Top Law Schools

Shameless plagiarism of xylo's thread from back in the day. Will update/add to it as the cycle goes on.

ITT we talk about personal statements, LORs, transcripts, and anything else related to the 2016-2017 law school application cycle. Figured this would be a good place to talk about general concerns related to getting app materials together, before we start applying to specific schools, etc.

Q&A with Former Admissions Officers — a lot of the questions you may have about the application process have probably been answered here (there's a link to a PDF with a lot of the answers in the OP). It is a Q&A with Mike Spivey, who worked at Vandy and WUSTL and Colorado, and Karen Buttenbaum, who was Director of Admissions at Harvard Law.

Check out Spivey's blog - super helpful blog about everything related to law school admissions.

Is applying on X date late? Early? Etc.?

As a general guideline — pre-Halloween is very early, pre-Thanksgiving is early, pre-Christmas is on time, and anything after New Years is on the late side.


Do I have a hidden fee waiver?

Check out the hidden fee waiver thread


Where can I find **legit** employment stats?

Law School Transparency


What are my chances at X school?

Check out myLSN!

Additionally, you can check out this compilation of self-reported admissions/scholarship data of TLS users from the last 3 cycles:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/w9wo8eibhc54j ... .xlsx?dl=0
Thank you, TexasENG, for putting this together!

When do apps open?

T14 Quick Reference:

August 15 - U Chicago

September 1 - NYU, U Penn, Columbia, Berkeley

September 15 - Georgetown

When/how will I get my decisions?

See What to Expect When You're Expecting (will be updated with current cycle thread if/when one is created)


How can I figure out what my law school COL will be?

Law School COA Calculator and Comparison Spreadsheet

How much will applications cost me? Use the Application Fee Calculator spreadsheet linked below:

TexasENG wrote:So for anyone interested I put together a quick spreadsheet with all application fees for this year for the top 20(the raw data is below). It will allow you to pick if you are applying / have a fee waiver and calculate your out of pocket cost with Application Fees + LSAC Fees.

Application Fee Calculator

School Applications Open Application Fee
Yale 10/1/2016 $60
Harvard 9/15/2016 $85
Stanford 9/1/2016 $100
Chicago 8/15/2016 $75
Columbia 9/1/2016 $85
New York 9/1/2016 $85
Penn 9/1/2016 $80
Berkeley 9/1/2016 $75
Virginia 9/1/2016 $80
Michigan 9/1/2016 $75
Duke 9/1/2016 $70
Northwestern 9/15/2016 $75
Cornell 9/1/2016 $80
Georgetown 9/15/2016 $85
Texas 9/15/2016 $75
Vanderbilt 9/1/2016 $50
UCLA 9/1/2016 $75
WashU
USC 9/1/2016 $75
Boston 9/1/2016 $85

INDIVIDUAL SCHOOL THREADS

Yale

Harvard

Stanford

Columbia

U Chicago

NYU

Penn

Berkeley

UVA

Duke

Michigan

Northwestern

Cornell

Texas

WUSTL

Boston University

Notre Dame

Admissions data spreadsheet for individual school OPs: Blank Admissions Workbook (make a copy then fill in the schools name / medians)

Ayy checking in

e: lol checking out bc I suck

.

Wassup...just got my first fee waiver...from GULC..hope it continues like this

TAD wrote:Wassup...just got my first fee waiver...from GULC..hope it continues like this

damn already?!

I'm technically a class of 2020 applicant because I applied to a four year part time program. I was accepted while pretz and Jeeves were waiting for their scores even though we all took the June 2016 LSAT at the same time.

So, first congrats go to me.

*pats self on back*

Best of luck everyone!

*never returns to thread*

TAD wrote:Wassup...just got my first fee waiver...from GULC..hope it continues like this

I got GW last week and GULC this week. Seems like GULC got the hint that they need to get moving on the competition.

pizza poll is up. tried to include all t14 but theres only 10 options allowed. left off Northwestern and UChi since they dont really eat pizza in Chicago. missing a couple other schools there too. choose other and do a write-in I guess.

R. Jeeves wrote:pizza poll is up. tried to include all t14 but theres only 10 options allowed. left off Northwestern and UChi since they dont really eat pizza in Chicago. missing a couple other schools there too. choose other and do a write-in I guess.

thanks for indulging me

lol I love the shade you just threw at chicago deep dish

proteinshake wrote:

TAD wrote:Wassup...just got my first fee waiver...from GULC..hope it continues like this

damn already?!

Surprised me too

pretzeltime wrote:

R. Jeeves wrote:pizza poll is up. tried to include all t14 but theres only 10 options allowed. left off Northwestern and UChi since they dont really eat pizza in Chicago. missing a couple other schools there too. choose other and do a write-in I guess.

thanks for indulging me

lol I love the shade you just threw at chicago deep dish

Haha. I'm stuck between NYU and Columbia. Both are in NYC and we all know that we have the best damn pizza ever. Sooo I think I will go with NYU because why not

TheMikey wrote:

pretzeltime wrote:

R. Jeeves wrote:pizza poll is up. tried to include all t14 but theres only 10 options allowed. left off Northwestern and UChi since they dont really eat pizza in Chicago. missing a couple other schools there too. choose other and do a write-in I guess.

thanks for indulging me

lol I love the shade you just threw at chicago deep dish

Haha. I'm stuck between NYU and Columbia. Both are in NYC and we all know that we have the best damn pizza ever. Sooo I think I will go with NYU because why not

NYU def wins out of those two

So I'm assuming it's too early to solicit fee waivers right?

TAD wrote:

proteinshake wrote:

TAD wrote:Wassup...just got my first fee waiver...from GULC..hope it continues like this

damn already?!

Surprised me too

Yeah I had one sitting in my inbox too. Good way to start things off

I want to see someone vote pizza for Yale. I really think it's on NYU level not with quantity but quality for shuerrrrr

But actually though Chicago has the best pizza and if you don't think so you're wrong.

jfiaff wrote:But actually though Chicago has the best pizza and if you don't think so you're wrong.

get an avatar

Stanford, dat silicon valley style pizza

Checking in! It's nice to see the junk food obsession carrying over into the Applicant thread. I swear we are all going to be walking Fen-Phen ads by the end of lawl school.

ponderingmeerkat wrote:Checking in! It's nice to see the junk food obsession carrying over into the Applicant thread. I swear we are all going to be walking Fen-Phen ads by the end of lawl school.

yeee glad the fatty crew is back ITT

Ok there are more poll votes than posters in this thread. Lurkers need to check the F in.

✓✓✓

proteinshake wrote:So I'm assuming it's too early to solicit fee waivers right?

i think i would do it a few days or a week before a school's app opens up.

also for those that arent aware of hidden fee waivers, I added a link in the OP.

R. Jeeves wrote:

proteinshake wrote:So I'm assuming it's too early to solicit fee waivers right?

i think i would do it a few days or a week before a school's app opens up.

also for those that arent aware of hidden fee waivers, I added a link in the OP.

I'm glad you brought up hidden fee waivers. Is the idea behind it that they connect the fee waiver to our L# or something? I'm just asking because I've gotten a few fee waivers via email already but it's not like they provided me a code. It was basically like "When you apply, it should be there."