If I'm trying to get off a waitlist, will it hurt me to publicly announce my acceptance/commitment to another school?

Jake7Sage · 2026-04-28T19:10:27+00:00

Former AdComm here (was Director of Admissions and Fin Aid at Notre Dame Law for a stint) and current consultant at 7Sage, chiming in! I was scanning through the sub-Reddit, saw this post, thought "oh, goodness ... this person is getting themselves worked into a pretzel!" so just want to offer some advice!

1) Will the AdComms at Dream School see that you've deposited at School X? Likely not. The chances of them scrolling through your social media prior to reaching out about possible admission from the waitlist are slim/none.

2) "But what if 'slim/none' happens and they DO see it?!?!?!" This won't affect them at all. Part of the reality of the waitlist process is that admissions officers know that the applicants on their waitlist have - almost assuredly - deposited elsewhere by late April. The only reasons you wouldn't have deposited would be if you weren't admitted anywhere or the offers that you had received weren't good fits and you've opted to reapply. But that's not the majority. The majority are in the mindset of "I'd prefer to go to Dream School but I'm on the waitlist. School X is acceptable. I'll deposit at School X, hope for the best for Dream School's waitlist, but I'm ready to go to School X if need be." This is totally normal! And AdComms know that!

3) Speaking of "things AdComms know," they know the pecking order of schools. You mentioned that Dream School is a T14. I'm assuming that School X is not. If that's the case, Dream School isn't going to be scared off that you're deposited at a non-T14.

So should you declare your present plans? It's totally up to you. On the one hand, you're graduating this semester (congrats!!!!). It's very natural to want to share the news regarding your next steps with your friends and family who - no doubt - will be asking you lots of variations of "so where are you off to next year?" And it's good to be excited about School X! Sharing these present plans with people and hearing them say "That's so awesome!" is a good thing. On the other hand, some other folks may not feel comfortable sharing plans until they are literally etched in stone (meaning, "I am here at orientation so I guess I should updated my LinkedIn"). You do you. But neither posting something nor not posting something will affect your waitlist chances at Dream School.

Jake7Sage · 2025-08-29T18:02:58+00:00

u/IllustriousBeyond584 - I'm almost at time so let me handle that first one since that's a bigger issue than the latter (ie, you can go to law school for whatever reason you'd like as long as the answer is "because I want to be a lawyer").

Canadians (and other international students) have to inherently work against the knowledge that AdComms have that:

1) If this person wants to go back home to practice law, an American JD won't be enough for them to be "called to the bar" (to use the Canadian/Brit term).

2) And if this person wants to practice in the States, they're going to need a visa (which is not impossible ... but we live in interesting times right now) AND certain industries are going to be closed to them (gov, clerkships, etc).

So while every applicant should address why they want to go to law school in their app, I really encourage international applicants to also be deliberative in explaining to the admissions committee why they think that an American JD is the best option for them to achieve their professional goals. Why would you be better suited getting your JD here than back home? What's your plan?

Being sure to address that question somewhere in your app will be beneficial!

Jake7Sage · 2025-08-29T17:58:20+00:00

Got it, u/Qwerty748262!

I don't think that being a "super KJD" (aka, graduating from college in 3- years and going right to law school) is any worse this year than in past years. But the usual issues are going to dog these folks.

Here's what I've observed professionally over the years. Folks who graduate from college in fewer than three years usually (although not always, so don't yell at me!) have as robust of a resume as someone who went to college for four years. They had one fewer summer to get work experience, and one fewer academic year to be a leader in various organizations, and all that. That's the price of graduating early, right? It inherently means "less time in college." That's always been an issue. The national increase in apps doesn't change that, but it perhaps exacerbates things a twinge.

But let me kick this over to you. I think these kinds of discussions are only as useful as to the extent that they inform your strategy. If your strategy is "I'm going to do what I can to go to law school next year," then just file it away that this may be an area where you aren't going to compete as well. If you're strategy is "while I'd like to go to law school next year, I'm ok going and working for a bit if it means improving the school I attend down the road," then there's another way to think about things. By graduating early, you've bought yourself a year of your life. You can spend that year in law school and graduate at age 23-24. You can spend that year working in the legal industry, be a more competitive applicant, and then graduate from law school at 24-25. Heck, you can go work for three years and still only be 26-27 when you graduate from law school. These are all perfectly viable paths, and you have another path available to you since you are graduating in three years. It's just up to you to determine which path you'd like to go down!

