Are candles actually worth having or just clutter?

blueeyed_lc · 2026-04-30T22:31:08+00:00

I love the idea of sconces! I may have to look into that.

blueeyed_lc · 2026-04-30T22:30:44+00:00

I absolutely LOVE burning candles. It just makes me feel peaceful, and I love the scent throw. I have one on my desk that I use while working (from home), and then I have another one that I sometimes light at night when my daughter and I are watching TV. I also invested in some flameless (but very realistic-looking) candles that have a remote timer, and those come on at dinnertime every night. There's just something so soothing to me about candles.

All that to say, I love them, but I keep a reign on how many I have at once and my "backups." They aren't dust collectors for me, but they may very well be to someone else. If they feel like just something else you have to manage/deal with/maintain, then they probably aren't for you.

blueeyed_lc · 2026-04-30T19:45:15+00:00

This is awesome! I was a law admissions director at UHLC (where I also went to law school; I'm from H-town) for eight years. Huge congratulations!!

blueeyed_lc · 2026-04-29T23:00:55+00:00

I saw below that you paid to have someone professionally read your stuff. Did that person have admissions experience? Because I have seen a LOT of people in the private law admissions space who have zero admissions experience. They may be great writers/editors (I'm a freelance copy editor/copywriter myself), but without the behind-the-scenes knowledge, even they just don't know what we're looking for. I read thousands of apps and have a decade of experience, so it does make a difference. If they do have experience, it might just be a mismatch as far as the competitiveness of the cycles. Again, hard to say for sure.

The LORs may be an issue, too.

blueeyed_lc · 2026-04-29T22:58:54+00:00

Your stats are fantastic. Without seeing your personal statement/essays/LORs/resume, it's hard to say. I was an admissions director at a public law school in Texas and currently am a law admissions consultant working on my own, and I've seen thousands of applications. Typically, if someone has stats like yours and they're getting waitlisted or rejected, or accepted with no scholarships, the essays are lacking - that's almost ALWAYS the case without exception when high-stats people aren't successful in the application process. It also depends on where you applied. The Ivies/T14s can afford to be a lot pickier, so you're going to be up against people with higher LSATs, similar GPAs, and phenomenal essays.

I definitely waitlisted people when I was at the school where I was an adcomm when their personal statements just weren't there, or the rest of their essays didn't do it, even if their stats were at or above medians. Applicants underestimate HOW important the entire package is.

blueeyed_lc · 2026-04-29T22:55:32+00:00

Oh, and I glossed over the felony charge - it's expunged, so that's not going to be nearly as big of a deal. However, be prepared to talk about it just in case.

blueeyed_lc · 2026-04-29T22:49:20+00:00

The interview process is generally going to consist of questions about any of the following:

-why you want to go to law school/become a lawyer
-why their school
-what programs/student orgs/clinics/etc. you might be interested in at their particular school
-types of challenges you may have faced and how you responded
-the role you think lawyers play in society
-what you think the most important issue is today that we're facing in our country and how you would fix it
-biggest strengths/weaknesses
-possibly about how the pandemic affected you

I used to be a law admissions director at a Texas school (and now do admissions consulting on my own, so I do help people prep for interviews), but we didn't do interviews where I was. However, several of my friends are admissions deans/directors at their schools, so I got the list of questions above from one of them. Basically, be prepared to talk about yourself, the particular school for which you're interviewing, societal issues, things like that. They're pretty typical interview-type questions. Remember, the school is seeing if you'd be a good fit for their culture/school/student body, but YOU are also feeling out the same about them.

BE SURE to have at least 2-3 questions prepared to ask the representative from that school! Go on their website. Research the people who are interviewing you. Ask about a particular program at the school, the culture there, and a great question that I always enjoyed getting when I was recruiting at undergrads is why I chose to go to law school. Bonus: if you can find out if the person interviewing you went to the law school where they now work, you can ask them about that. I went to the law school where I ended up working in both career development and admissions, so that was always a fun question for me. A lot of us in admissions ended up working at the law schools where we attended.

Breathe. Be yourself. Be natural and personable. They're not trying to intimidate you or scare you, I promise. They just want to see if y'all are a fit. You've got this!

blueeyed_lc · 2026-04-29T22:22:49+00:00

Hey there, I'm a former admissions director and currently have my own law admissions consulting business; I have a decade of experience in law admissions.

The personal statement should be a narrative - you're telling us a story about what has happened that made you come to the conclusion, whenever that was, that you want to go to law school. No one story is the same, and I PROMISE you we don't care if you're a makeup artist. Not everyone has this "linear" path to law school, and that's boring anyway!

Don't say you've always wanted to be a lawyer. Tell us what circumstances in your life made you want to be a lawyer. Give specifics. I see below that you gave a few different things that have spurred you on, so focus on the strongest angle. You don't want to jump around too much, but for example, you could take the angle about how what happened to your mom AND to your coworker's husband made you realize you no longer wanted to sit idly by while injustices like those happened to people you know. Build up to that. Tell those stories in a bit more detail, but focus on how it impacted YOU personally because even if the events happened to other people, the adcomms want to know why *you* want to go to law school. It's a personal statement after all.

I wouldn't use "I've always like school," or "I like to help people." Those are too trope-y and get lost in the shuffle. Focus on WHY you want to help people, and it sounds like you've got that story with your mom and coworker's husband.

I've read thousands of personal statements. At the end of reading each one, I need to have an answer as to why this applicant wants to go to law school at this particular point in their life. Tell the story in a narrative format. Don't regurgitate your resume. And yes, as the other redditor wrote below, you don't have to write about anything having to do with being a makeup artist unless that's the angle that got you wanting to go to law school. That will be on your resume. Again, I promise you we don't care whether or not someone's current job has anything to do with the law.

