you on a fellowship? If so, so you find that it hindered your ability in activities at the school? Or if you aren't, do you know of others that are and was the workload so much that they couldn't do much outside of its requirements?

[OneBarToAnother]

...

If you don't mind me asking, are you on a fellowship? If so, so you find that it hindered your ability in activities at the school? Or if you aren't, do you know of others that are and was the workload so much that they couldn't do much outside of its requirements?

No worries about the question. I am on a graduate fellowship (as are a vast majority of the out-of-state students). The amount of work varies slightly depending on your assignment. As a 1L you are required to complete 8 hours of work a week.

Most students split their required hours between an administrative office and the library. The library work consists of sitting at a reference desk. It is boring-- Upperclass students who want to use the reference librarians know better than to ask a 1L for help with a complicated research question, thus most of the time is spent just doing homework. But in law school, any designated time to accomplish reading for classes is a plus.

If you place with one of the specialized fellowships (CLCT, Virginia Coastal Policy, etc.) the work is more substantive and may take up a bit of your time. I did have one of those, but still found the time commitment easily manageable. I plugged the hours into my schedule like class time, and still managed to join a number of groups.

To be completely blunt, the fellowships really feel like an opportunity for the school to give additional money to students, without having to have a specific endowment or fund set aside as "scholarship money." The advisers recognize this, and really tailor the work to make sure it is not overwhelming. Once you are a 2L, it changes a bit, and as a research or teaching assistant for a faculty member, you may start having more work, but that is way down the road. And by then, you should have a handle on how to balance your time.

Hope this is helpful.

[LawMullet]

...

If you don't mind me asking, are you on a fellowship? If so, so you find that it hindered your ability in activities at the school? Or if you aren't, do you know of others that are and was the workload so much that they couldn't do much outside of its requirements?

No worries about the question. I am on a graduate fellowship (as are a vast majority of the out-of-state students). The amount of work varies slightly depending on your assignment. As a 1L you are required to complete 8 hours of work a week.

Most students split their required hours between an administrative office and the library. The library work consists of sitting at a reference desk. It is boring-- Upperclass students who want to use the reference librarians know better than to ask a 1L for help with a complicated research question, thus most of the time is spent just doing homework. But in law school, any designated time to accomplish reading for classes is a plus.

If you place with one of the specialized fellowships (CLCT, Virginia Coastal Policy, etc.) the work is more substantive and may take up a bit of your time. I did have one of those, but still found the time commitment easily manageable. I plugged the hours into my schedule like class time, and still managed to join a number of groups.

To be completely blunt, the fellowships really feel like an opportunity for the school to give additional money to students, without having to have a specific endowment or fund set aside as "scholarship money." The advisers recognize this, and really tailor the work to make sure it is not overwhelming. Once you are a 2L, it changes a bit, and as a research or teaching assistant for a faculty member, you may start having more work, but that is way down the road. And by then, you should have a handle on how to balance your time.

Hope this is helpful.

Out-of-state student here, how are the graduate fellowships decided? I did apply to one of the specialized ones, but this is the first I've heard of/paid attention to the graduate fellowships. Already admitted with a decent scholarship, but more aid sounds amazing and would really help me decide. Thanks for your help!

[OneBarToAnother]

...

Out-of-state student here, how are the graduate fellowships decided? I did apply to one of the specialized ones, but this is the first I've heard of/paid attention to the graduate fellowships. Already admitted with a decent scholarship, but more aid sounds amazing and would really help me decide. Thanks for your help!

The process for each of the specialized scholarships are different, so I'm not sure how helpful I can be. For the one that I had (not going to be more specific), the directors of the program reviews each application and hand-picks who they want. Others may be decided by Admissions or the needs of the program at the time.

When you received your admission packet, it should tell you if you have even been awarded a Graduate Fellowship in addition to your scholarship. The process may have changed since my admission, but my letter listed my scholarship amount plus told me the general details of the fellowship. If it wasn't listed, you may still receive a fellowship, but I would contact Admissions just to clarify.

Thanks

[woodchuck78]

...

If you don't mind me asking, are you on a fellowship? If so, so you find that it hindered your ability in activities at the school? Or if you aren't, do you know of others that are and was the workload so much that they couldn't do much outside of its requirements?

No worries about the question. I am on a graduate fellowship (as are a vast majority of the out-of-state students). The amount of work varies slightly depending on your assignment. As a 1L you are required to complete 8 hours of work a week.

Most students split their required hours between an administrative office and the library. The library work consists of sitting at a reference desk. It is boring-- Upperclass students who want to use the reference librarians know better than to ask a 1L for help with a complicated research question, thus most of the time is spent just doing homework. But in law school, any designated time to accomplish reading for classes is a plus.

If you place with one of the specialized fellowships (CLCT, Virginia Coastal Policy, etc.) the work is more substantive and may take up a bit of your time. I did have one of those, but still found the time commitment easily manageable. I plugged the hours into my schedule like class time, and still managed to join a number of groups.

To be completely blunt, the fellowships really feel like an opportunity for the school to give additional money to students, without having to have a specific endowment or fund set aside as "scholarship money." The advisers recognize this, and really tailor the work to make sure it is not overwhelming. Once you are a 2L, it changes a bit, and as a research or teaching assistant for a faculty member, you may start having more work, but that is way down the road. And by then, you should have a handle on how to balance your time.

Hope this is helpful.

That's really helpful, thanks so much!