ImaginaryAnxiousGremlin '23–'24 app cycle Class of 2027 class year

Very grateful for my cycle and results. I cannot recommend enough retaking the lsat even when you don’t want to, and studying differently if you weren’t thrilled with your initial results. If it is possible for you to work w someone 1:1, do it. LG was my biggest struggle (would’ve probably had a much easier time if I waited a year for the test to change lol), so working 1:1 and dedicating much more time to that than the other sections was much more helpful.

I wrote every optional essay possible, with the exception of why x essays for schools that didn’t explicitly ask for them (except gtown bc I went to a virtual info session where dean andy said they do want it, even though they don’t officially ask…). I would recommend starting essays earlier than you think you need to, particularly your main personal statement, as it was hard for me to get momentum for a while. Likewise, get a few trusted friends/family members to proof read for you, because you will inevitably miss silly things from staring at your essays for too long.

My only super “unique” soft was an experience with a health emergency and subsequent disability in my senior yr of college, which I wrote about as a diversity/perspective statement. Otherwise, I was a fairly standard KJD-adjacent applicant (graduated May 2023), with lots of extracurricular involvement and some internships but nothing crazy in the way of work experience. If I had to guess this would be one of the reasons I struggled with H/Y/S/C, but who knows.

I had a very hard time picking what school to attend, which is a lucky problem to have. I narrowed down first to Berkeley/NYU/Duke/UCLA, and eventually to Berkeley/NYU. I knew I wanted to clerk and was also interested in schools with strong PI programs, hence my top two choices. I loved Duke but ultimately decided I wanted to be in a larger city. The three things that helped me decide on Berkeley in the end were a great ASW experience, the fact that my family is in SoCal and I want to be in CA long term, and that NYU denied my scholarship reconsideration, so Berkeley was a lot better for me financially. Go bears! (◕‿◕)