Is U CHICAGO really as bad as everyone says? Forum

[Illijah]

If you skim the forums you are bound to see a few comments about the QOL and the work environment at U Chicago. People go to their ASW seriously considering them and leave knowing they can scratch it off the list. I have yet to hear back from them but i'm uneasy with all the bad feedback the school has received about competitiveness and just how unpleasant the students can be.

Does anyone have personal experience with the topic at hand?

[LawandOrder]

Everyone says Chicago is bad? I must have missed those threads.

[Illijah]

Everyone says Chicago is bad? I must have missed those threads.

Not bad as in it's not a good school. Bad as in the work environment, you know the saying "U Chicago is where fun goes to die." etc...

[hesitantstyle]

Everyone says Chicago is bad? I must have missed those threads.

Chicago is a great law school. Form your own opinion about the school through research and a campus visit.

[0L Hoping for 1]

I spent a lot of time at ASW trying to see if the students were as socially awkard, competitive, etc. as everyone says. I can tell you from speaking with all levels of students, alumni, etc. that everyone of them says that there is not a competitive nature in the school like the rumors say.

It is competitive in the fact that you have to do your work, because everyone does. But, students will help eachother and work in study groups etc.

Also, I found some socially awkward students. But, I also found some really outgoing and fun students. I left ASW really liking the atmosphere of the school. It is very academic and a little nerdy (but lets face it, if you are on TLS you are a little nerdy on the inside), but also the students seemed like they went out and had fun and were friendly with each other.

[ChaotiCait]

Everyone I talked to at ASW loved it. Most of us had a lot of fun and I feel the "where the fun goes to die" rumor was effectively dispelled. The people were great, everyone said that they had a social life. There are probably awkward and non-social people, but its a top 6 school, everyone's going to have that. I don't think you can say that people go to the ASW and then don't want to go there unless you've actually been to an ASW. It was a great weekend.

[hmlee]

I have..... conflicting feelings about this topic. I am a former U of C undergrad and current law student at Northwestern. I will tell you that my undergrad at the U of C was hard. Like, soul crushingly hard. But I still had a lot of good times. Most of the "where fun comes to die" is intended in a tongue and cheek fashion.

I am happier at Northwestern than I ever was at the U of C.... BUT, I am not sure if this has anything to do with the fact that I am at Northwestern vs. the U of C or rather just where I am in my life currently.

I caution people who are thinking of law school at the U of C to keep in mind two things:

1. The U of C law school is on quarters, and it is one of the only law schools to be so. This means that you start and end later than most schools (can affect summer jobs, but the school has ways to deal with that, I'm sure). It also means that your schedule is more compressed and that you *will* have more exams than students on a semester system. This probably does translate to some more work. But, don't kid yourself. Law school is hard. You will have lots of work no matter where you go. In fact, if you don't have lots of work, you're doing it wrong.

2. The U of C undergrad has a reputation for harboring a certain breed of nerdy and sometimes antisocial students. This is largely overblown, as, in recent years, the undergraduate population has normalized quite a bit. Even so, the graduate schools at the U of C != the undergrad. The people who attend the various graduate schools come from *all* over the country and from all different schools. For the most part, people go to the grad schools at the U of C because they are very very good schools. Thus, on the whole, the graduate population is more "normal."

Further addenda: If you are wondering about the neighborhood of Hyde Park where the U of C is located, check out my guide:

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 22&t=84243

[SanBun]

One of my friends attending UChicago law really dislikes the work and social atmosphere. She loves the school for its academic programs, but she specifically told me she never hangs out with law students and all of her friends - every single one- actually go to the med school. This is not to scare anyone, I'm sure you can have solid social experiences at UChicago law, but from what I heard- No, the social atmosphere is not satisfying.

[JD-INTIALSANDNAME]

I actually went to ASW completely sold on Duke and had the trip change my mind. I'm a very social person at a huge state university, but, honestly, I found that the quality of students at Chicago was - in a lot of ways - extremely high and consistent. Students were easy to talk to, and I didn't get the sense that I was being "sized up" as I've heard multiple people complain of who visited Penn, Columbia, and NYU. Professors are amazing and class contributions, from both current and prospective students, were - to a person - well thought out and insightful, but also genuine (not a pissing contest). I actually thought, socially, that the students were about as strong as at Duke (though obviously Hyde Park is not a great place to hang out).

