Nada

No new news, still celebrating the Harvard acceptance. I will be having some sort of "I'm really happy the weight of the world is off my shoulders because I got into my top choice" party within the next few weeks, details to follow.

Its About Time To Post

Now that I have told most of the people that would be angry if they found out from my blog and not from me, I got some more good news earlier this week.

About two posts ago (Tuesday, the same day I got the Michigan letter) while I was at work I received a phone call from a certain East Coast Area code. I left work to go downstairs and check it out, and sure enough it was Mr. Toby Stock calling to let me know that I was admitted to Harvard Law School.

Thats right, after two year of trying to get into law school, I have the opportunity to study at HARVARD LAW SCHOOL.

Sorry for the caps, I am still very very excited.

When you tell people, there first question is always: So are you going to go?

My response thus far has been: Unless I get a gigantic scholarship from a top school that I also happen to fall in love with when I visit, I will be at Harvard next year.

Some people understand this logic, others simply state: You have to go to Harvard, its Harvard.

Anyway, as far as I am concerned the following schools could still convince me to attend:

Yale
Chicago
Penn
Michigan
Northwestern
Notre Dame **

Notre Dame gets two ** because they really couldn't convince me to attend, but my mom is pushing VERY hard for Notre Dame if I get money. In reality they are close to being out of the running, but I guess there is an outside chance it could happen, so I'll leave them up here.

The others are all possibilities IF I bet a large scholarship and love my visit. By large I am talking something close to the Darrow at Michigan, the Levy at Penn, that full tuition offer Northwestern has been making, and Big Money at Chicago (which I do not believe they give too often).

Yale I would attend if 1. some odd chance of fate had me get in, and 2. Financial aid made it cheaper to attend Yale.

Basically, I'm going to Harvard, even if I get into Yale.

Its About Time To Post

Now that I have told most of the people that would be angry if they found out from my blog and not from me, I got some more good news earlier this week.

About two posts ago (Tuesday, the same day I got the Michigan letter) while I was at work I received a phone call from a certain East Coast Area code. I left work to go downstairs and check it out, and sure enough it was Mr. Toby Stock calling to let me know that I was admitted to Harvard Law School.

Thats right, after two year of trying to get into law school, I have the opportunity to study at HARVARD LAW SCHOOL.

Sorry for the caps, I am still very very excited.

When you tell people, there first question is always: So are you going to go?

My response thus far has been: Unless I get a gigantic scholarship from a top school that I also happen to fall in love with when I visit, I will be at Harvard next year.

Some people understand this logic, others simply state: You have to go to Harvard, its Harvard.

Anyway, as far as I am concerned the following schools could still convince me to attend:

Yale
Chicago
Penn
Michigan
Northwestern
Notre Dame **

Notre Dame gets two ** because they really couldn't convince me to attend, but my mom is pushing VERY hard for Notre Dame if I get money. In reality they are close to being out of the running, but I guess there is an outside chance it could happen, so I'll leave them up here.

The others are all possibilities IF I bet a large scholarship and love my visit. By large I am talking something close to the Darrow at Michigan, the Levy at Penn, that full tuition offer Northwestern has been making, and Big Money at Chicago (which I do not believe they give too often).

Yale I would attend if 1. some odd chance of fate had me get in, and 2. Financial aid made it cheaper to attend Yale.

Basically, I'm going to Harvard, even if I get into Yale.

Left Coast

A quick read of my blog reveals that I completely left out an entire acceptance.

Monday morning I woke up, stretched, and looked at my phone, only to see that I had missed a call from about two minutes earlier. The number was unframiliar - a 510 area code. A quick google showed Oregon (odd) and California. When I added law school to the area code (out of curiosity) it turned up Boalt Hall. I then did a quick check of my favorite law school messege board and sure enough two people had reported acceptance calls from Boalt that day. By this time I had a messege on my cell phone. Rather than checking it, I called the Admissions Director back and spoke with him. He informed me that I had been accepted to Boalt Hall and to look for a follow up email.

