deleted. thanks for the advice Forum

[brose]

Did you use that as your PS? It probably would have worked for you - or at least help clear the stigma. Good luck with your schooling! Hopefully you hear back some good news from all those schools that have yet to respond.

[metallaura]

Did you use that as your PS? It probably would have worked for you - or at least help clear the stigma. Good luck with your schooling! Hopefully you hear back some good news from all those schools that have yet to respond.

I put it in the C&F addendum. I wasn't sure how extensive the C&F addendum was supposed to be. Is it just a list of everything with dates and stuff, or should you actually go into detail explaining what happened and circumstances etc...?

Maybe I screwed that up??? I had a several page C&F addendum explaining all traffic tickets etc (for the schools that requested) I had separate C&F addenda depending on what the school requested. Some wanted everything except parking tickets, some wanted just misdemeanors and felonies....

But what detail should you go into explaining that stuff? anyone know?

Thanks again for the kind words

[powerlawyer06]

I had a fee waiver so I just applied for the heck of it at Harvard and Yale.

I got a 160 in October and thought it was good enough to get into my top choice, Wisconsin. I WISH I would have retaken because I could have done better. Also note that I go to a smaller State University.

Also, my current GPA is 3.874 but my LSDAS gpa is 3.78

I am going to have to call BS on this one. YHS don't solicit through merit based waivers. Harvard and Yale don't give fee waivers unless you have a hardship and you apply for one. Otherwise they just recruit and send view books(and fee waiver applications). You could not have it on a whim because the fee waiver application at both of these is two pages of personal financial information front and back.

[ChriLa425]

Best of luck in all your endeavors, you´re a model to everyone with a mental illness or who has ever suffered a setback in life!

[fragged]

I thought you had to apply for rejection at Valparaiso.

[TommyK]

I thought you had to apply for rejection at Valparaiso.

we have a winner, folks. We can stop posting now.

[hijodehombre]

I had a fee waiver so I just applied for the heck of it at Harvard and Yale.

I got a 160 in October and thought it was good enough to get into my top choice, Wisconsin. I WISH I would have retaken because I could have done better. Also note that I go to a smaller State University.

Also, my current GPA is 3.874 but my LSDAS gpa is 3.78

I am going to have to call BS on this one. YHS don't solicit through merit based waivers. Harvard and Yale don't give fee waivers unless you have a hardship and you apply for one. Otherwise they just recruit and send view books(and fee waiver applications). You could not have it on a whim because the fee waiver application at both of these is two pages of personal financial information front and back.

maybe it was an LSAC waiver which most schools will honor with an app waiver
(this probably won't get clarified until another 2 pages worth of speculative posts, like the conviction thing)

[swilson215]

EDIT: Ahhhh, didn't read the whole thread before posting. Oops.

I think it's sad that some schools are such sticklers when it comes to criminal convictions. Odds are that this C&F issue wouldn't keep you from taking the bar in many states, so I don't see why it has to be such a problem for the schools. Good luck!

[cubswin]

I had a fee waiver so I just applied for the heck of it at Harvard and Yale.

I got a 160 in October and thought it was good enough to get into my top choice, Wisconsin. I WISH I would have retaken because I could have done better. Also note that I go to a smaller State University.

Also, my current GPA is 3.874 but my LSDAS gpa is 3.78

I am going to have to call BS on this one. YHS don't solicit through merit based waivers. Harvard and Yale don't give fee waivers unless you have a hardship and you apply for one. Otherwise they just recruit and send view books(and fee waiver applications). You could not have it on a whim because the fee waiver application at both of these is two pages of personal financial information front and back.

Could have been an LSAC Need Based Waiver. That was my assumption when I saw YH.

If you didn't apply right at the deadlines, OP, then I am guessing it was the conviction. That's a pretty unusual C&F issue you have, and I really can't think of any other reason you would get rejected from Valparaiso.

Maybe something in an LOR hinted at you being unstable, which confirmed fears your conviction raised?