Going to Chicago really comes down to the question of why you want to go to law school. If you want to be the best lawyer you can be Chicago, along with a couple of other schools, is probably the choice. If you want to continue to live more like an undergrad, some choices a little farther down on the T14 might be a better fit (I personally loved the idea of going to Duke sporting events and partying in Chapel Hill - Durham sucks). If you're considering other top 5-6 schools, you're going to have the same trouble with competitive students, probably more so (with the exception of Stanford from what I understand).

I think a lot of Chicago's reputation comes from the (accurate) perception of the university as an undergrad institution. I would never had wanted to spend my undergrad years there, and the students, though I think it's hugely overblown, are definitely awkward. The law students didn't really conform to the descriptions of undegrads you usually hear.

Hope this helps

[tintin]

bumping this because it is now relevant to me

I spoke with one of my uncle's friends today who went to chicago back in the 70's. He said that while the school is obviously very good with jobs, education, placement etc, he did not have a very pleasant time there. He said the people/atmosphere was very serious. He attributed this to the fact that chicago has so many grad students, far outnumbering the undergrad population. Anyways, he seemed to think it was kind of a social downer.

anyone else want to weigh in?

[hiromoto45]

...

[hmlee]

bumping this because it is now relevant to me

I spoke with one of my uncle's friends today who went to chicago back in the 70's. He said that while the school is obviously very good with jobs, education, placement etc, he did not have a very pleasant time there. He said the people/atmosphere was very serious. He attributed this to the fact that chicago has so many grad students, far outnumbering the undergrad population. Anyways, he seemed to think it was kind of a social downer.

anyone else want to weigh in?

All I have to say is that 30 years is a very long time. I've had conversations with alums from the 80's whose experiences were a lot worse than my own....

[TTH]

People who trash UChicago do so because they couldn't handle the RIGOR.

[JollyGreenGiant]

The T6 is filled with almost the exactly same students. Take that as you will.

[AngryAvocado]

The T6 is filled with almost the exactly same students. Take that as you will.

Lies. Right before admitting someone, Chicago calls that person and gives them a short quiz designed to make sure that said person is really the socially inept nerd they're hoping for. Failure on the quiz means failure to be admitted, and this actually why it's taking the admission's committee so long.

[adgirl13]

bumping this because it is now relevant to me

I spoke with one of my uncle's friends today who went to chicago back in the 70's. He said that while the school is obviously very good with jobs, education, placement etc, he did not have a very pleasant time there. He said the people/atmosphere was very serious. He attributed this to the fact that chicago has so many grad students, far outnumbering the undergrad population. Anyways, he seemed to think it was kind of a social downer.

anyone else want to weigh in?

30 years is an incredibly long time ago. I went to UChicago undergrad and it was known as a horrible place to go to school in the 70s. This is part of the reason their alumni endowment is so much smaller than other peer schools. Things have changed, a lot. The undergrad students are more normal than ever, so the whole "Where Fun Comes to Die" is mostly tongue in cheek these days. I absolutely LOVED U of C and never had an issue having a good time (though they do make you work hard).

The law school, from what I've heard from several friends who attend it, is great and does not have the same student body as the undergrad. You will have little to do with undergrads, except in passing on the quads. At U of C you will get similar students as you would get at any other top law school.

[5ky]

People who trash UChicago do so because they couldn't handle the RIGOR.

TCR.

[CCN]

Funny when people evaluate choices they don't even have (yet).

[miamiman]

Is U CHICAGO really as bad as everyone says?

no, it's definitely worse.

[c0rpusdelicti]