So at this point, my law school application process has gone fairly well, I hope the rest of the cycles continues on like this!

Michigan

So today I received my package from Michigan notifying me that I have been admitted to their Fall of 2007 law school class. This is exciting news and I am glad to have it since this decision comes from a school I consider a cut above the rest of the schools I have currently received acceptances from. Unfortunately, I did not receive a scholarship offer. Hopefully I will receive one later.

I am thrilled to be in at Michigan, and their marketing materials are top of the line. I can already tell that this could shape up to be a VERY difficult decision (unless Harvard comes through with an acceptance).

In addition, I have been freaking out today because Harvard started calling students last night to admitt them. I really really really want to be admitted to Harvard (not that everybody doesn't). Since I am a worry wart, I have been freaking out with every online post of a person being accepted. TOBY, PLEASE CALL ME!!!!

We will see, but waiting sucks.

Grapevine

Oh the online Grapevine. I wake up this morning thinking I will have a weekend without having to think about law school things and I stop in to check LSN for the day (because its more addictive than crack) and I notice that somebody is claiming to have gone to "decision" today (Saturday). I I do a quick check of my status checker and sure enough, I have gone to decision. Now I am wondering what the decision is and when it was coming. So much for a weekend without law school thoughts.

The great thing about on-line messege boards featuring students applying to many of the same schools that I am is the ease with which we can share information. Had I need been posting on the boards, I definately would not have checked my status checker today. Moreover, had I not been actively reading the board I would not have been checking my status checker compulsively at all since I would not have known that decisions started going out this week. I love the fact that the board lets me know what to expect and takes out some of the randomness from the law school application process. I also like that it lets me know what is normal and what is unique. For example, the note on my acceptance letter from GULC would have seemed like a big thing to me, except I knew from people online that they do this for everybody.

Additionally, football has always provided me with a weekend releif from all things law school. I wake up and do some quick channel surfing and what is the first football game I find? Yale v. Harvard. No releif there, the only reason these two schools are on my radar are because they have excellent law schools. Great.

So much for a relaxing weekend.

Well.....

Michigan started sending out decisions and I have yet to have my status change. Given the fact taht schools seem to send good news first, this doesn't seem like it is a good sign. Hopefully I'll see my status change to "decision" sometime soon and hopefully the decision will be good news.

Other than that, nothing new. Harvard still hasn't started sending out decisions and nobody else's decisions seem to be getting much talk on the messege boards I read.

Also, it seems like Harvard is making a lot of calls, I hope a Harvard call is still a really good sign. We will see!

No News and Predicting the Future

Today is Monday and I have nothing new to report in the law school application process. At this point the only thing I am doing that relates to law school is my homework to make sure I graduate. I had a PLS exam due today which I completed late last night. I may or may not start an essay in the same class for which rough drafts are due Thursday, and of course I have meetings for things I regret being involved in.

Recently I have been trying to predict what schools will send out the next round of acceptances (which I hope to receive). As of now, I am guessing the next set of schools to send out acceptances will be:

Michigan
Stanford
Harvard
Washington University

I would love to get accentances to each of those schools, but I would be falling down thrilled if I was accepted to any three of them. I am hoping that letters from these schools come out next week, but who knows, history isn't always an accurate predictor. Lets hope for the best!

GULC

Today I checked my mail to find a very small, plain envelop from Georgetown University Law Center. I had heard from Law School Discussion that they are sending out acceptances so I was excited, though worried about the size of the envelope. I opened the letter and was fortunate enough that it was an acceptance. The letter also invited me to one of their admitted student receptions in, among other places, Chicago. I intend to go if I receive a scholarship offer from them.

In addition, the letter had a hand written note complimenting me on my grades and extracurriculars. Nice touch, even though they do this for everybody!

