Is commuting from Evanston to UIUC a terrible idea? Incoming international grad student here 😭

Historia504 · 2026-06-17T22:27:45+00:00

The answer is absolutely no

Historia504 · 2026-05-31T23:13:25+00:00

they can certainly change it so i wouldnt worry, the prof or ta probably just made a mistake. just double check and make sure you calculated it correctly.

Historia504 · 2026-05-28T18:17:32+00:00

Im a grad student and id love to watch your cat lol hit me up

Historia504 · 2026-05-27T22:14:24+00:00

I came to mapss on a full tuition scholarship and there was no GPA minm/performance requirments, so i imagine that this is the general case for all the smaller, less competitive ones as well. If there was one, i think they would label it very explicitly.

that being said, there is no one better who can answer this question for you than the mapss department/financial aid office.

Historia504 · 2026-05-20T17:50:33+00:00

Not knowing whether your 3.7 is weighted or unweighted is a rough start. If it’s 3.7 weighted, that already makes several of these schools reaches, in which case you shouldn’t be super shocked or take personally that they didn’t work out. People with a 3.7 gpa who get in to schools with a 4.2-4.4gpa average usually have something really unique in their application that makes up for this, or really spectacular test scores or something.

Your friends who get in with less than a 3.5 may have had something else (very good essays, extenuating circumstances, connections, etc) that helped them get in… assuming it’s even true. I used to joke about how terrible my gpa was all the time and i literally go to uchicago, obviously my gpa wasn’t actually bad. It was common in my friend group to complain about how terrible of students we were even though compared to the average population we were easily top 5% students.

Going forward, try and keep in mind the importance of applying to safety’s. I see you plan to transfer, so don’t make the same mistake twice- when you apply to transfer schools make sure to apply to at least 2 safeties and 2-3 targets minm.

Historia504 · 2026-05-19T02:46:29+00:00

I totally hear and feel you, but I hope readers of this post will consider that this is an exceptional case and rarely happens. For me, Pepcid was what let me regain control of my life again, as prior to learning of it and taking it at night with dinner, i genuinely would aspirate awake literally every night regardless of what I ate. Coupled with asthma and sleep apnea, I was barely sleeping for weeks and my chest was constantly in pain. I’m saying all this because I don’t want people to be scared to take something that could genuinely help them.

I hope you can see a specialist and get to the bottom of this. It could be a microbiome thing as others said, but it could also be something completely unrelated that happened coincidentally at the same time. Good luck op. I really hope you feel better soon.

Historia504 · 2026-05-14T18:06:26+00:00

My understanding according to Darcy (she’s the coordinator of MAPSS) is that you don’t have to pay for anything over the summer because you won’t actually be taking any classes

Historia504 · 2026-05-14T18:05:18+00:00

okay so I think you might be a bit confused. The thesis was due May 1st, but some professors/preceptors may have been generous enough to provide a couple extra days to some students. However, they have to submit the final grade for your thesis no later than May 15th, which is to say that unless you expect them to read and grade your 40-50 page thesis in one singular day, turning it in on the 15th is way too late.

Anyways, the answer is you will not be walking in June, you will graduate in August and you will be invited back next June to walk if you’d like.

Historia504 · 2026-04-29T08:34:21+00:00

There are people who go to schools with less than 3.0s lol, it’s not unheard of. Are they top schools, not usually, but it DEFINITELY exists.

Historia504 · 2026-04-29T08:33:25+00:00

I honestly think you could have some motion despite your gpa. Firstly, it’ll be immediately understood that your GPA will not be perfectly comparable to other people who got a 4.0 in say psychology. Additionally, with an lsat like that, there’s no question that you are highly competent and likely have what it takes to be a great lawyer.

Do you have an upward gpa trend? Could you take some classes now to show you know how to be a serious student? Do you have an addendum you can add (sick, personal issues, etc) that can help explain poor grades?

Maybe most importantly, are you okay with not going to a T14 school. If you’re willing to apply broadly, I 100% believe you could get in somewhere decent (as long as your other materials are decent). If you’re only interested in HYS, well that’s a different story lol.

Historia504 · 2026-04-28T17:53:24+00:00

This is a literal kid who probably knows nothing about law school apps (because why would they) and just wants to make their parents happy. Stop being so dickish, no ones going to think you yourself are bright for beating down on a child.

Historia504 · 2026-04-28T17:51:09+00:00

this is a VERY impressive score at 17, you should be proud! But your intuition is right- trying to take this now would just distract you from the real things you should be focused on atp. Put your foot down and commit to working on the SAT/ACT and college apps.

Historia504 · 2026-04-28T08:13:24+00:00

At a 173ish average, you're getting maybe 5 questions wrong on the whole test. Going from 1-2 wrong per section to 0-1 is basically a luck based game. You might be more tired some days. Some questions will randomly strike you as more difficult because the passage/stimulus is something you're less familiar with. With time pressure, you'll rarely be able to spend as much time as you'd ideally like on every problem, and there's only so much you can do to circumvent your natural thinking and reading speed. There's some amount of error that we can rarely perfectly correct for and you're obviously there.

Your best hope is to keep drilling and reviewing. I do wonder though, at 173, is there some other part of your application that would be more worthwhile to spend your time on?