just ran here to post this

How did it happen that making the tired claim that this ghetto shithole is UNDERrated became the signature conversation piece for people who desperately want to be thought smart; really, really smart. smart people love “rigor” and Chicago is full of it; it must be, what with its hair-splitting number grades, punishingly low enforced mean, and oppressive course load. Chicago boosterism usually comes in the form of a comparison with the appallingly UNrigorous Stanford or Yale — gradeless, abundantly pass-fail, unserious; students who do nothing and know nothing. Chicago: graded, competitive, serious… That it’s really just a ruptured ego rehab clinic for Harvard rejects is a fact not emphasized. I have seen a homely Chicago girl, deep into her second year, still spontaneously weeping upon Proustian recollections of the stiff NO Harvard sent her, in brisk three-week turnaround time from the point her doomed application was deemed complete. Happy December, chickiepoo. Then the Yale axe fell, as it does. Welcome to the New Year, dipshit. January passed; February crawled by with those joyless acceptances that only accentuated the horror of Plan B: Georgetown, which is a “Law Center,” a failed euphemism if ever there was one. Next: woeful Cornell. Oh, what a very bad school. And — what do we have here?!? — a Boston University full-ride. Ummmm, no. On second thought in stead of BU I’d prefer the f free roasted dogshit mignon with a pus reduction sauce and a heaping blob of earwax garnish. Thank you no. I am woe. Add to that the fact that the imbecile whoalways posts about how Sean Hannity is a “serious thinker” just got into Harvard. Time for you to start some damage-control posting here, on the PR board, pretending to seriously consider this BU affront. You wave the flag of thrift and test out a quaintly anachronistic abhorrence of debt. Substantively, you add in some tommyrot about how BU’s “really strong in …’international law,’ whatever the fuck that is. BU? Yeah, right. But you need something that gives the illusion that Georgetown, if it comes to that, isn’t the three years incarcerated in a smegma chamber that it is. So good, so fine you’ll drop the cash dollars despite that lovely gift from BU. You’re forming a cover story; something to puff the very real and very nauseating prospect of joining 600 other defeated mediocrities at … fuck, no … Georgetown. And you thought going to college at Penn was bad. . Still, there are two more to hear from. Two more law schools …There’s that late April Stanford rejection (inconsiderate bastards) which at least affords you ample time to manufacture the next layer in the cover story: e.g., a strict policy against California, a suburban aversion, a preference for bigness, all of which eliminate Stanford from the sweepstakes. Be sure, too, to ridicule their tepid 25-75 LSAT %ile, too. Kill it dead, if you must. Maybe you thrust out of your frozen horror by sending off one of those strategic “withdrawal” letters, the way all those clowns do when Harvard puts them on hold … “.you cant’t fire me … i quit! ” Adios, Stanford. Suck my cunt, you no-SCOTUS-clerking/dike-dean-TTT. … die, die, you gravy-sucking pig. …. and now, then, there is just one. Chicago. The Law School. Chicago does do that pathetic yield-maximizing stall, so February passes, March crawls. They haven’t the nuts to try the ricockulous move Stanford does. So they write. Ever rigorous, The Law School requests the pleasure of your company. Not so fast . No decision has been made. They want to inspect you in person. The “evaluative interview. Looking for people skills. And evident thirst for knowledge. The life of the law is the law itself. It seems you’ve fucked up; quite possible3 when the went “behind the numbers.” Maybe those two essay paragraphs about why the 171, exactly where you topped out in Kaplan, is a truer measure than the 164. maybe it was two paragraphs too many. You weren’t an auto-admit. So off to the “evaluative interview,” and you give them not much to evaluate. You stay on message, though: owing to its RIGOR, Chicage is now, and ever was, your FIRST CHOICE. Tell your audience what it wants to hear. Then they decide, engaging the only evaluation that matters in this gig. Looks like they can break even with your sorry ass. Median-wise, your 171 nullifies the 159 URM from Howard they took yesterday. They’ll swallow your 3.46; sometimes that’s the price of a yield-lock, and you’re that. (No one’s swallowing the Howard guy, if you catch my racy double entendre.) These admissions guys talk, as you suspected, and you wisely decide against telling them it had come down to Chicago or Harvard for you; first versus second choice; no choice at all. Never get caught lying. Bad idea, even worse than telling that stupid girl from Emory you were “a Kennedy.” These things get found out. Like they say, no sense lying about your cock size. Turns out you didn’t need to fake a bidding war. The usual stampede of all Chicago’s best admitees are going to Y and H and S without so much as the courtesy of telling C to go pound sand. Why tell them what they already know? They need to fill place #143 of their famously teeny-weenie class. The assumed occupant got unheld at Harvard this morning; never so relieved, he had the audacity to ask Chicago for his deposit back. They don’t need these headaches. You’re in. They write, very pleased to offer admission; then a recital of just how “keen” the competition was for the few precious “seats” in the class of 2006; and, finally, a paragraph celebrating the legal profession with a toploftiness and richly felt purpose so precisely at variance with reality that you are unsettled by the suspicion that you might be the target of a satire so subtly corrosive that you will never connect it with the despair that will progress, exponentially; beginning as a persistent annoyance progressing into a pervasive physical and mental crapulence and ending in the crippling burden as lumber and writhe and tumble toward the epiphany. What epiphany is that? That this “career” of yours –BIGLAW! — has somewhat less to recommend it than residence in the “shoe” at Pelican Bay. For now, though, the seed of tragic hopelessness finds expression in the “Law Discussion Area.” You post — IN AT CHICAGO — and, without overtly lying, you manufacture the entirely erroneous impression that you “chose” Chicago, being also the originator of the CHICAGO v. HARVARD and YALE v. CHICAGO threads, under various of your insipid monikers, all selected from either Pulp Fiction or Friends. Be careful not to ass fuck your credibility, though. The purported Yale turn-down is a tough one to pull off. The “New Haven’s-an-armpit” trope just doesn’t pass the ha-ha test. It’s too puny a reason to toss away a lifetime of being supposed a genius … fuck it: always good to give your fabrications a little populist tint, not to mention a dollop of truth. Join the commiseration thread of Yale rejects; pretend to be sad for that Nuisance turd; be one of the masses for once. Getting rejected isn’t the same thing as not getting in, You merely did not get in. You claim to have been wait-listed; and, with admirable maturity, you hold out no hope. Remember, too, this lie must be built on several fronts. Lard up the Harvard thread with grave concern about big classes, low morale, faculty acrimony, and speculation about a precipitous US News ranking drop. Throughout April, you go political, fulminating about Tribe and Dershowitz and how Duncan Kennedy drives a far-too-expensive car. to be a genuine socialist. Chicago’s “conservative climate” is just a better fit for you; marginal cost curves figure in your every analytical moment; you read Posner opinions on the crapper; Coase is as important as Socrates. There is that little stinging glitch, though. Somehow Stanford neglected to process that request to quash your application, which is not favorably acted upon and this is memoriaized in a letter that suggests the Stanford Admissions Office ignores their LaserWriter Pro’s TONER LOW warning. On May 7th they regret to inform and wish you well at any of the scores of other law schools that, they assure you “offer excellent programs of legal instruction.” (Which, you have no doubt, they do. What they don’t offer, is really the only important thing Stanford does offer: the opportunity to sit for three years with your thumb up your ass, comatose, and still get the job you’ll have to bust nuts to get coming from whichever craphole you end up at.) It’s sealed. An ugly, styleless maroon CHICAGO LAW, Champion sweatshirt has arrived, per your online order. You wear it, eliciting congratulations from the babe you want to rail. She’s so happy for you, and you’re so wrapped up in the fantasy of creaming on her tits you nearly miss perky aside that her boyfriend remains in the throes of elation from his admission to Yale, back in January. Throughout the summer, you bookmark links that embody the wisdom US News lacks. Your are heading off, soon, to your own first choice, which also places first in a ranking produced by the rigorous methodology conceived by a statistician from the University of Maryland Baltimore County. That Harvard tied for #14 undermines your confidence in the ranking diminishes the likelihood it will supplant US News’ preeminence. So you go. Your Hyde Park apartment is actually rather nice. Your housemate went to Harvard College. One night, instead of jacking off before sleep, you register as an active component of your self-conception the notion that, transitively, your housemate’s undergraduate credential nullifies the Harvard rejection that left you lusterless and unlaid at your senior prom, — and has persisted as a gnawing ache, going on five years. You are now on equal footing with a Harvard graduate. Should your law school prowess exceed his — say a 75 in Torts to his 74 — you will once and for all flick away the scab of that Harvard wound. First cut is the deepest. As it turns out, your housemate is an engaging, witty fellow. He’s porking the big bosomed lady with the Dutch accent. Wow! He offers to you, his new chum, the story of his own execution — by lethal injection — as expected, he painlessly relates, by the HLS admission staff. You pretend to explore what might have caused things to go awry, flatulating the usual fatuousness about Harvard being excessively “numbers driven,” the “arbitrariness” of it all, dangling the threat of going on at some length, when he offers up the only information you genuinely care to know about him: : 178/3.34 ..Of course some one will inevitably have the 6th percentile college GPA in every HLS class; probably not a white guy from Greenwich, though. Friendship is built through reciprocity. So you tell your own story. You attempt to weave compassion into the telling of your story, being careful not to appear boastful about not just possessing, but discarding something he does not possess. HLS. Dreamy, So, your story: the grueling back-and-forth … one day it’s Chicago, the next Harvard; the hardest decision you’ve ever made; that feeling of immense responsibility to yourself; discovering and summoning the emotional maturity to pierce the specious veil that is prestige. With the bearing of a battle weary soldier you tell what it is to do something rarely done — circumnavigate the Earth, dunk a basketball on a regulation hoop, turn down Harvard Law School . You picked Chicago. You chose, you adorable little existentialist. You are not exposed, chiefly because this a shared lie, Community glue. (Postscript: Throughout the 1Lyear you and your housemate discover much commonality, He, too, prefers the Stones to the Beatles. You both smoke pot. neither is circumcised. You’ve each fucked 5 girls; gotten head from several others. Each of you applies to transfer. He gets into HLS. He turns down Harvard Law School. Of course no two people are exactly alike. Your desire to transfer wanes around the time Stanford and Yale’s decisions on your transfer applications reach you by mail. You begin the CHIGAGO 1L TAKING QUESTIONS thread. One of your alter ego monikers asks simply: how do you like Chicago. You love it. You wouldn’t go anywhere else and, you note, there were other places you could have gone. Same for your housemate. He transfers to Yale.)

