Saturday, September 30, 2006

Application update

After writing my why Michigan essay I now only have one more origional essay to compose (the Duke essay) and perhaps one to rework (Yale 250 will be a version of my diversity statement). Hopefully things will go well. I can't wait to finish my Duke essay and then take advantage of the priority track thing.

Sunday night will be an application fest, and hopefully by the end of the week I will have all of my applications out.

Wish me luck!

Thursday, September 28, 2006

Dog Bite

Ok, so before I update my law school application process, I ran across a website that I feel obligated to share:

http://www.dogbitelaw.com/PAGES/meet_kmp.htm

Now clearly this man is very good at what he does and I know that we live in the age of specialization, but come on, bodily injury was too hard, he has to focus on just dog bite law? This is so overspecialized, its almost comical. After reading about this guy I have decided that I am going to specialize in insurance law and only take on cases involving a tree falling into a neighbor's yard but not damaging any property.

Come on people, this is silly.

Additionally, the current list of submitted applications looks like this:

Washington University (sent, though they haven't received it)
Indiana
Illinois
University of Chicago
Harvard (send only after some serious prodding)
Georgetown

After my why Michigan essay gets proofread I will be sending that out as well.

I still need to work on the Duke essay and Sunday will mark the beginning of the second waive of applications.

Monday, September 25, 2006

Update

More exciting law school developments today. Today I picked up both a waiver that excited me and sent some big name appliations.

The waiver was from Penn, a school that I am extremely excited about applying to.

After receiving the letter of recommendation that I was waiting for, I also started sending applications to some big name schools. These applications include:

Harvard (this was a big deal)
Chicago
Virginia
Hopefully Georgetown (I am waiting for the documents to convert)

If I ever get the Duke and Michigan essays done I will send those as well. Hopefully things will go well.

Sunday, September 24, 2006

Character an Fitness

My character and fitness letter is done. This hasn't mattered because until Friday I was still waiting on a letter of recommendation, but now that the letter is written, I felt it necessarily to complete my character and fitness letter.

Just so everybody knows, here is what happened:

When I was 14 I was shooting paintballs in my backyard with a friend. My backyard is wooded in the back and the property line ends with a four foot high stack of firewood from when our oak tree fell down. We were shooting near this woodline and a paintball that I shot (that missed horribly) struck a person mowing the grass behind our house. The paintball was red and they thought they were shot. They called the police and an ambulence. Later that afternoon the Sheriff called and said I needed to come to the Sheriff's office. I did and was arrested and charged with battery. After we explained what happened, I was asked to write a letter to the victim appologizing and explaining what happend. I was given a "station adjustment" which I was told would dismiss the case as long as I was not convicted of another crime before my 18th birthday. When I called to clarify I was told I had no convictions. I still need to declare this event for schools that asked about being "charged" with crimes.

Thursday, September 21, 2006

Interesting Concept

Today was a good day to be a law school candidate with good numbers. Today was the Christmas for fee waivers. After checking the LSAC website and finding out that I got the "hidden" Columbia fee waiver, I was notified that I also received a fee waiver at Northwestern and Duke. Better yet, Duke said that if I fax in a form they will decide on my application (non binding) within ten days of when it is received. This might be the coolest deal ever. I will definately be applying at Duke!

It is going to stay short today, mostly because I woke up at 6:45 and am VERY tired.

Thursday, September 14, 2006

Committee Committee Committee

My resume is littered with lots of random involvement that I am not sure will help me get into law school anywhere. As far as undergraduates go.... I'm ok, not great, but not bad. What I am really uncertain about is how I should lay out my information. I have served on several Bradley University committees in the last year and a half and I am unsure if I should put these on my resume, or use the space to better explain some of the things I have done.

The problem is, given the amount of time I put into these various committees I feel like I should at least make it known that I was involved in them. On the other hand, I could be using the same space to lay out more details of what I do in my other activities.

Also, I'm a little annoyed that different places ask for different amounts of information on your resume. Most annoying is the "please indicate the number of hours involved" statements that appear on some applications. My layout is pretty tight as it is, another 7 characters on a line (Xhrs/wk) makes a big difference.

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Waiting

At the moment I am waiting on one letter of recommendation and then I will begin mailing out my applications. As soon as the letter hits LSDAS I'm sending out the following:

Harvard
Yale
Stanford
Wash U
Minnesota

These aren't the only schools on my list already accepting applications, but they are the ones for while I will be applying the day the letter hits. The rest I will send out after recruitment.

Also, I'm starting to get tired of junk fee waivers. I wish there was a button that said "Only release my information to the top 50" or something like that.

Thursday, September 07, 2006

Fratty

Today I want to digress from my normal "this is how applications are going" and "this is where I am in my editing" or "the process is good/bad because of X" and instead talk about something that bothers me.

Fraternity is a noun. Frat is slang that bothers some people, but would still be a noun. These are the ONLY two forms of the word that are acceptable and should be used in every day language. Some things that are not possible:

You cannot "get your frat on." This isn't possible. It isn't a verb. You might say "I'm going to get my groove on" but you wouldn't say "I'm going to get my car on." Deal with it.

"Fratty" though useful is not a term to describe a way people dress. They are called tools, d-bags, metros, femine hygene products, or anything similar. Wearing a popped collar, wanting to make out with yourself and taking longer to get dressed than your girlfriend does not make you "Fratty" it makes you annoying. Don't attach this negative notion to all of us.

"Frat it up" is also not acceptable. Frat is not a substitute for the word party. If you want to "close brotherhood bound by a ritual that contains values" it up, feel free to use "Frat it up" but that isn't what people say, so don't use the term.

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Well.....

Its past September 1 and my application package still isn't complete. As soon as my next LOR goes active I will be sending apps to my saftey schools. I have also been slacking off on geting my essays edited, so that is a task for the upcomming week.... oh and I should probebally figure out "why Mich" huh?

Not a productive could of weeks, but recruitment is going on, so I feel as if I have an excuse.

Wish me luck!

Monday, September 04, 2006

Good Stuff

Two bits of good news arrived today.

First, I received a fee waiver from the University of Michigan. This does two things that make me happy. First, it confirms that I am a legitimate applicant at Michigan, and more importantly, it saves me a decent amount of money since I was certainly applying there in the first place.

Also, I heard from my primary LOR writer that she sent in my letter last week. This is exciting because it puts me one step closer to having my applications ready to send. Two LOR writers and a little editing and I will be finished!

Saturday, September 02, 2006

Running Away

Its been a rough couple of weeks for me as I try to finish the application process, start school, and direct recruitment. The good news is that we have not had any major, earth-shattering recruitment things happen yet. The bad news is that I am overworked and beginning to get burned out.

I have two months left. I will get through it no doubt and I hope to do a good job, but right now, there is a lot of stress in my life and I am being pulled in a lot of directions.

This is good practice for the study of law. From what I can tell stress, constant pulling, and the feeling that you are working your butt off just to keep your head above water are all common feelings for law students.

I can't wait until the middle of September. Its all downhill from there!