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Hi everyone, I didn't know where to ask this so I just made a thread. My apologies to the folks who will yell at me and say I should have posted this question in thread "X"

I applied to a ton(23) of schools in early January. I've only heard back from 7 is this bad news, good news, or just normal?

I'm honestly freaking out, somebody please give me some insight.

That is completely normal. Besides you applied late in the cycle. I applied to 5 schools on the day their applications opened and it took until the week before Christmas before I got my first response, my second one was the week after Christmas and then slowly trickling in.
Applying this late can send a couple messages to schools; you are looking for safe schools and they will wait list you or hold off, or they think your just throwing more out there and might wait list you as a yield protection. This means they don't want to give out an acceptance to you and then you don't attend.

My suggestion if your this worried. Pick one or two schools that are a little bit of a reach and send them a letter of continued interest, tell them how serious you are about coming and why you applied to them. That is, if you haven't done a why x already. You don't have to wait for them to wait list you before sending one.

Don't panic until the first deposit deadline is approaching. Most applications just closed so they will take a couple weeks to sift through them all.
FYI most schools have first seat deposits end of April/beginning of May.

1. Where did you apply?
2. What are your stats?
3. Yes, you're freaking out, but that doesn't mean we can't help you out somehow.

You're fine. I didn't hear back from all my schools till like after I graduated in mid-May (applied real late).

trimm wrote:That is completely normal. Besides you applied late in the cycle. I applied to 5 schools on the day their applications opened and it took until the week before Christmas before I got my first response, my second one was the week after Christmas and then slowly trickling in.
Applying this late can send a couple messages to schools; you are looking for safe schools and they will wait list you or hold off, or they think your just throwing more out there and might wait list you as a yield protection. This means they don't want to give out an acceptance to you and then you don't attend.

My suggestion if your this worried. Pick one or two schools that are a little bit of a reach and send them a letter of continued interest, tell them how serious you are about coming and why you applied to them. That is, if you haven't done a why x already. You don't have to wait for them to wait list you before sending one.

Don't panic until the first deposit deadline is approaching. Most applications just closed so they will take a couple weeks to sift through them all.
FYI most schools have first seat deposits end of April/beginning of May.

Okay thank you for the advice Trimm !

BirdLawExpert wrote:1. Where did you apply?
2. What are your stats?
3. Yes, you're freaking out, but that doesn't mean we can't help you out somehow.

166 & 3.3 (3.9 last two years of school, I know it doesn't matter but it makes me feel better when I add that part in there)

I know I don't have a chance at a lot of these schools, I applied thinking I would do better on the Feb LSAT than I did
-BU
-Iowa
-ND
-Vandy
-Chicago
-Colorado Boulder
-UCLA
-Berkely
-Northwestern
-Georgetown
-Fordham
-Cornell
-UC Irvine

RonnyDiniro wrote:

BirdLawExpert wrote:1. Where did you apply?
2. What are your stats?
3. Yes, you're freaking out, but that doesn't mean we can't help you out somehow.

166 & 3.3 (3.9 last two years of school, I know it doesn't matter but it makes me feel better when I add that part in there)

I know I don't have a chance at a lot of these schools, I applied thinking I would do better on the Feb LSAT than I did
-BU
-Iowa
-ND
-Vandy
-Chicago
-Colorado Boulder
-UCLA
-Berkely
-Northwestern
-Georgetown
-Fordham
-Cornell
-UC Irvine

I am no math genius, but this doesn't seem like 23 schools to me. Either way, even from that list you will get into a few of them (20-30 rank range seems reasonable. Might also do a little better than that).

I wouldn't necessarily call your lack of responses good or bad. You applied late, it is expected that you are in for a wait at most schools (especially your reach schools). You will probably hear back from a majority of the schools within the next few weeks so I would just relax and ride out the rest of the cycle! If you want, you could contact admissions with a Why x statement (save any LOCIs for waitlists) or schedule tours/visits with the schools closest to you (a rep from Duke told me going for visits/meeting with an admissions officer is the best thing you can do while waiting and that proved true for me at UVA). Hope this helps!

RonnyDiniro wrote:

BirdLawExpert wrote:1. Where did you apply?
2. What are your stats?
3. Yes, you're freaking out, but that doesn't mean we can't help you out somehow.

166 & 3.3 (3.9 last two years of school, I know it doesn't matter but it makes me feel better when I add that part in there)

I know I don't have a chance at a lot of these schools, I applied thinking I would do better on the Feb LSAT than I did
-BU
-Iowa
-ND
-Vandy
-Chicago
-Colorado Boulder
-UCLA
-Berkely
-Northwestern
-Georgetown
-Fordham
-Cornell
-UC Irvine

You're a bit of a splitter for some of these schools, which is something of my area of expertise (174/sub-3.0). You're going to be in for a wait. I applied at the end of October, relatively early in the cycle, and for the first three months I only heard from one of my safety schools and Georgetown (no idea why I heard back from them so fast, but I'm not complaining). For the most part, your application is going to be held for as long as possible to see if they need your LSAT. This isn't bad, and it doesn't necessarily mean anything one way or the other, but it is absolutely infuriating.

I suspect that your next wave of hearing back will be mostly dings, then mostly waitlists, and then your final wave will be acceptances. You just have to sit and wait. You can write and send "Why X" essays, but for the most part you'll just be waiting for a while. Don't get discouraged, applying as late as you did in the cycle is just like this. If you don't like your outcomes, sit out a year, retake in June or October, and apply again as early in the cycle as you can.

skimmilk wrote:I wouldn't necessarily call your lack of responses good or bad. You applied late, it is expected that you are in for a wait at most schools (especially your reach schools). You will probably hear back from a majority of the schools within the next few weeks so I would just relax and ride out the rest of the cycle! If you want, you could contact admissions with a Why x statement (save any LOCIs for waitlists) or schedule tours/visits with the schools closest to you (a rep from Duke told me going for visits/meeting with an admissions officer is the best thing you can do while waiting and that proved true for me at UVA). Hope this helps!

Thank you Skim I definitely will do this for BU. How did you go about scheduling a visit?

RonnyDiniro wrote:

skimmilk wrote:I wouldn't necessarily call your lack of responses good or bad. You applied late, it is expected that you are in for a wait at most schools (especially your reach schools). You will probably hear back from a majority of the schools within the next few weeks so I would just relax and ride out the rest of the cycle! If you want, you could contact admissions with a Why x statement (save any LOCIs for waitlists) or schedule tours/visits with the schools closest to you (a rep from Duke told me going for visits/meeting with an admissions officer is the best thing you can do while waiting and that proved true for me at UVA). Hope this helps!

Thank you Skim I definitely will do this for BU. How did you go about scheduling a visit?

I just contacted admissions via email letting them know I was planning a visit and asked if I could meet with someone while there! You can also throw in some questions about what you can do/see while visiting. Most places will have you fill out a slip recording your visit that they then put in your file so admissions can see you're truly interested.