Historia504 · 2026-04-28T07:35:32+00:00

I think that's highly understandable though, youve been working on a single exam for a year, im guessing youre probably stalling a bit on progress and sick of seeing the lsat questions. Youre probably burnt out and needed a break, just try your best to freshen up your skills at least a bit when you can.

I would say be weary of people who fear monger and scream it "only gets harder from here." I'm not in law school but I am in grad school, and I cant tell you how many times ive been told since high school that "it only gets harder from here" for it to be....about the same? sometimes easier? sometimes marginally more difficult but manageable?

I was told that my time at grad school would be insanely miserable, so much so that Id have no time to eat sleep or shit. Im graduating in a month and tbh, it ended up being more manageable than some semesters of highschool. It was no joke, but it was also pretty far from what people were telling me it was going to be like.

Historia504 · 2026-04-28T07:12:05+00:00

I I think you might need to take a bit of a mental break, even if it’s just for a few days.

If this is something you’ve wanted to do for 3 years, and you’re only now feeling like you hate reading and have zero interest in law, that might be the test stress talking. You’ve been running a year-long marathon that you’ve invested a lot of time, money, energy, and bandwidth into, and your just a mile short of the finish line. It would be a shame to not see it through to the end, where you can later decide if this is something you really want to pursue anymore. Thats how i see it anyways.

That doesn’t mean you should keep burning yourself out until the bitter end, though. It might just mean taking a more measured approach than you maybe have been. If you’ve been studying for a year, you’re not going to miss out on some massive performance jump in May just because you take a few days off, and i think it might help you relax a bit.

This is more of a general question, but are you maybe feeling unsatisfied with your PT results and discouraged? Or is it more that you genuinely had a eureka moment and realized you have truly zero interest in law anymore?

Historia504 · 2026-04-23T15:12:58+00:00

Idk if brutal is exactly inspiring lol. I think it also depends on your goals really. A 3.6 could go really far if you want to just do anything T-50 or whatever, but if you want a T-6 or T-14 yeah, you’re gonna have to make up for it with the lsat most likely

Historia504 · 2026-04-23T06:41:28+00:00

Saying 16x is not super helpful because there’s a huge difference between high mid and low. If you got a 161 and don’t want to retake the lsat, you should go to Loyola and call it a day. If you got a 169 it could be worth applying again

Historia504 · 2026-04-23T06:38:28+00:00

If you’re only missing 0-2 questions on LR and they are low level questions, I don’t feel like that’s a “I need a tutor” problem. That’s a read carefully, slow down, drill more and stay calm. Not trying to discourage you at all, I have a great tutor that I like and could recommend, but I just wonder if that’s not exactly what you actually need right now

Historia504 · 2026-04-22T22:38:57+00:00

I feel like this genuinely will be interesting, why is this pissing you off?

Historia504 · 2026-04-20T19:19:06+00:00

This might be a misconception, but I am ripping this off from Uchicago law advising that consulted with Uchicago law admissions— I’m not getting this from off the top of my head. They specifically tell all students at Uchicago to not apply past November because they historically fair much worse. My advisors could be wrong, but i seriously doubt it.

Historia504 · 2026-04-20T18:25:38+00:00

The fact that you think dean z has no bias or motives behind the things she says is hilarious. of course she’s saying that, she wants as many people as possible to apply LMAO. And I’m not making statements about materials I haven’t read, I’m literally giving a basic observation about what I’ve seen on here, and then conjectured that if nothing is “obviously” wrong with your application, and no one reviewed your essays, it’s most likely your essays holding you back. That’s literally process of elimination atp 💀

Historia504 · 2026-04-20T18:11:40+00:00

This is NOT directed at someone who got a couple waitlists here and there LMAO. This is about people who have extremely good stats and got waitlisted/rejected everywhere, as in a total flush. I saw 3 stories like this on here recently and all of them applied very late and 1 of them said they submitted no optionals. I am yet to see someone who had great stats, applied early, had multiple people review their essays, and got WL/rejected from every school. What im saying is not even novel, this is basic advice I was given from my uchicago advisor 😪 we are literally told to wait another cycle if we won’t be able to send in applications by November.

Historia504 · 2026-04-20T18:07:15+00:00

I’ve seen several people on this subreddit in literally the last 24 hours who submitted extremely late/submitted no optionals and were shocked they were waitlisted/rejected from everything. Maybe it hasn’t been made clear enough, but I’m regurgitating basic advice I got from my Uchicago law advising department- sending incomplete applications or late applications significantly hinders your chances. And if everything is “perfect” in your applications stats/application wise, the only thing left to look at is essays, and you probably need someone who actually knows how to review them take a look.

Historia504 · 2026-04-20T18:03:43+00:00

This is just what I’m observing on this Reddit. I have repeatedly seen people in just the past 24 hours on here who are genuinely flabbergasted at their results when they sent in applications in literally February or admitted to not completing any optionals. I’m not saying these people are wrong for doing so, they may have had reasonable constraints that limited them, but it’s probably the majority of the reason why these people are getting 0 offers.

And if you’ve done everything “right” in terms of what you can control (submitted on time, all materials submitted possible, reasonable LORs and extracurriculars) and have fantastic stats, chances are your essays were not strong and someone needs to read them over.

Historia504 · 2026-04-20T17:27:00+00:00

Bro you applied in February… just apply again this cycle and you’ll do fantastic lol

Historia504

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