[miamiman]

^^^^^^^ that shit isn't even coherent

[Rand M.]

Lulz at this whole thread. I am troll in training, but even I don't feel like wading into this one.

[tintin]

not gonna lie that shit is still entertaining to me....

[NaiveHope]

I was a research assistant for a law professor 2 years ago and I'll tell you the following:

1) The fact that there are more grads than undergrads does make it a very intense academic environment. I went to Stanford for undergrad and by comparison, I think UChicago beats up their kids. At Stanford, they make us understand that we are bright students...at UChicago, it isn't so much "let's discuss what you know.." but rather "you're a moron and you know nothing".

2) This probably explains why both grads and undergrads are so socially defunct. They are so hard on themselves that it fosters a depressing environment.

3) Uchicago is one of the few places that ALL students are taught by professors. They don't use grad students to teach...probably why Princeton Review ranked Uchicago #1 in academics.

Look, Uchicago is not for everyone (it wasn't for me) and so just know that you will work harder for the same end.

[hmlee]

just ran here to post this

How did it happen that making the tired claim that this ghetto shithole is UNDERrated became the signature conversation piece for people who desperately want to be thought smart; really, really smart. smart people love “rigor” and Chicago is full of it; it must be, what with its hair-splitting number grades, punishingly low enforced mean, and oppressive course load. Chicago boosterism usually comes in the form of a comparison with the appallingly UNrigorous Stanford or Yale — gradeless, abundantly pass-fail, unserious; students who do nothing and know nothing. Chicago: graded, competitive, serious… That it’s really just a ruptured ego rehab clinic for Harvard rejects is a fact not emphasized. I have seen a homely Chicago girl, deep into her second year, still spontaneously weeping upon Proustian recollections of the stiff NO Harvard sent her, in brisk three-week turnaround time from the point her doomed application was deemed complete. Happy December, chickiepoo. Then the Yale axe fell, as it does. Welcome to the New Year, dipshit. January passed; February crawled by with those joyless acceptances that only accentuated the horror of Plan B: Georgetown, which is a “Law Center,” a failed euphemism if ever there was one. Next: woeful Cornell. Oh, what a very bad school. And — what do we have here?!? — a Boston University full-ride. Ummmm, no. On second thought in stead of BU I’d prefer the f free roasted dogshit mignon with a pus reduction sauce and a heaping blob of earwax garnish. Thank you no. I am woe. Add to that the fact that the imbecile whoalways posts about how Sean Hannity is a “serious thinker” just got into Harvard. Time for you to start some damage-control posting here, on the PR board, pretending to seriously consider this BU affront. You wave the flag of thrift and test out a quaintly anachronistic abhorrence of debt. Substantively, you add in some tommyrot about how BU’s “really strong in …’international law,’ whatever the fuck that is. BU? Yeah, right. But you need something that gives the illusion that Georgetown, if it comes to that, isn’t the three years incarcerated in a smegma chamber that it is. So good, so fine you’ll drop the cash dollars despite that lovely gift from BU. You’re forming a cover story; something to puff the very real and very nauseating prospect of joining 600 other defeated mediocrities at … fuck, no … Georgetown. And you thought going to college at Penn was bad. . Still, there are two more to hear from. Two more law schools …There’s that late April Stanford rejection (inconsiderate bastards) which at least affords you ample time to manufacture the next layer in the cover story: e.g., a strict policy against California, a suburban aversion, a preference for bigness, all of which eliminate Stanford from the sweepstakes. Be sure, too, to ridicule their tepid 25-75 LSAT %ile, too. Kill it dead, if you must. Maybe you thrust out of your frozen horror by sending off one of those strategic “withdrawal” letters, the way all those clowns do when Harvard puts them on hold … “.you cant’t fire me … i quit! ” Adios, Stanford. Suck my cunt, you no-SCOTUS-clerking/dike-dean-TTT. … die, die, you gravy-sucking pig. …. and now, then, there is just one. Chicago. The Law School. Chicago does do that pathetic yield-maximizing stall, so February passes, March