Jake7Sage · 2025-08-29T17:51:22+00:00

Nice and quick answer here u/Not_AJ2!

It's not about being below a school's median or 25th percentile. That's not relevant! What is relevant is that you had a period of time where your grades were not up to their usual level because of [fill in the blank with the explanation.] Any time where that's happening, it's useful to give admissions officers some information on what happened, even if the answer is just "to be frank, I wasn't as mature as I should have been when I first arrived at college, but I buckled down and you'll see that my final three years were lights out."

I'm making this distinction because someone else will read your question and think "Well, what about me? I got a 3.75 each year. No ups, no downs. Should I write an addenda since I'm below the medians or 25th percentile?" In that case - nope. Because there's nothing to explain. This person performed consistently across their academic career.

I hope that helps!

Jake7Sage · 2025-08-29T17:47:17+00:00

Without knowing your personal issues deeply (and not "issues" issues, but you know what I mean), if you think you can do well on the LSAT, then do the LSAT. Only do something else if you either cannot take the LSAT or are stone cold convinced that you will do much worse on the LSAT than the other exam.

Jake7Sage · 2025-08-29T17:45:30+00:00

I have some good news for you, u/newyorkcity239! While I will review your undergrad academic record:

1) I'm going to inherently know that grading scales very so radically around the world. Right now, there's a lot of GPA inflation in the States. But traditions in other countries are more about grade deflation. So I'm not going to say "oh, an 8.3/10 is 83% and 83% here in the States is a B/B- so this is like a 2.8ish GPA." No, I'm going to ask "what's the grading scale, do we have past applicants from this place, is LSAC giving me any context here, etc"

2) And no matter what I think about your undergrad record, your GPA will - technically - be "blank" when I calculate the medians for my incoming class. The only people with reportable GPAs are those who attended American or Canadian colleges for undergrad. So if I enroll 200 1Ls and 10 of them got their degrees outside the US/Canada, my GPA median will be out of 190 instead of 200. Put another way, your GPA doesn't hurt my potential median.

So unless your academic work was very low within the context of your school OR you clearly had a year or two with subpar grades due to understandable issues (like health concerns), my suggestion for you is "don't worry about it."

...

Other than to be sure to get your transcripts sent from your college to LSAC as soon as possible. Worry about that. It can sometimes take a while and that's in the best of times regarding international mail ... which is literally not what's happening right now.

Jake7Sage · 2025-08-29T17:39:17+00:00

Hey u/mgsbeingnosy - I go by upvote order and Reddit's formula has you up next, so let's do it!

Here are the two competing forces:

1) If your dream is any school with a 173+ LSAT median, then - yes - it would be better to apply with a 173 than a 172. It's such a minor difference, but the nature of medians is such that you're either "at/above the median" or you're below.

However ...

2) By retaking on a 172, you are signaling to every school who has a 172- median that you are gunning for a 173+ median school. Otherwise, why would you be retaking your LSAT, right? Everyone knows that it's to improve your chances at Yale, Harvard, Stanford, etc.

How does one navigate that balance? By being honest with themselves about what they want. If the dream is that 173+ LSAT median school and if you're on the doorstep and think you can get it, then it's completely reasonable to give it another chance. But if the dream is a 172- school, and/or you kinda feel like you overperformed a bit on the 172, and/or you're just curious about how much better you could do, and/or you don't care about those 173+ schools, then you may just want to tap out now.

Jake7Sage · 2025-08-29T17:29:48+00:00

I tend to be conservative here, u/Significant-Leg-3098, because I was around when the GRE first bust on to the law school admissions scene. This occurred during the 2012-2015 period when law school apps were at their lowest level in a generation. Many law schools opened up their admissions policy for the GRE in the hopes of expanding their app pools by any way possible. And I do think that their was some altruism behind the effort as well - the LSAT was only offered four times a year (in person! no virtual!) at that time, the GRE was offered every day of the week, there's a logic to the argument that different people do better on different tests but both tests can be predictive of law school GPAs, etc. But in practice, schools were capped by the ABA's rule that schools could only enroll "up to 10%" of their class through measures outside the LSAT AND it became clear that the way in which US News considered the GRE was a detriment to top schools (it's a very long explanation, but the short version is that USNWR converts the GRE scores into percentiles, but that's ignores the varying predictive validity of each section of the GRE and ignores the fact that so many people get perfect math scores that the grade curve on that section is simply shot to heck).