Call

Today I received the Harvard admissions phone call. The call was very short, less than five minutes in length. In this time I was asked to explain what I do with my time and to elaborate on several of the activities that I am involved in. Toby also clarified some information from my resume and asked me to elaborate on what I do at my job. Overall the call was quick and easy though I do not feel all that confident and I feel as if I may have weakened, not strengthened my application as a whole.

At the end of the call Toby asked me to clarify which area I was interested and gave me the opportunity to ask him questions about Harvard. I asked about the new program and was very excited about his answer.

I will update you as things progress in the law school appliation process.

Still no word from Georgetown :(

Waiting and Working

I had hoped that by now I could post that I received the admissions phone interview from Harvard law school and that it went very well. Unfortunately, this is not the case. I have yet to received "the call" from Toby Stock and since I listed work today as a bad time to call, I will apparently have to wait untill AT LEAST tomorrow and probebally longer to hear from Mr. Stock.

I hope things go well. I have talked to others that received the call and they have all said that it basically consists of going over your resume and better explaining the things that you have done. I hope this call goes well, I really want to attend Harvard (my and half of the world).

Additionally, I have a project due Friday on US policy towards weapons of mass destruction. I am currently researching the hippie peacenick solution on no weapons for anybody for me group...... ya, good luck.

Reason to Clerk

On a forum I post on, the following case's language and footnote was posted:

United States v. Murphy, 406 F.3d 857 (7th Cir.2005)

The test of this decision that is most entertaining reads:

On the evening of May 29, 2003, Hayden was smoking crack with three other folks at a trailer park home on Chain of Rocks Road in Granite City, Illinois. Murphy, Sr., who had sold drugs to Hayden several years earlier, showed up later that night. He was friendly at first, but he soon called Hayden a “snitch female dog hoe” FN1 and hit her in the head with the back of his hand. He said he saw her name in discovery materials from his son's criminal case and that she was responsible for putting him in jail. He put a gun-a small chrome-plated one-to her head and said he was going to kill her for putting his son in jail. He said this would be her last night and her body would be found in a ditch. Murphy then placed several calls, telling Hayden he was calling his people to get someone to dispose of her car.

FN1. The trial transcript quotes Ms. Hayden as saying Murphy called her a snitch female dog “hoe.” A “hoe,” of course, is a tool used for weeding and gardening. We think the court reporter, unfamiliar with rap music (perhaps thankfully so), misunderstood Hayden's response. We have taken the liberty of changing “hoe” to “ho,” a staple of rap music vernacular as, for example, when Ludacris raps “You doin' ho activities with ho tendencies."

In other words, considerable time was spent discussing the meaning of "ho" and Ludacris is cited as a source or the common usage of a word. Hi-lar-i-ous.

Sadly, this is not the most humorous pop culture reference by a judge in an opinion. In response to a motion that a judge clearly thought lacked any merit, the judge proceeded to borrow a rant form one of my childhood movie favorites by stating:

Or, in the words of the competition judge to Adam Sandler’s title character in the movie, “Billy Madison,” after Billy Madison had responded to a question with an answer that sounded superficially reasonable but lacked any substance,

“Mr. Madison, what you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I’ve ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response was there anything that could even be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.”

Deciphering motions like the one presented here wastes valuable chamber staff time, and invites this sort of footnote.

(Judge Leif Clark, Bankruptcy Court for Western Texas)

Some Updates

So I got home and read the details of the Duke acceptance letter. Pretty standard fare, congrats, we look forward to seeing you, here is the way to log onto our accepted students community, so on and so forth. They also sent another viewbook (number 4 for those counting at home) and another book that seems to be a peroidical.

No scholarship info/offer though. I hope to hear from them about this at some point.

Additionally, this evening I received an email from Toby Stock, the admissions director at Harvard saying that he would like to speak with me next week. I don't think this would be a sign of automatic rejection so I am VERY excited!