[TommyK]

EDIT: Ahhhh, didn't read the whole thread before posting. Oops.

I think it's sad that some schools are such sticklers when it comes to criminal convictions. Odds are that this C&F issue wouldn't keep you from taking the bar in many states, so I don't see why it has to be such a problem for the schools. Good luck!

Well, yes. We would like to all give people second chances. In the schools' defense, though. It led to a police stand-off. I'm glad OP is better now and it's unfortunate it will haunt him, but this wasn't stealing a candy bar from a convenience store when he was 16. Police stand-off.

[swilson215]

EDIT: Ahhhh, didn't read the whole thread before posting. Oops.

I think it's sad that some schools are such sticklers when it comes to criminal convictions. Odds are that this C&F issue wouldn't keep you from taking the bar in many states, so I don't see why it has to be such a problem for the schools. Good luck!

Well, yes. We would like to all give people second chances. In the schools' defense, though. It led to a police stand-off. I'm glad OP is better now and it's unfortunate it will haunt him, but this wasn't stealing a candy bar from a convenience store when he was 16. Police stand-off.

Not trying to diminish the severity of the situation. Just saying, it wasn't necessarily a crime involving moral turpitude, it was an instance of mental illness. Odds are that a majority of states would still let the OP take the bar. But the OP can't take the bar if they don't get into (and graduate from) law school.

[metallaura]

I had a fee waiver so I just applied for the heck of it at Harvard and Yale.

I got a 160 in October and thought it was good enough to get into my top choice, Wisconsin. I WISH I would have retaken because I could have done better. Also note that I go to a smaller State University.

Also, my current GPA is 3.874 but my LSDAS gpa is 3.78

I am going to have to call BS on this one. YHS don't solicit through merit based waivers. Harvard and Yale don't give fee waivers unless you have a hardship and you apply for one. Otherwise they just recruit and send view books(and fee waiver applications). You could not have it on a whim because the fee waiver application at both of these is two pages of personal financial information front and back.

I had fee waiver through LSAC and most all schools waived my app fee. Only schools I had to pay for was WI and Yale. And I just said what the heck. So, NOT BS.

[metallaura]

No, there is no possible way that the LORs brought up any stability issues as they have all been recent professors/faculty. I was really only unstable for that brief period where I was going through all that.

But yeah, I can see why it might though up some "red flags" for law schools as to my ability to handle law school, and I do understand that they do not know me personally so they have to go off what is printed on paper.

So thanks for the advice. I was really just trying to see if all this rejection was normal and if not, I would know that the conviction is the factor that's holding me back from acceptance at a lot of these schools. BUT I did get into 3 schools and 2 of them with very good scholarships.

And yes, it was the need-based waiver through LSAC.

[TommyK]

No, there is no possible way that the LORs brought up any stability issues as they have all been recent professors/faculty. I was really only unstable for that brief period where I was going through all that.

But yeah, I can see why it might though up some "red flags" for law schools as to my ability to handle law school, and I do understand that they do not know me personally so they have to go off what is printed on paper.

So thanks for the advice. I was really just trying to see if all this rejection was normal and if not, I would know that the conviction is the factor that's holding me back from acceptance at a lot of these schools. BUT I did get into 3 schools and 2 of them with very good scholarships.

And yes, it was the need-based waiver through LSAC.

best wishes. Glad you're in a better place emotionally.

[BackToTheOldHouse]

I had a fee waiver so I just applied for the heck of it at Harvard and Yale.

I got a 160 in October and thought it was good enough to get into my top choice, Wisconsin. I WISH I would have retaken because I could have done better. Also note that I go to a smaller State University.

Also, my current GPA is 3.874 but my LSDAS gpa is 3.78

Yale doesn't automatically accept the LSAC fee waiver, dude.

[metallaura]

I had a fee waiver so I just applied for the heck of it at Harvard and Yale.

I got a 160 in October and thought it was good enough to get into my top choice, Wisconsin. I WISH I would have retaken because I could have done better. Also note that I go to a smaller State University.