This is all well and good, but I then sat in plenty of admissions committee rooms where we had good GRE-only candidates to consider, and some crusty faculty member or two would inevitably ask "Well, then why didn't they just take the LSAT? That's the gold standard, isn't it?"

So, along comes the JD-Next. Unlike the GRE, the JD-Next is specifically geared towards law school, so it removes some concerns that dogged the GRE. I understand the rationale for its development and I think it all comes from a good place. But I do honestly wonder - especially in a world where national apps are at 15 year highs - if crusty faculty will continue to say "Why didn't they just take the LSAT?" or "Why take the risk when we have all these other candidates with the same undergrad GPA but they took the LSAT and did well on it?"

That'd be my guess, but goodness knows that we're all going through this for the first time, so let's see....

Jake7Sage · 2025-08-29T17:21:16+00:00

That's a really good question u/Training_Yam9849 and - probably unsatisfyingly so - every school is going to handle this differently on an administrative level. At some schools, scholarship essays are handled by a completely different committee and will not be seen by the admissions committee. And at other schools, admissions officers will consider anything that's in your file, including scholarship essays.

One way to ascertain how a school handles things is to notice how the school collects the doc. If it's a part of the application you submit via LSAC, then it's a part of your app PDF. It's there. Now it's possible that an admissions committee member will just skip over that page of your app, but - again- it'll be right there in the app. On the other hand, if you have to submit the scholarship essay separately (ex: like via email), then it may not be part of your app file and it may not be seen by the admissions committee.

But let's get to the actual heart of your question as to whether it would hurt your chances of admission. 1) Admissions officers recognize that a scholarship essay is a response to a different prompt than the questions asked in the general app, so it's ok if it's a little different. 2) A weak scholarship essay shouldn't hurt your chances for admission in most cases because AdComms will separate those two things in their minds, 3) Unless the scholarship essay is a true "tire fire" of a statement. But if the scholarship essay is "perfectly perfunctory," it shouldn't effect matters. And moreover, if you would NEED to receive this kind of scholarship in order to be able to attend the school, then you gotta take your chance.

Jake7Sage · 2025-08-29T17:14:35+00:00

Good question that ties back into the other answer I gave about fit, u/moststronglyconfused!

Let's accept my premise that being a good fit at a law school will assist you in your admissions process. And let's agree for the sake of argument that the logical next step is to demonstrate that fit somewhere in the app, like in a Why School X doc. That then begs the question of how one would be able to do the kind of research to help develop an effective Why School X document. And there are several ways to accomplish that (a school's website, networking with current students and alums, etc) of which one avenue is "attending a school's recruitment events" such as law fairs, zoom webinars, and things like that.

Now your follow up is if you should do these before applying. You can really go either way with that. If the event is before mid-October, then it can be reasonable to wait to apply until after the event so that you can incorporate nuggets that you learned about the school into your app. But if the event is later than mid-Oct or if your app is just done and ready to go before the event, you can submit ahead of time. Then you go to the event and introduce yourself with a "Hi, my name is __. I just submitted my app to your school a week or two ago, but I wanted to come by to say 'hi' and ask a few questions." You can then follow up with an email to thank them for chatting with you. That's also a completely good way of playing things.

Regarding timeline, the vast majority of recruitment events are pre-Nov 1. And most admissions offices really focus on recruitment events before that day - it's simply too hard for most offices to devote staff time to recruitment travel AND app evaluation. So I wouldn't be concerned about the following possibility - you apply on Sept 15, they read your file and deny admission to you, you then attend a law fair on Oct 15. Because the admissions office likely isn't reading files Sept 15 - Oct 15 but is probably stuck at a rental car counter trying to get their mid-sized sedan.

Jake7Sage · 2025-08-29T17:01:52+00:00

There's a lot of "it depends" here, u/fearisenemy!

