More Than You'll Want to Know About Applying to Law School

We had a duo celebration this weekend. Taylor made the Dean’s List at ASU and I was accepted to law school. I popped open a very nice bottle of Piper-Heidsieck as Chandon or Korbel was just not going to do.

Baylor University School of Law accepted me via e-mail. Go bears! Now I just have to wait an additional two months to hear if U of A wants me and four or five months to hear from ASU. Why are those guys so SLOW? I feel like a six year old, waiting for Santa to come.

I am only applying to three schools. Most law school students apply to at least six. But my sister told me it was rude to apply to schools to which you would not actually go even if accepted. As I am constantly working on raising my graciousness quotient, I am heeding her advice.

Law schools are ranked by U.S. News and World Report (USN), mostly using the incoming students’ undergraduate GPAs and LSAT scores. Law schools hate these rankings because it forces them to pay a lot of attention to GPA and LSAT scores in admissions.

USN provides a numerical ranking, but it’s more useful to group these into tiers, beginning with the Top 100. The higher the tier, the pickier the schools can afford to be. The top 15 or so schools in the Top 100 are referred to as T-14s. Yale Law School, at the tippy-top, turns down 93 percent of its applicants. So you better have a grade point average close to 4.0, at least a 170 LSAT, and a lot of good karma going for you to get in there.

I applied to law schools ranked around the middle of the Top 100. These schools are well-known in their geographic regions. They turn down 75 percent of their applicants. You have a good chance to get in to one of these with a 3.5 GPA and a 160 LSAT.

You’d think you should choose the highest ranked school that will take you, but that’s not always true. If you want to practice in Arizona you are better off going to a lower ranked school Top 100 school located in Arizona than a higher ranking one out of state. This is because law firms are very risk adverse and they want to hire people from schools they know. They will, however, suspend that rule for T-14 graduates. Harvard and Stanford grads get to go to the front of the line on hiring.

There are also Tier 3 and Tier 4 schools. Tier 4 have much lower median GPAs and LSAT scores and they still turn down 35 to 50 percent of their applicants.

I was reading about how some sneaky Tier 4 schools are offering full ride scholarships to people with high LSAT scores in order to boost the school’s rankings. This is sort of like a really rich, but ugly guy dating a really beautiful woman.

Like most scholarships, this one is conditional upon making high grades. The bad part is, the faculty is then instructed to give high grades to only the top two or three students in each class. The other scholarship students LOSE their full-ride. And they can’t transfer to another law school because they have low grades at a Tier 4 school. Talk about bait and switch! If this is true, there ought to be a law…

Scholarships are attractive because law school is expensive. Even applying costs you between $50 to $75 per school plus $12 each for your LSAT report. So when a school offers to waive their application fee, that’s a good thing.

I had received a few fee waiver offers, mostly from Tier 3 and 4 schools. This week, however, I was surprised to get THREE offers of application waivers (two from mid-range Top 100 schools). The amazing thing is that these schools both have application deadlines of this Friday.

I guess they didn’t get enough applications from the 90+ percentile LSAT scorers and are now courting us 80+ percentilers. I sort of feel like the average popular girl who gets all these last minute invitations to the prom from guys after they gave up on the cheerleaders. Thanks, but I already HAVE a date. Champagne, anyone?

Stepping Out

Yesterday, all of my muscles were achy. Was I coming down with something? Then I remembered: It wasn't the flu. It was Pilates. Pilates is the most devious exercise class I’ve ever attended.

It doesn’t look like much. There’s just a bunch of people lying around mats breathing while making precise little movements. I used to wonder if I got any kind of a workout at all. But the next day it hits me. Muscles I didn’t even know I had are making themselves felt after being “awoken” and “engaged” during Pilates. I'm stronger and more toned.

I thought Pilates was originally developed to be practiced on expensive machines for ultra-skinny rich women. But, in fact, it was developed by Joseph Pilates as a method of rehabilitating veterans of WW1. (There it is folks: Your Useless Fact of the Day.)