Also, my current GPA is 3.874 but my LSDAS gpa is 3.78

Yale doesn't automatically accept the LSAC fee waiver, dude.

Yeah, I know. But I went through the trouble of writing an essay for them and didn't find out until I checked out so I just paid it. I had to pay for WI and Yale. If I had to pay for more than that, I wouldn't have been able to afford it. And, as you can see from all my rejections, it's a good thing I applied to A LOT of schools.

[Keeper1125]

.

[TommyK]

deleted by request

[txadv11]

Let me get this straight. You were unarmed and were shot by police? Now everything is better, and in disclosing the "incident" you are getting dinged with a GPA/LSAT well above 75% at many schools.

This could be an epic personal statement if you write it VERY carefully. If you decided to apply elsewhere, or again.

[danquayle]

Let me get this straight. You were unarmed and were shot by police? Now everything is better, and in disclosing the "incident" you are getting dinged with a GPA/LSAT well above 75% at many schools.

This could be an epic personal statement if you write it VERY carefully. If you decided to apply elsewhere, or again.

Agreed.

Kudos to TLS on this one, btw. Helpful and empathetic responses in a thread that could have degraded quickly. Xoxo-ness kept to a minimum.

OP... you're going to have to play this very, very carefully. One thing I've learned is that mistakes can be turned into great opportunities. That being said, it's going to shadow for you your entire life. I know people who've been dinged for mental C&F issues that seem petty. One person was C&F dinged (by the bar) because she'd gone through counseling in high school and early college (we're talking 19-20 years). She was dealing with bad breakups and some relatives dying, and proactively sought the help out before anything fell apart for her. I mean, that's precisely what we want people doing, right? But because of that, over half a decade later, a state considered her too unstable for legal practice.

The point of my story is that you're going to have to deal with this the rest of your life. It's going to be there, always. The best way to do that is to embrace it, as it seems you've done. As txad said, you can make this into a really, really compelling PS. You've mentioned Wisconsin has a great program for people in similar situaitons. I hope you specifically tied this event to Wisconsin's program? Sounds like, especially with your in-state status (Wisconsin loves in-staters) you could turn this into a very comeplling story for Wisconsin's adcomm. But you're only going to do that if you live up to in in fully painful detail. Anything less than FULL AND ABSOLUTE DISCLOSURE will come off obstruction, and that's what law schools are really worried about. The specific criminal events aren't so much as the issue as is the likelihood that you reoffend. You have to make it clear that won't happen, and that essentialy means speaking about it as candidly and often as possible.

It's possible, I went to a T1 and remember having a conversation with a prof on the admissions board about an ex-con (way worse than you) he admitted. He said he was compelled because the ex-con had clearly devoted his life in full to rectifying his mistakes. So its definitely possible, given the right circumstances.

However, if you don't get into Wisconsin, I'd caution you against taking on too much debt. You've got no assurances that you'll end up passing the bar C&F, so the risk/reward element of law school debt is heavily slanted for you. I'd put a premium on minimizing debt. If you're SERIOUS about law school (make sure), money at William Mitchell might not be a bad idea. (That is the first time I ever recommended William Mitchell.) Just know your prospects aren't going to be fabulous.

[oldhippie]

Kudos to TLS on this one, btw. Helpful and empathetic responses in a thread that could have degraded quickly.

+1000. every now and then, TLS surprises me. in a good way, that is.

[mountaintime]

how long ago did the stand off incident occur? schools will presume that you're unstable until you've put some time between yourself and the incident.

[paratactical]

how long ago did the stand off incident occur? schools will presume that you're unstable until you've put some time between yourself and the incident.

This.

I would recommend that you take a few years, get a job, get to know attorneys practicing in the area you'd like to work in and get those personal relationships going so that when you apply again, you will have time between everything.

[subtle]

I don't know why, but I feel like OP isn't being completely honest here. Things keep changing.

[jess]

.