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

if i could do it again, i would apply to fewer schools. i also wouldn’t retake the lsat - i took it a second time and scored lower. retaking is generally a good idea, but i didn’t set myself up for success to score higher by retaking it during the same semester i was taking 19 credits and writing my app materials.

had i not broken the t3, i think i would have wondered about applying kjd. if you can take time off, and especially take time off and get work experience, it’s rarely if ever a bad idea to do so. i didn’t have a great reason for going straight through; i wanted to do the lsat while i was still in test-taking mode from undergrad, and got absorbed from there. i also could have had two really strong recs from professors that i didn’t have relationships with before senior year.

i don’t know that i have any advice, because as wise people have said, you never know if you got in because of something or despite it. that said, write the optionals! i wrote two optionals for stanford, penn core values, why uva, why berkeley, two optionals for michigan, why cornell, ucla programmatic contribution, and a georgetown optional. i also modified my personal statement for columbia, nyu, and umn, and think i could have/should have written a why uchicago. your written materials are the part of your app, maybe your only part, that you have control over. use it to show them why they should take YOU for THEIR school, say over another applicant with your exact stats.

i guess i’m team “cohesive narrative” by virtue of having one - many of my extracurriculars were interrelated, and the connecting thread (theme?) was the subject of my personal statement and my “why law.” i do think that articulating “why law” is perhaps more important for kjds than it is for other applicants. imo it’s less about cohesion and more about telling a compelling story, which goes back to written materials.

re whether or not to reach out to schools that you haven’t heard from for months - i emailed stanford twice, once four months after applying to thank them for their continued consideration and reiterate my very strong interest, and once two days after their deposit deadline with an academic update and telling them i would attend if accepted. did it help? who knows. i don’t think it hurt, especially for them to know that my plans were flexible when they were making offers after deposit deadlines. i don’t think a full loci is necessary in case of “ghosting,” though