I'm feeling the love

I just got accepted at my second choice school! Woohoo! The envelope came today. Thanks to the folks on the Pre-Law Board at Law School Discussion, I knew exactly what it was when I saw the size and color of the envelope, as the folks who received an acceptance before me were kind enough to describe it in detail. I didn't bother to torture myself this time, I just ripped it right open.

Although it is my second choice school, it is a very close second. In addition, it is the same university that I attended as an undergraduate, which is long enough ago now that I have nothing but fond memories of it. The main reason number one is number one is the public interest focus, but number two isn't too shoddy in that department either and also has several classes in education law, a subject that interests me and which aren't available at number one.

So, basically, if one offers me significantly more money than the other, then that is where I will go. If they offer me about the same money, then I will have a really tough choice. I already withdrew from my fourth choice school and may withdraw from number three now as well, because I don't think the $15,000/yr scholarship they offered me is enough to draw me away from my top two.

A Large Envelope

Yesterday I received a large envelope from my first chioce school in the mail. Since rejections don't usually come in large envelopes, I was excited to open it, but, instead, I tortured myself by opening, and processing, every other piece of mail I received first. Let's see, some books from Amazon, I better add those to my library; a credit card offer, that goes to the shredder; the DMV needs verification of my insurance, better log on to GEICO and take care of that. Then, once I finished going through the mail, my son woke up from his nap, so I had to go take care of him. Once he was happy it was finally time to open the envelope. I got in! The letter was dated exactly one month after I submitted my application, and only about a week since I called them and they verified that my application had been received, but not yet processed. They never did send me a notification that I was complete, but who cares!

I also heard from my fourth choice school a couple days ago. At this point I don't think I would go there even if they did offer me a full tuition scholarship with a stipend. I have heard that they use some of the questionable scholarship practices that Frugal Law Student Mentioned (i.e. placing scholarship students in one section to weed each other out), and that their career services office is really bad.

Law School Application Update

I had a brief moment of panic before the holidays about the application at my number one law school choice. My application had to be in before January 1 for me to be eligible for the scholarships I was applying for. I finished my application three weeks before the deadline, thinking that would be plenty of time. But when I called the admissions office on the 22nd the person I spoke with said that my application was not complete. When I asked whether they would be in the office the following week she said no. So I had a little freak out thinking that I had finished my application too late and all the work I had done on my essays was for nothing. But when I asked about the scholarship deadline, she said that they gave a grace period since January 1 was a holiday, and that as long as they received my application by January 5 I would still be eligible to be considered for the scholarships. So, I felt pretty confident that my application and law school report would be there by then (if it wasn't there already and just not processed), but I still had a little worry that was nagging at me during the holidays. The scholarships are probably a long shot, but I would be pretty upset if I wasn't even considered for them because of stupidity on my part. On the 3rd I called them again (I figured I'd give them one day to go through their mail before I called) and spoke with a very pleasant gentleman who informed me that my application had been received just before the break (!) and that it should be processed and I should receive an email notice of completion in a few days. He also confirmed that, assuming I had submitted all the necessary materials for the scholarship, and assuming I was admitted, I would be considered for the scholarship. Whew!

I received a completion notice from my number two school over the holidays (they were waiting for a dean's letter), so now everything is really done and I just have to wait and see what happens.

Done!

My last application is done. I finally finished the essays that I should have had done a long time ago and sent in my last application. Hubby was a big part of my getting them done finally. He helped me brainstorm ideas, gave me many baby-free hours in which to write, and proofread. The next step in this whole process will be financial aid applications, but those can't be done until January at the earliest.So, now I can focus on the holidays... Christmas shopping is already done (without stepping foot in a mall), but christmas cards need to be addressed and presents need to be wrapped -- activities I much prefer over writing personal essays. I can also get back to updating this blog with a little more regularity. Yay!