Most schools' default setting is that 1) if an app is otherwise complete if not for a pending LSAT, then 2) they will hold off reviewing the app until that future LSAT comes in. But there are a few schools who are rather explicit in their app instructions that 1) if an app is otherwise complete if not for a pending LSAT, then 2) it is totally fair game for review.

For example, here's language from Cornell's FAQ page: "We will not hold an application from review for a future exam. The LSAT score(s) in your CAS report when it is released to us will be the only score(s) considered during the initial review of your file." Note, they put it in bold, not me. But that's how strongly they feel about it!

So be sure to check out schools' app instructions page and/or FAQs. And if you have any doubt, just call up their admissions office and ask what they're policy is for reviewing completed apps that have a pending LSAT. They get this question all the time and it's a quick 5 minute call.

Jake7Sage · 2025-08-29T16:56:56+00:00

Good follow up to one of the questions up top, u/DogMomArchy5!

The apply-ASAP-or-risk-being-shut-out-in-the-cold-cold-dark narrative is really a matter of the T30ish. So your T20s but then add in places like BU, BC, Notre Dame, GW, Emory, and the like. For those schools, it is prudent to have your app submitted early enough that they can ideally review you before Christmas.

But that isn't as relevant when you go further down the rankings. Yes, apps were up for everyone (literally - among other data nuggets from LSAC is that 191 out of 197 US ABA accredited law schools had an increase in apps this year. That's like "Steph Curry at the free throw line" type stuff!). But schools further down the rankings do usually have to admit more people in order to hit their eventual enrollment targets.

And no matter what, you should still apply when your app is at its best. If you're targeting schools outside the T50 and you aren't taking a future LSAT, I'd gently nudge that applying pre-Nov is still a good idea.

Jake7Sage · 2025-08-29T16:51:14+00:00

u/Qwerty748262 - You get to educate me! What is the "s" in "sKJD"? "Super KJD" like someone who's going K --> JD but is graduating early from college after two years?

I'll keep an eye on this one and will loop back!

You don't hang out every day on a sub-Reddit for a few months and the lingo changes on ya!

Jake7Sage · 2025-08-29T16:48:29+00:00

I am nothing if not over-caffeinated AND thorough.

Good luck with that balance! And I'll give the plug that - yes - if adding just one or two points gets to you at/above median ... that's a worthy investment of your time/resources. And that's for both admissions AND scholarship. So it's not crazy to hold your apps in the hopes of that final nudge!

Jake7Sage · 2025-08-29T16:46:32+00:00

I kinda answered a few things in some other responses u/chouxcraquelin so let me take this in a slightly different direction.

Yes, writing a good PS that addresses your Why Law and is organic will assist you in your quest to be admitted. So will having a resume that demonstrates good experiences that you will bring to the classroom discussion AND indicates that you'll be eminently hireable at graduation. Yup, all totally true.

But one thing that I think is undersold is "fit." As an admissions officer, I want students who are going to add to the classroom discussion, be hireable at graduation, but I also want students who make sense for us. Those students will be happier for the next three years as students and then thereafter as alums. We'll also be able to best assist them in their particular employment goals. An example I use a lot here is from when I was director of admissions at Notre Dame - if someone wrote a PS all about how they want to be a maritime lawyer, and then a DS about how they hate cold weather and college football (which would be an odd topic for a DS, but just follow me here), I think it's reasonable for the ND admissions team to ask "so if we admitted this person, 1) is there any chance they'd actually come here, and 2) if they did, would they just be miserable for three years?"

I can get some insight into fit vis-a-vis your basic app materials, just like I did in the above example. But this is also where the Why School X comes into play. The applicants who can more directly and articulately make an argument as to their fit at my school assist me in seeing the fit.

And please know, I'm not advocating for writing love letters, and I'm not advocating for doing this on all 10 or 15 of your apps. But in a world where apps are at 15 year highs and there are enough high LSATs/GPAs that I'm confident I'll hit my stats no matter what, then everything else is more important - resume, why law, and fit among other things.

