TurtleRightsActivist '21–'22 app cycle Class of 2025 class year

Stream of consciousness advice in no particular order:
Don’t coast on any component of your application!
Keep addenda short and sweet, when possible.
Even T4 softs can tell a story about you - don’t collect “softs” as gold stars, do what makes you fulfilled and use that as the starting point of your “narrative”
Substantiate claims you make about yourself! e.g., “I am interested in X-type of law” means nothing; “I was involved in a club/internship/job/whatever where I developed an interest in X-type of law” makes sense
If possible, explain how changes in your resume made sense for your path to LS and it rounds out your narrative.
Learn the LSAT smarter, not harder. I went from low 150s to 172 in 4-5 months with PowerScore Bibles and LSAT Prep Plus, plus a few free podcasts. Take time to understand every single question you got wrong, but decide for yourself if Blind Review and other methods are worth your time. I finally broke a plateau when I stopped Blind Reviewing every test, I only reviewed questions I was not confident about and dug into why. This helped me not burn out too.
Make sure your resume is sharp and concise. Don’t extend it onto a second page until you’ve cut all of the fluff out of the first page.
Ask for fee waivers nicely, but shamelessly. Some need-based waivers are quite flexible.
Pick a target school and be sure to apply to similarly ranked schools for scholarship leverage. I went from $0.00 to $120,000.00 at Berkeley, my dream school from the beginning, because I went through reconsideration with a substantial Michigan offer.
Don’t take schools where you are above medians and 75ths for granted. I got WL’d at NU and UCLA - I turned in the NU Kira 2 days late and did not do a good job on my UCLA optional writing. These schools care about demonstrated interest and I regret not trying harder because I liked both!
Find out which schools move quickly - I think I would have had a stronger chance for an A at UVA if I had applied earlier. While the cycle was generally slow, not every individual school is.
Despite the above - ONLY APPLY WHEN YOU ARE READY. It is better to apply in November with a thorough, edited, reviewed application than a rushed one in September. It took me much, much longer to crank out my PS than I would have liked, but my cycle likely would have gone much worse if I did not take the time to fix it.