crawls. They haven’t the nuts to try the ricockulous move Stanford does. So they write. Ever rigorous, The Law School requests the pleasure of your company. Not so fast . No decision has been made. They want to inspect you in person. The “evaluative interview. Looking for people skills. And evident thirst for knowledge. The life of the law is the law itself. It seems you’ve fucked up; quite possible3 when the went “behind the numbers.” Maybe those two essay paragraphs about why the 171, exactly where you topped out in Kaplan, is a truer measure than the 164. maybe it was two paragraphs too many. You weren’t an auto-admit. So off to the “evaluative interview,” and you give them not much to evaluate. You stay on message, though: owing to its RIGOR, Chicage is now, and ever was, your FIRST CHOICE. Tell your audience what it wants to hear. Then they decide, engaging the only evaluation that matters in this gig. Looks like they can break even with your sorry ass. Median-wise, your 171 nullifies the 159 URM from Howard they took yesterday. They’ll swallow your 3.46; sometimes that’s the price of a yield-lock, and you’re that. (No one’s swallowing the Howard guy, if you catch my racy double entendre.) These admissions guys talk, as you suspected, and you wisely decide against telling them it had come down to Chicago or Harvard for you; first versus second choice; no choice at all. Never get caught lying. Bad idea, even worse than telling that stupid girl from Emory you were “a Kennedy.” These things get found out. Like they say, no sense lying about your cock size. Turns out you didn’t need to fake a bidding war. The usual stampede of all Chicago’s best admitees are going to Y and H and S without so much as the courtesy of telling C to go pound sand. Why tell them what they already know? They need to fill place #143 of their famously teeny-weenie class. The assumed occupant got unheld at Harvard this morning; never so relieved, he had the audacity to ask Chicago for his deposit back. They don’t need these headaches. You’re in. They write, very pleased to offer admission; then a recital of just how “keen” the competition was for the few precious “seats” in the class of 2006; and, finally, a paragraph celebrating the legal profession with a toploftiness and richly felt purpose so precisely at variance with reality that you are unsettled by the suspicion that you might be the target of a satire so subtly corrosive that you will never connect it with the despair that will progress, exponentially; beginning as a persistent annoyance progressing into a pervasive physical and mental crapulence and ending in the crippling burden as lumber and writhe and tumble toward the epiphany. What epiphany is that? That this “career” of yours –BIGLAW! — has somewhat less to recommend it than residence in the “shoe” at Pelican Bay. For now, though, the seed of tragic hopelessness finds expression in the “Law Discussion Area.” You post — IN AT CHICAGO — and, without overtly lying, you manufacture the entirely erroneous impression that you “chose” Chicago, being also the originator of the CHICAGO v. HARVARD and YALE v. CHICAGO threads, under various of your insipid monikers, all selected from either Pulp Fiction or Friends. Be careful not to ass fuck your credibility, though. The purported Yale turn-down is a tough one to pull off. The “New Haven’s-an-armpit” trope just doesn’t pass the ha-ha test. It’s too puny a reason to toss away a lifetime of being supposed a genius … fuck it: always good to give your fabrications a little populist tint, not to mention a dollop of truth. Join the commiseration thread of Yale rejects; pretend to be sad for that Nuisance turd; be one of the masses for once. Getting rejected isn’t the same thing as not getting in, You merely did not get in. You claim to have been wait-listed; and, with admirable maturity, you hold out no hope. Remember, too, this lie must be built on several fronts. Lard up the Harvard thread with grave concern about big classes, low morale, faculty acrimony, and speculation about a precipitous US News ranking drop. Throughout April, you go political, fulminating about Tribe and Dershowitz and how Duncan Kennedy drives a far-too-expensive car. to be a genuine socialist. Chicago’s “conservative climate” is just a better fit for you; marginal cost curves figure in your every analytical moment; you read Posner opinions on the crapper; Coase is as important as Socrates. There is that little stinging glitch, though. Somehow Stanford neglected