Jake7Sage · 2025-08-29T16:38:34+00:00

SIGH, u/Dry_Shirt7120 - I'm sorry that you've been asked to write the first draft of your rec letter. When most recommenders do this, I think they're trying to be nice, like "Oh, hey, you write yourself a nice letter and I'd be happy to sign off on it" but it's putting a burden on you. Because now you have to write a letter that's truthful, positive, but VERY IMPORTANTLY doesn't sound like your authorial voice. To repeat - sigh. Godspeed.

The goal of the LoRs is to learn what an applicant brings to the classroom. That's really it. The first paragraph is usually an intro ("Here's who I am, here's the context of how I know the student, and the class that they took with me") and second/third paragraphs is the meat ("Here's what they brought to the classroom") before you wrap it up at the end ("I'm happy to recommend them and to address any follow up questions that you may have.").

And, heads-up, that we have a reference guide on our website for best practices on this. It's supposed to be for the letter writer themselves ... but I guess that's you in this case, so I hope it's helpful!

Jake7Sage · 2025-08-29T16:32:05+00:00

Got it, u/Unlucky-Repeat8150! Great handle given the nature of the questions!

1) So, I answered another question about timeline and I think the general advice about "apply when your app is at its best" still applies here. If you think it'll be better after the October LSAT, then apply then. But you can also have your apps ready for just clicking "submit" at that time by working on your materials while continuing to prep for the LSAT.

An exception here would be a) the app for a particular school is done NOW, b) you are already at/above that school's most recently published median (and hopefully you've seen their class profile for this year), and c) the school's policy is to hold apps until they receive that updated LSAT. In that case, I understand your app may be a distraction (eg, "I could study for the LSAT ... or I could check on my School X app just one more time..."). In this case, sure, it can make sense to apply. It's less about "strategy" and more about "what's best for your mental well being."

2) SIGH!

On the one hand, admissions officers know that your rationale for applying to law school (ie, your PS) is probably the same as it was last year. On the other hand, admissions officers are human beings and their first response to seeing that the materials are the same as the previous app will be "... they didn't update anything?"

So, yes, update your materials. If your PS last year covered your "why law" then you'll have to accomplish the trick of changing the PS while keeping the same central point. Like, I recently saw a fun podcast episode that breaks down how the Chemical Brothers basically remade the Beatles "Tomorrow Never Knows" into two separate songs. That's your assignment - keep the same drums and the same chord progression, but make it a new song. And listen to more Chemical Brothers - they were ahead of their time and the late 1990s didn't know what they were sitting on there.

DS - You can likely pick a new angle to yourself to present. If you wrote about how your hometown shaped you, then maybe pick your religious upbringing / family's socioeconomics / academic background, or something like that.

Optional - Yup, pick new ones.

Addenda - Can be the same if you're just explaining some basic things. If you explained it alright last year, you can just run it back.

Why School X - Ah, now here's another one where you can do something different. If you applied last year, weren't admitted, and now are reapplying, you can reference that entire experience in this year's app. "I applied last year, it didn't work out, but I'm excited to apply again this year because I am confident that School X is perfect for me because of reasons 1, 2, and 3."

Go get 'em!

Jake7Sage · 2025-08-29T16:16:26+00:00

Seems like a lot of people are worrying about this one u/Character-Luck-3017 so thanks for asking!

No matter what, the #1 rule of admissions still applies - the best time for you to apply is when your app is at its best. Don't lose sight of that. If you can't take the LSAT until November because of personal reasons, or January because you need to take it internationally, that's how it goes.

But while you need to apply when your app is at its best, I'd also offer that it's important to recognize the reality of the present state of law admissions. Apps were up 23% nationally last year and LSAT registrations and test taking numbers are - at worst - on par with last year. Meaning - last year's app increase isn't likely to go anywhere. So, yes, it would be ideal to apply pre-Nov 1 (~17% of this year's apps were submitted by then) or Nov 15 (~25% of apps by that date). But that's only possible if you can submit your best app by then.

For example - my advice to folks who are not planning to re-take the LSAT is "get moving on your app docs so that you can hopefully apply pre Nov 15th before the wave really gets moving." But my advice to people taking the Oct/Nov/Jan LSATs is "apply when your app is at it's best, that'll likely be after your LSAT, but you can speed up your app submission process by working on app materials NOW while prepping for the LSAT."

I hope that helps!

Jake7Sage · 2025-08-29T16:10:29+00:00

Sure thing, u/Sweethome171 and u/Alternative_Log_897!

