I can go to law school!

So I'm at West Point and will add more details later, but today I got an IM saying that my mail came and I was accepted at Duke Law School. Go priority track! I will post more details when I get back and receive them!

Automated frustration

Early this morning I received an email from Duke saying that they mailed my decision. After reading the letter more carefully, I noticed something odd. The email was sent at 2:23 AM. This means that either their automated mailing system was very slow and they sent it on Thursday (this is my hope), their Director of Admissions was working very late into the evening on Friday (EST is an hour ahead of me), or they sent an automated email before they sent the letter and it came VERY early. I doubt 2 is a realistic option, which leaves 1 or 3. I'm hoping for 1 which would mean one less day to wait, but the point is, if you are going to have an automated system, set it to send emails at realistic times!

Update

After a day spent calling around, I have confirmed that I am complete at all but the following schools:

Yale (hasn't even ordered my report)
Harvard
Northwestern (received but not complete)

And I believe I am complete at but cannot confirm:

Wash U-STL

I was hoping to get an email from Duke today saying the letter is in the mail, but that didn't happen so it looks like I will need to work something out to find out how I did (assuming they mail within the time they said they would). Wish me luck on that. I hope my C&F problem didn't sink me there.

I'll update again when I have a decision! I wont be posting much this weekend since I am going to be getting things in shape for my trip to West Point. Look to see an update around the end of next week, hopefully then I will have at least one (and hopefully two) decisions..... (and HOPEFULLY they will both be good news).

Well

Funeral is over and I'm back to obsessing about law school application things. Everything is done and all I can do is wait. my hatred of waiting is leading me to consider applying to other schools.

I leave for an ethics camp at West Point this weekend which is about when I am thinking/hoping for the Duke notification to come. I am so OCD I am going to arrange for somebody to check the letter for me.

I hate waiting.

Also, Sept. LSAT scores just came out and it is fun to watch somebody else obsess over scores for a change. Even more gratifying is watching the entire process that I was recently a part of (the heres my score, here is my list, how should I change it process) from the outside looking in.

A Decision to Anticipate

Today I received notification from Duke Law School that my file was complete. This means that I should be hearing from them within 10 business days (thanks to the priority track). Assuming this starts next Monday, they should have their decision by two weeks from today. Add two days to mail it and I should know around the end of the first week of November. Because I took forever this isn't much sooner than when Georgetown sends their first round of acceptances, but such is life. Hopefully I will have some good news within the next few weeks. I will keep you all updated.

Waiting is Hard

When I started this process two years ago I had no idea what a large portion of my life would be spent learning about, preparing for, and applying to law school. Now, as I sit with my applications submitted, I realize just how much time I spent going through this process.

Though I am thankful to be done, waiting is almost as hard as doing. I have put a lot of time and effort into my application cycle and now I have nothing to do but hope for the best. I find myself checking my email 4-5 times a day in hopes of receiving a notification that my application is complete. I find myself angry that my Duke priority track application is taking so long. I find myself checking the Georgetown status checker every few hours in hopes that mabye this year they will send out decisions earlier than ever before. Mostly, I just wait and read online.

Ethics

I haven't posted about this yet, but last week I was invited to participate in a conference on ethics at West Point Military Academy at the end of the month. Though I am extremely nervous about being in a world that is NOTHING like the world I am used to, I am also very excited. I will be attending with one other Bradley student and the University will be footing the cost of attendance.

Though I am uncertain what we will be discussing, I have spoken to people that attended last year and it sounds like they both had a wonderful experience. I cannot imagine anything better for somebody about to enter into a profession that presents as many ethical issues as the law than by attending conference put on by the military academy.

As a side note, at work there have been rumors of me assisting the associates in some legal research which would be an exciting opportunity.

I Love You More, Than I Did The Week Before

So I don't really "love" any law school, but I wanted to rip of the song lyric for the title of this post.

As many of you know, since the beginning of the application process Harvard has been my distant first choice school. I know it is a reach, but I a guy can hope. A few days ago the following article appeared all over the internet:

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=514774

What does this mean for me? It means a school I was already very interested in just got better. A class that I would want to take anyway (Regulation and Legislation) just became required of all 1L students.

This is a great change and a nice symbolic nod to the fact that the major issues in law have changed from 100 years ago. In addition, I can only imagine these changes will help first year students land summer employment.

I hope too many students don't get excited about this and attend as a result, I need all the help I can get!

One Left

I sent off my Yale application today which means I have one application left:

Stanford.

For Yale I used a modification of my diversity statement as the 250 and then sent my normal personal statement. Was this the best plan? I doubt it, but at this point it was tough to get motivated to completely rewrite another statement for a school that I have no chance at getting into.

I will be adding to my diversity statement and sending it to stanford shortly.

Also, BIG PROBLEM:

In reworking my diversity statement I noticed a typo in the conclusion. After looking at the apps I sent, it turns out this typo was in EVERY APPLICATION I SENT WITH A DIVERSITY STATEMENT.

Hopefully since its at the end of an optional essay it won't hurt me too bad.

Lets hope.

Home

I am home for four days. I hope to take advantage of my free time to finish my Stanford and Yale essays. If I don't, I will regret it and my apps may not get sent out till December.

I am beginning to see why they tell people to take a year or two off in between Law School and Undergrad. Being an active undergraduate with a personal life and applying to law school are almost mutually exclusive goals.

And Then There Were Two

With the majority of my applications out, I am starting to feel like the time intensive part of this process is coming to a close. At this point all that is left for me to do is to finish my Stanford and Yale applications and mail them off. After these applications are complete and mailed it will be a long Fall and Winter of waiting.

Judging my how nervous I was waiting for the LSAT, I can only imagine how my stomach will turn waiting for my applications to be decided on. I hope the first decision comes quickly and is positive because this will help me relax for the rest of the cycle.

App update

Nothing really new in law school world other than I am still cranking out applications.

Since my last post I have applied to:

Cornell
Notre Dame
Penn
Columbia

That leaves only four schools that I am 100% applying to:

Stanford
Yale
Duke
Berkely/Boalt

Once again, I have dropped NYU because it doesn't seem worth the money to apply (and they haven't offered a fee waiver) to a school that I really doubt I would go to even if I was accepted. If the cycle gets rough I will apply, but until then, no thanks.