acd2179 '22–'23 app cycle Class of 2026 class year

I wish you the very best of luck (and preparation). This process is not easy, but neither is being a lawyer. My cycle recap and thoughts are below, if they are of any use to you.

Background/context: ivy undergrad (according to LSAC, during my cycle 3.86 was in the 72nd percentile of GPAs of applicants from my school from all time). PS was about my 2-going-on-3 years working as a very hands-on paralegal (and the only employee) at a duo firm representing primarily indigent criminal defendants in NYC federal court. I submitted Why X to Columbia, NYU, Cal, Michigan, and Duke and wrote the Penn “collaborative environment” essay. Did not submit a DS or any other optional essays (e.g., did not submit GULC top-10). I submitted a LOCI/resume update to NYU (6 weeks after hold email) and a similar one to Columbia (6 weeks after interview with no decision). I did not submit LOCIs to Penn, Michigan, or Chicago. I completed the NYU waitlist Kira on 5/17 and sent them a second LOCI on 6/2. I also sent a second LOCI to Columbia on 5/22.- I just want to put on the record that I thought I totally blew it during my NYU wait list Kira by calling their Public Interest Law Center by the wrong name (and knowing me, I probably called it by another law school’s public interest office’s name). I corrected myself later in the interview (in responding to a different question), but I guess they still managed to see past that.

• I saw someone else here who removed their Rs from their chart for personal happiness reasons and because they dislike the color red. I join that opinion on both grounds. My Rs are below.

• YLS | RD | no FW | sent 2/15 | rec. 2/16 | cpl. 2/20 | dec. 3/31

• HLS | RD | no FW | sent 11/21 | cpl. 11/29 | dec. 1/11

• Also, I was rejected from the following WLs on the following dates: Penn 6/29, Columbia 6/7, Michigan 5/19.
  The LSAT is learnable and you must study to learn it. I used 7sage by myself for 15-25 hours per week for ~10 months. Because you will need to spend the late summer and fall preparing your essays and application forms, I suggest beginning to study in September of the year before- you plan to apply and taking your first full practice test in January-ish of the year you plan to apply. Drill a lot over the spring/summer and try to get your final official score during the June or August tests of the year you plan to apply. You should also be brainstorming topics for your PS, optionals, and scholarship essays over the summer – that way your ideas get to paper early and you don’t have to worry about writing as much as you finalize your apps. Learn from my mistakes! Also, ask your professors for LORs in May at the latest, and follow up with them every 3-4 weeks. Again, learn from my mistakes.
• 160 (March – didn’t cancel, which I greatly regret in hindsight) –> 171 (August) –> 173 (October).
• Perhaps my LSAT scores gave the impression that I didn’t take this process seriously enough at first. Think carefully about whether you want to plan on giving yourself a retake or two, because it may or may not be worth it.
• Don’t feel extreme pressure to submit your apps before Thanksgiving. Submit them when they are good and ready, but do try to submit them before January, if you can.
  Even if you apply in September, you may not hear back until April, and some January or February applicants could very well- get decisions before you.
• I think that if I had submitted the same applications earlier in the cycle, I might have gotten more favorable decisions or at least would have gotten decisions sooner. But my essays weren’t ready until they were ready, and if I had submitted them in less-than-ready form, I may not have ultimately gotten more favorable decisions. There are trade-offs everywhere in life – accept that you can’t do it all.
• I had about 8 people, including some current law students, review various stages of my draft PS, some multiple times. Their advice was invaluable and radically changed my essay for the better. You should absolutely do what you can to get at least the same amount of feedback that I did. I did not use any admissions consultants or other paid services. I reached out to friends, family, and other connections I know who are good writers. Ask – the worst they can say is no! (Also, this is good practice for 1L year, because you will receive important feedback from your legal research & writing professor and your summer internship supervisors.)
• If you are worried or have doubts about a character & fitness issue, send me a DM and I will do my best to help you think through it based on my own experience. I had some difficulty and great anxiety navigating my own C&F issues (plural – I turned out fine) and want to help others avoid the same. The bottom line is that it’s probably not a big deal, unless you have a non-expunged adult violent felony conviction or several DUI arrests, and even that kind of history will not necessarily prevent you from matriculating to law school or being admitted to the bar. Exhibit A: Georgetown Law Prof. Shon Hopwood.
• I spent at least 80 hours writing my 2-page personal statement and at least 50 more hours thinking about and writing school-specific/scholarship essays, a DS (I didn’t submit one but everyone should consider it), Why Xs, and LOCIs. You may need to budget more time than that. I wish I had.
• Try not to check your status checkers or the “Recent Decisions” page of this website too often, and try to remember that some people here are dishonest about their stats, results, or timelines. (Of course, you should trust that I am not one of them.) Speaking from personal knowledge, all of this is easier said than done.

My goal after law school is to work as a public defender in or just outside a big east coast city. I really wanted to stay in NYC for law school – NYU was always my first choice, and getting off the WL so late in the summer was literally a dream come true. Sticker is a tough pill to swallow, but the way I look at it, if I don’t change course, I’m going to be in an income-based repayment plan until I’m eligible for total forgiveness through PSLF, and NYU’s LRAP is better than Georgetown’s, so this way, I will likely end up taking home more and paying a smaller percentage of my student loan payments for those 120 months. AND if I decide to change course at some point in or after law school (e.g., because PSLF is being eliminated), I will be positioned just as well to do that coming out of NYU. It wasn’t a no-brainer, but for these reasons and some personal ones, there was no outcome that could have been better for me.

The best advice I heard during my cycle (it was from Dean Ingber, of course) is that law school admissions officers evaluate applications not only for their content but also, and equally importantly, for their demonstration of the applicant’s ability to exercise good judgment. Think long and hard to come up with something new or meaningful to say in response to each “optional” essay prompt, or when you feel it’s time to send a LOCI. And if you can’t come up with anything good, don’t write anything at all. Many people believe “optional” essays are not really optional, but I disagree – I think submitting no essay is a better option than submitting an essay that doesn’t say anything worth saying.

You will get through this. You will end up where you are supposed to be (easy for me to say, right?). Believe in yourself!