There are lots of tortury-looking devices with which to practice Pilates. But really, all you need is a mat and a sense of masochism.

My Pilates class has quite a few people over age 45. The younger women tend to attend the class before, step aerobics. When I’m early for Pilates, I watch them through the glass, bouncing over the steps, hair flying, sweating dripping. I used to be one of those women, back when I didn’t know my knees came with a limited-use warrantee.

I kind of miss step classes. They are great fun and good for the heart. But even with all that exertion, I actually get much better results overall from making all those itty-bitty movements on the floor. And I have the sore muscles to prove it.

The Complete Truth

I received an e-mail today letting me know that I am now complete. (And you didn’t know any of me was missing, did you?)

The e-mail was not referring to me being complete in any metaphysical sense or in the Tom Cruise “You Complete Me” way. Instead, I was informed that I am complete in the applying-to-law-school sense. This means the law school has received ALL the application documentation (application, resume, transcripts, LSAT report, reference letters) they need to make a decision about me. Yes, they even have the official transcript from the two hour pass-fail college course I forgot I took in 1977 at Northern Oklahoma College. Couldn’t possibly consider me without that vital piece of information, huh?

Now that I am complete, I can expect to get an answer back sometime between the next three days and the next three months. Yes, that is the timetable. And, depending on the law school, it could be in the form of an e-mail, an envelope in my mailbox or a phone call.

I am not good with this kind of uncertainty so I checked out a website called lawschoolnumbers.com. On this site I can follow the progress of people, who like me, are actually applying to law schools now. Each applicant, using a code name, has a page that shows where they applied, when they went complete, when they got an answer, whether they got in, what kind of scholarship they were offered, and where they decided to go. I can see their GPA and LSAT scores, and many list their “soft” factors. Soft factors are basically anything else, like winning a Noble Peace Prize or speaking six languages, which might make you stand out more than the applicant with the part-time waitress job at Red Lobster.

I did a search for my doppelgangers, people with the same LSAT and GPA as me, to check out how they are doing. On the website, they call each other “numbers twins.” One of my twins is a military guy currently stationed overseas. He just got accepted to U of A which gives me hope. Good for you, Drew84ABNVD!

Application information is also organized by schools. I can see who’s applying to Ye Olde Bartending and Law School, for example, who they’ve accepted and rejected, and long it took for them to get an answer out.

Of course, this information is far from complete. That’s because it is all supplied by law school applicants themselves. Each year, individuals applying to law school have to find the site and then volunteer their information.

Only law school students are this obsessive compulsive. There’s no medschoolnumbers.com or MBAnumbers.com. I know, because I am so obsessive compulsive I checked! But say what you will about me, I am, at least, complete.

Arizona Dreamin'

As I now actually LIVE in Arizona, I am hoping Taylor qualifies for in-state tuition. As his mother, you’d think I could just bring ASU my last electric bill and be done with it. But in fact, petitioning for residency, as it’s called, encompasses a multi-page application with an array of supporting documents. I think they are hoping you will just give up and pay them the extra $10k a year.

But they can’t intimidate me. I’ve applied for residency in China, Russia and the U.A.E. I’ve even applied to law schools; a process which, if you don’t include the LSAT, was only slightly less onerous.

Arizona’s residency petition requires notarized signatures from both the student and the parents. To find a notary last spring, we had to drive off island in Abu Dhabi to the U.S. Embassy where we cleared three levels of security. We then took a number and waited to be called to a little window where the notary charged us $25. To get our money’s worth, she not only carefully examined our passports, which had previously been carefully examined by the Embassy guards, but also made us raise our right hands and swear. I forget what we swore but at least she didn’t make us seal the deal by spitting afterwards.

In contrast, this week we drove about two minutes to the bank where the notary didn’t even bother to watch Taylor sign the forms. Of course, for bank customers, the notary service was free.