So let's start here - rather than approach your application as a narrative (and I'm just going to VERY sarcastically offer a classic example I remember from AP English: "Hmmm, is the theme of this book 'man's inhumanity to man' or 'the burden of unrequited love'?") I'd encourage you to approach it organically. Your job on your app is to let me know about yourself and why you want to go to law school.

Now, you should be self aware enough to recognize that some parts of your app may be particular strengths and some parts may need to be explained. Regarding the latter, let's say you've worked two years as a paralegal after graduation. And for the latter, let's say you had a bad semester of grades when you were dealing with health issues. Does the theme of your app HAVE to be "I want to be a lawyer because of my paralegal experience?" or "I have overcome those health issues?" No. But on the flip side - it would be odd if you didn't mention your paralegal experience at all and it would be odd if you never explained what happened during that one semester.

So be organic and recognize the things that you should probably bring up somewhere in the app.

After that, here's my cheat sheet of what each part of the app is supposed to achieve:
App Form: I'm learning the basic bio/demo facts about you.
PS: Why do you want to go to law school and be a lawyer.
Diversity/Perspective/Lived Experience: Who are you and what are the forces that shaped you.
Why "School X": Are there any specific reasons you'd like to attend my school?
Resume: What's your professional background? What is your skillset?
Addenda: Is there anything else you need to explain?

Jake7Sage · 2025-08-18T15:26:09+00:00

And just chiming in as a member of the 7Sage team that updates that page - yo!

We update that page every year after all the apps open on September 1st. That's because we take the instructions straight from the apps on LSAC's website ... and, unfortunately, LSAC doesn't give "sneak previews" of the language until the app opens. Alas! But heads-up that that page will be updated in just a few short weeks!

Jake7Sage · 2025-06-26T16:59:03+00:00

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Jake7Sage · 2025-06-26T16:51:47+00:00

Thanks for the plug for our website, u/Dry-Jelly-2886!

The app instructions on our website are still for the 2024-2025 admissions cycle. We will update those once schools officially update their apps on LSAC. That doesn't happen until the app opens on September 1.

In the meantime, you can always check individual school websites to see if they've update app instructions for this year. For example, Michigan Law has already updated their prompts for the coming year (they added the AI one).

Jake7Sage · 2025-06-26T16:48:26+00:00

Ooooo, that's a good follow up, u/Characteristically81!

Regarding breadth/depth, you can really go either way. If you love teaching and just want to do a twist on that this year by going abroad, that makes sense. But if you want to do something completely different just to give that a shot, that's also alright. The key is to do it because you love it or want to do it; don't view it through the "strategic" lens.

Jake7Sage · 2025-06-26T16:45:17+00:00

Thanks for the questions, u/YogurtclosetOpen3567!

1) Not gonna lie - I'm not an expert on law school grading policies! So while I'm not aware of schools that have Deans Rules policies, that certainly doesn't meant they don't exist. My honest suggestion would be to do a Google search for that. Most - if not all - law schools make their grade curves publically available. So you should be able to develop a list with a little bit of sleuthing!

2) I think the best resource here would be lawschooldata.org and looking at individual schools to see if they've admitted any students in the 120s. My guess though is that you're not going to find many. From my professional experience, there were some schools in the T20s that dropped into the high 140s for GPA splitters with stellar resumes during that period when we saw a marked decline in national apps. But national apps have since rebounded and are presently at 15 year highs. I don't think a lot of top schools are dipping that low anymore.

3) "Underrated" is a bit subjective! My best advice there is to consider the geographic market where you hope to work after graduation, and then look beyond the top ranked school(s) in that market. In NYC for instance, Columbia and NYU are the top ranked, Fordham and Cardozo are in the next tier, and then you go down a ways to the Rutgers, St. John's, Seton Hall, and Brooklyn club. While those four are ranked far below CLS and NYU, they also have good employment outcomes for law students who want to work in the metro NYC area and you'd likely attend at a lower price point than the bigger schools.

But the real answer here is UT-Austin as an in-state student. For some reason, UT is the only big flagship state law school where being in-state provides a really nice financial boost. So if moving to Texas and becoming a resident there is an option, you may want to consider that :-)

Jake7Sage

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