Acceptance #1

I received my first acceptance into law school today. It came by email from what is currently my third choice school. I expected my first acceptance to make me excited about the fact that I am really going to law school next year, but somehow the email did not do that for me. Maybe the excitement will come with the official letter and other hard-copy materials from the school -- there's still something about dead trees that can't quite be replicated digitally.

Applying to Law School, Part II

So, one of the reasons I started this blog is to talk about being a mom and going to law school. I won't be the first person to blog about this (LawMom, transmogriflaw, yayarolly and MadMom are a few of those who have gone before me) but it seems that there are few enough that it is worthwhile to have one more. But I am not in law school yet -- which would explain the dearth of posts about law school. I am, however, pretty much done with my applications. The only thing I still have to do is write some essays for some scholarships I am applying for. I have been procrastinating on writing those essays for a while now. It's not hard to procrastinate when you have a three-month-old. When he takes a nap the first thing I do is eat, the second thing I do is take care of the most urgent household chores (laundry, dishes). Since most of his naps are less than an hour, that might be all I get done. However, if I have extra time I will probably check my email, order diapers on Amazon (you can get $10 off every $50 grocery order through November 30 and it's mostly all eligible for free shipping, so stock up!) or write something for this blog. I figure writing this blog is giving me practice writing, which will help when I get around to writing my essays. It's a pretty good rationalization, so I'm going to use it for now.

Anyway, one of the reasons I am procrastinating is that the scholarships I am applying for (five of them) are all awarded by the same committee, and yet they want a separate essay for each scholarship. So I have to write five entirely different essays explaining my committment to whatever each scholarship is for. I could probably cover the requirements of all the scholarships in one essay (none are mutually exclusive), but they want five seperate ones. I am planning on thinking of them as one essay with five parts. I actually have two written so far, and I have until January 1st. So I'm really not in bad shape. But I need to take advantage of my current easy access to my mother in law and spend an hour or two sans baby working on these essays and get them done before the holiday craziness starts.

So, the point of all this was to explain that not much is going on law-school-wise at the moment, which is why there are so few law-school-related posts. But things should get interesting pretty soon, as I hope to hear from a couple schools in December, and then will get to start filling out financial aid applications in January. So, stay tuned!law+school motherhood scholarship applications financial+aid amazon diapers

Applying to Law School

I decided relatively recently that I wanted to pursue a career in law. It wasn't a lifelong dream or anything. In fact the thought of myself as a lawyer was a little strange to me. I always wanted to help people, and I guess I didn't realize that you could do that as a lawyer. Since it has taken me a while to decide that I wanted to be a lawyer I will not be a traditional law school student. By the time I start I will be ten years out of college, in addition, I am married and I have a baby. Going back to school will not be a strange experience for me though: with the exception of the two years immediately following the completion of my undergraduate degree I have been going to school in one form or another pretty much continuously since I was three. I enjoy it.

So anyway, I have begun my applications for Fall 2007. I am applying to two schools that will definitely accept me and two that I should have a 75% or better chance of being accepted. All in New York, because that's where we live and where my husband's job is. You can check the progress of my applications here.

I am planning on working in public interest law after I graduate, so I do not expect a big paycheck. With that in mind, I am wondering whether I would be better off going to a lower ranked school with a large scholarship or a higher ranked school and having lots of debt. Both situations are hypothetical since I haven't been accepted anywhere, or received any scholarship offers yet, and it is always possible that one of the higher ranked schools will off me a big scholarship, but assuming that were my choice, which would be a better option? So far I am leaning toward a higher ranked school and lots of debt based on the advice of a friend of mine who went to Harvard (and may be biased, since that was the choice he made). He said that if I go to a higher ranked school it won't matter too much what grades I get because having gone to the school will be enough to get me good job prospects. But if I go to a lower ranked school I will need to work harder to prove myself to potential employers. Also if I were interested in clerking or pursuing an academic career (and I might be) then I need to go to a higher ranked school. If anyone has any opinions on this I would love to hear them.mother parent law+school student legal law public+interest lawyer