But there was another price to pay. Taylor had to endure yet ANOTHER credit card solicitation from them. Apparently, on the basis of his very low three figure checking account, the bank keeps trying to give him a credit card. Taylor has no real assets and NO source of income. As he is 18, the bank can’t even look to his better-heeled parents to pay his debts.

I just don’t get it. Regardless of HOW much interest you charge, loaning money to people who can’t pay you back doesn’t seem to be a good business practice. Didn’t those guys learn anything from the sub-prime mortgage debacle?

I dropped Taylor back at the dorms and headed for home. With my convertible top down, I enjoyed the stark beauty of my desert surroundings. In-state tuition is not the only allure Arizona holds.

Ready to Read

Now that I’m done with LSAT Prep books, I am reading books about law school. One of these asks you to evaluate your fitness for law school by seriously evaluating whether you can stand to be all by yourself reading for four hours a day.

Could I stand it? What is more fun than reading for four hours a day? Throughout my life, I’ve had trouble with reading too much. And it runs in the family. One of my mother’s most vivid dreams was about being unable to alert my sister to a fire because my sister had her nose stuck in a book.

During a parent-teacher conference, Taylor’s fifth grade teacher was outlining ways I could encourage Taylor to read. I admitted I LIMITED Taylor’s reading time. His shocked teacher said, “I’ve never heard of a parent limiting their child’s reading time.” Okay, but how many parents have kids who would read for six to eight hours a day?

As a working mother, I looked forward to business trips because at the end of the day, I got to go back to the hotel room and spend time alone READING. Reading has always been an indulgence. I don’t think that having to read four hours a day is going to phase me.

Of course, law school texts aren’t exactly John Grisham novels. The most mind-numbingly boring work I’ve ever read were the reading sections on the LSAT. (Stuff I had to read by William Falkner in high school is a close second.)

Prepping for the LSAT did have one effect. It severely lowered my standards for light reading. At my December book club, I was practically the only person who liked the book. This was surprising as I usually am the only person who doesn’t like the book. Everyone else thought it was too detailed and dull. I realized that I had spent so much time with LSAT reviews that the book club selection was very entertaining reading in comparison. Maybe I ought to try Falkner again.

Worldwide Proofing

With a decent LSAT score secured, you’d think I’d be all set to get into law school. As important as that is, it is only Step One of the process. Actually, that is Step Two. Step One was to graduate from college with a good GPA but I knocked that one off in 1980.

Next on my law school admissions agenda was getting letters of recommendations. I had plenty of people who could vouch for my skills at things like parenting, being a wonderful hostess, or at dragging novice travelers around places like Egypt or Thailand, but I don’t think that’s what the law schools were looking for.

I also had to put together a resume and write a personal essay. I had a hard time with the essay. This is surprising because I AM a writer. I can easily give you five pages on any subject in an hour. The personal essay, perhaps because it has the ability to shape my future, was tough to write. Only by throwing lots of time at it, did I eventually whip that thing into shape. It’s now out for proofing.

Proofing is critical because typos on your essay makes law school admissions people mighty cranky. So cranky, they might decide they never want to see your face and reject you and your good LSAT score. While riveting subject matter is a plus, good grammar is more important.

You know the old adage about the lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client? The same applies to proofreading. As a professional proofreader, I know better than to try to proof my own work. So I emailed my essay to friends all over for what I call the “Worldwide Proofing Effort.” I have already received responses with corrections, such as I wrote “Russian” when I meant “Russia.”

I keep thinking of that phrase, “It Takes a Village.” I have my own “village” helping me get into law school. These include: my sons who are so convinced I’ll succeed they bought me an ASU sweatshirt and a law dictionary; my family members who cheerfully accommodated my heavy LSAT study schedule in the midst of Thanksgiving; the people who willingly volunteered to write recommendation letters on my behalf; and now, all those folks who are carefully reviewing my essay and letting me know I used “out” in the first paragraph when I should have said “our.”

My friends and family have continually offered me encouragement that not only can I do this, I will be great. To all of you: Thanks and Have a Happy New Year!