Open Season on Law School Applications!

This week’s favorite (and least favorite) things about law school applications:

I LOVE
Duke Law’s Priority Track and Fee Waiver – This program guarantees that a response to your application will be mailed to you within ten days of completing your file.

The Priority Track program allows you to submit your application materials at any time prior to the February 15 deadline. Your application fee will be automatically waived when you submit your application through LSAC; you should not need to enter a code. Upon completion of your file, your application will receive an immediate comprehensive review, and you will receive a response within ten days. This is a non-binding program; if you are admitted to Duke, you may freely consider offers of admission from other law schools.

I HATE
Applying Binding Early Decision: Unless you want to live in a certain city and have plenty of money to pay for law school and still buy yourself a house, why would you bind yourself to a law school without the incentive of scholarship money (so GW Law’s program might be the one exception to the rule), especially not really knowing where you would want to be a year from now? So much changes in life in a year, particularly when you are in your twenties: the boyfriend who lives in DC could be an ex-boyfriend by the time you would go to law school, your family finances could change, or you could fall in love with someone or something completely new in Chicago. Don’t cut off the possibilities of life because you’re trying to game the admission system. And, please, do not apply binding to any law school that you have not already visited. And I don’t mean the undergraduate campus – if you haven’t sat in on a class and talked to students there, you do not know enough about the school to apply under a binding program. Just because “Columbia” has a nice ring to it doesn’t mean you will be happy there or that it’s the right place for you.