to process that request to quash your application, which is not favorably acted upon and this is memoriaized in a letter that suggests the Stanford Admissions Office ignores their LaserWriter Pro’s TONER LOW warning. On May 7th they regret to inform and wish you well at any of the scores of other law schools that, they assure you “offer excellent programs of legal instruction.” (Which, you have no doubt, they do. What they don’t offer, is really the only important thing Stanford does offer: the opportunity to sit for three years with your thumb up your ass, comatose, and still get the job you’ll have to bust nuts to get coming from whichever craphole you end up at.) It’s sealed. An ugly, styleless maroon CHICAGO LAW, Champion sweatshirt has arrived, per your online order. You wear it, eliciting congratulations from the babe you want to rail. She’s so happy for you, and you’re so wrapped up in the fantasy of creaming on her tits you nearly miss perky aside that her boyfriend remains in the throes of elation from his admission to Yale, back in January. Throughout the summer, you bookmark links that embody the wisdom US News lacks. Your are heading off, soon, to your own first choice, which also places first in a ranking produced by the rigorous methodology conceived by a statistician from the University of Maryland Baltimore County. That Harvard tied for #14 undermines your confidence in the ranking diminishes the likelihood it will supplant US News’ preeminence. So you go. Your Hyde Park apartment is actually rather nice. Your housemate went to Harvard College. One night, instead of jacking off before sleep, you register as an active component of your self-conception the notion that, transitively, your housemate’s undergraduate credential nullifies the Harvard rejection that left you lusterless and unlaid at your senior prom, — and has persisted as a gnawing ache, going on five years. You are now on equal footing with a Harvard graduate. Should your law school prowess exceed his — say a 75 in Torts to his 74 — you will once and for all flick away the scab of that Harvard wound. First cut is the deepest. As it turns out, your housemate is an engaging, witty fellow. He’s porking the big bosomed lady with the Dutch accent. Wow! He offers to you, his new chum, the story of his own execution — by lethal injection — as expected, he painlessly relates, by the HLS admission staff. You pretend to explore what might have caused things to go awry, flatulating the usual fatuousness about Harvard being excessively “numbers driven,” the “arbitrariness” of it all, dangling the threat of going on at some length, when he offers up the only information you genuinely care to know about him: : 178/3.34 ..Of course some one will inevitably have the 6th percentile college GPA in every HLS class; probably not a white guy from Greenwich, though. Friendship is built through reciprocity. So you tell your own story. You attempt to weave compassion into the telling of your story, being careful not to appear boastful about not just possessing, but discarding something he does not possess. HLS. Dreamy, So, your story: the grueling back-and-forth … one day it’s Chicago, the next Harvard; the hardest decision you’ve ever made; that feeling of immense responsibility to yourself; discovering and summoning the emotional maturity to pierce the specious veil that is prestige. With the bearing of a battle weary soldier you tell what it is to do something rarely done — circumnavigate the Earth, dunk a basketball on a regulation hoop, turn down Harvard Law School . You picked Chicago. You chose, you adorable little existentialist. You are not exposed, chiefly because this a shared lie, Community glue. (Postscript: Throughout the 1Lyear you and your housemate discover much commonality, He, too, prefers the Stones to the Beatles. You both smoke pot. neither is circumcised. You’ve each fucked 5 girls; gotten head from several others. Each of you applies to transfer. He gets into HLS. He turns down Harvard Law School. Of course no two people are exactly alike. Your desire to transfer wanes around the time Stanford and Yale’s decisions on your transfer applications reach you by mail. You begin the CHIGAGO 1L TAKING QUESTIONS thread. One of your alter ego monikers asks simply: how do you like Chicago. You love it. You wouldn’t go anywhere else and, you note, there were other places you could have gone. Same for your housemate. He transfers to Yale.)

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