Apply or Wait Forum

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calvinna

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Apply or Wait

Post by calvinna » Fri Aug 18, 2017 12:50 am

Hi All, (moved this post because I put it in ask a law student/graduate by accident)

My main questions that I have are
- How will the prospect of more schools accepting the GRE next cycle impact my chances of admission/scholarships? Is this a reason to apply this cycle rather than the next?

- If I apply and don’t get in then reapply will schools hold that against me? If I apply and do get in and then don’t go, will schools hold that against me?

- Are there any schools besides Stanford and Yale that have less traditional legal education structures? I really enjoyed the education I got at my smaller college where my entire grade was not dependent on a single final exam.

Along with anything else that I should consider. Thanks in advance, the TLS community has been a fantastic resource for me in getting to me to this point.

(edited for anonymizing reasons)
Last edited by calvinna on Fri Oct 06, 2017 11:56 am, edited 1 time in total.

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cavalier1138

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Re: Apply or Wait

Post by cavalier1138 » Fri Aug 18, 2017 8:25 am

Don't apply with the intent to defer. Take some time off and apply later; there's absolutely no benefit to rushing it.

Also, while you have as good a shot as anyone at Stanford/Yale, you should not hinge all your hopes on them, and you certainly shouldn't do it because of the "less traditional" class structure. You're still going to end up getting graded on a curve which is based on your final exam for 1L, even if you don't get grades first semester and even if your transcript doesn't use letter grades. Focusing on HYS for academia isn't a bad idea, but I'm deeply skeptical of any 21-year-old who knows that they want to be in academia, let alone legal academia. You're already planning on taking some time off, so spend some time working and getting a sense for what your future career might look like.

Short version: you've got plenty of time and you need to be less picky.

calvinna

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Re: Apply or Wait

Post by calvinna » Fri Aug 18, 2017 9:43 am

cavalier1138 wrote:Don't apply with the intent to defer. Take some time off and apply later; there's absolutely no benefit to rushing it.

Also, while you have as good a shot as anyone at Stanford/Yale, you should not hinge all your hopes on them, and you certainly shouldn't do it because of the "less traditional" class structure. You're still going to end up getting graded on a curve which is based on your final exam for 1L, even if you don't get grades first semester and even if your transcript doesn't use letter grades. Focusing on HYS for academia isn't a bad idea, but I'm deeply skeptical of any 21-year-old who knows that they want to be in academia, let alone legal academia. You're already planning on taking some time off, so spend some time working and getting a sense for what your future career might look like.

Short version: you've got plenty of time and you need to be less picky.
Thanks for the reply. Yeah I agree that the odds I actually end up in academia (especially legal academia) are pretty low and that its hard for me to know too well what I want from a career without spending much time in the outside world. I do think that something in the broader world of not-for-profit law/government/possibly academia is attractive to me but my experience in these things is still fairly limited.

I think applying and deferring does do some of that development for figuring out what type of law but doesn't give me the option to not go to law school at all like waiting does. I didn't know that S and Y also relied largely on a single curved final exam (at least for 1l), thats good to know. I agree about putting all my eggs in one basket too and the only reason I was considering applying only to S and Y this cycle is because I would be very ok in the likely event I did not get in, with the plan of taking time off after and re-applying broadly.

Thanks again, I'm still not positive what I am going to do, but I agree I do sound like a naive 21 year old rushing into some large decisions. I was initially much more sure about taking time off but the possibility of many schools accepting the GRE in future years was/is worrying to me, but its still definitely possible that impact is negligible in comparison to the personal benefits of taking time off.

lsataddict242

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Re: Apply or Wait

Post by lsataddict242 » Sat Aug 26, 2017 2:00 am

I can relate to your post.

I am interested in the impact the GRE will have on the next cycle. What thoughts do people have?

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MrAdultman

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Re: Apply or Wait

Post by MrAdultman » Sat Aug 26, 2017 3:56 am

cavalier1138 wrote:Don't apply with the intent to defer. Take some time off and apply later; there's absolutely no benefit to rushing it.

Also, while you have as good a shot as anyone at Stanford/Yale, you should not hinge all your hopes on them, and you certainly shouldn't do it because of the "less traditional" class structure. You're still going to end up getting graded on a curve which is based on your final exam for 1L, even if you don't get grades first semester and even if your transcript doesn't use letter grades. Focusing on HYS for academia isn't a bad idea, but I'm deeply skeptical of any 21-year-old who knows that they want to be in academia, let alone legal academia. You're already planning on taking some time off, so spend some time working and getting a sense for what your future career might look like.

Short version: you've got plenty of time and you need to be less picky.
+1

If you don't want to go to law school next year, I see zero reason to apply this cycle. I doubt that the GRE thing would affect you with those numbers. Put your application on a shelf, and take a few years and enjoy your life. There's no rush.

trkmaniak00

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Re: Apply or Wait

Post by trkmaniak00 » Sat Aug 26, 2017 7:03 am

I agree that you're in a great spot regardless like the above posters but I'll offer another angle. I'm a planner so when I wasn't hearing back from some schools last cycle until the end of march / beginning of April when I applied in September it can be a bit frustrating to have to think about life changes in the short months before orientation, especially with graduation right in there.

So sure, if you want the stability of knowing where you will be 15 months in advance and that will give you piece of mind during your gap year I say go for it, but that being said this method of only applying to two schools means you're leaving a lot of great scholarship offers out from other t-14s.

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