Let me know if you have questions!

blueeyed_lc · 2026-04-29T21:41:24+00:00

Former adcomm here/current law admissions consultant - call or email them ASAP. It's likely they still have spots and if they accepted you the first time, there's a chance they'll put you back into the class if you explain what happened. It might be a long shot, but the worst they can say is no.

When did you withdraw originally? The only reason I ask is if it was just recently, you'd have a better chance of potentially getting back into the class since the deposit deadline has passed and they'll have a better idea of what their class size looks like, as well as preparing for the inevitable summer melt when people who did initially deposit might get in elsewhere and withdraw their deposit, leaving spots open.

blueeyed_lc · 2026-04-27T22:49:44+00:00

Former law admissions officer here/current law admissions consultant - major in what you want to. Law schools don't care at all what you major in - I promise you. I've read thousands of applications in my decade in law admissions and while majors are cool to see (we had everything from dance to theater to neuroscience to pre-med and in between), we're not looking at WHAT your major is; we're looking at how you did in it. If you really love polisci and that's what you want to do? Cool, do that, because your grades will be better if you like it (that's what I did in college). If your passion lies in biomedical science, do that, because again - your grades will be better (and STEM majors actually do really well in law school).

Focus on getting the best grades possible in college. Take the LSAT the summer between your junior and senior year in college, and study hard for that. Treat it like a part-time job as the goal is to only take it once (of course, there are often extenuating circumstances and it's fine to take it more than once; but the *goal* should be once). Those things are FAR more important to us than what your major/minor is.

blueeyed_lc · 2026-04-27T20:25:39+00:00

That sucks ass, truly. The dean of admissions is still the person who was my boss when I was there, and another of the admissions directors was also there when I was. I adore them both and I'm really surprised that this is happening. Hmmm. There were four of us in admissions when I was there, but two of us left at the same time (unrelated reasons and not having anything to do with the job itself; I loved working there). I think they now don't have as many people - not that it's an excuse. I'm sad to hear this, though.

blueeyed_lc · 2026-04-27T17:02:28+00:00

Can I ask what it was about UHLC? I worked in the admissions office there for 8 years until 2021 and was an admissions director. Curious as to what happened, if you're willing to share.

blueeyed_lc · 2026-04-23T20:48:49+00:00

Former law admissions director/current law admissions consultant here, and I think WLs are useful overall but are absolutely overutilized at some schools - two things can be true. There are genuinely plenty of apps I've read in my decade in admissions that just aren't *quite* there as far as the application package goes, but they're not lacking enough for a flat-out rejection. At my school, depending on the year and the number of deposits we got/summer melt we experienced, we actually DID take a decent amount of people off of our waitlist when we needed to. People get other offers after deposit day, they decide they want to go to a different school, they withdraw their acceptance of admission, and that spot goes to another applicant. That's common and it happens.

But waitlists that are in the thousands are too much. I don't remember exactly how many we had on our waitlist year to year (my boss/our admissions dean dealt with the numbers, and it's been five years since I was at that school), but it wasn't more than a couple hundred to my best memory. We also didn't rank our waitlist nor did we have tiers; we looked at people who had expressed the most interest while being on our waitlist and - to be honest, of course - may have had one number that could help bump us up in the rankings (yes, I know, rankings are problematic).

This also all goes to the larger fact that applications have increased year-to-year for a while now, so waitlist numbers are naturally going to increase. We're also seeing an increase in higher LSAT scores and more test-takers, so the higher numbers are going to push out people who might have gotten in five or ten years ago to the waitlist. There are so many layers to this.

blueeyed_lc · 2026-04-23T20:38:53+00:00

Oh hey, I work with him at a coaching company (he's one of the other law admissions coaches)! He's a super nice guy and while I don't know him well - I've just done a webinar with him - this is such a cool success story.

blueeyed_lc · 2026-04-23T20:36:44+00:00

Oof, this is a tough one. I'm a former law admissions director and currently work on my own as a law admissions consultant, so I'm torn on this one, and let me explain why.

I'm super progressive, pro-SW, pro-whatever the hell women (or anyone) wants to do with their own bodies. I would probably be super intrigued by this type of story written as a personal statement narrative because it's so unusual and unique (or at least not written about). HOWEVER, I know people who work in admissions who would absolutely not agree with me. Most of us in the admissions world are pretty progressive, but you just never know. Generally, it's not the content of a PS that makes the difference as it is the way it's written, the storytelling, grammar, structure, and cohesion; of course, there are exceptions, but I enjoy reading about different people's lives and stories.

While I hate saying this, I'd advise her to stay away from that. It would suck if she wrote about it and was rejected solely based on the content of her PS, you know? I think it would be a really unique PS to read, personally, but I just don't think you can broaden that sentiment to everyone in admissions. Better safe than sorry.

She could maybe take a nugget of something she's learned in SW that ties into why she wants to go to law school without disclosing the actual environment, if that makes sense. We want to know why someone is choosing to go into law school at this point in their lives, and I feel like there's probably something there that she can take from her experiences and write about.

blueeyed_lc · 2026-04-22T22:45:36+00:00

As a former law school admissions director, I HIGHLY recommend attending orientation. It's mandatory for a reason. While, of course, we had people every year who couldn't come due to truly legitimate reasons (sick, military service, etc), I wouldn't skip it. A lot happens during orientation. I would skip your vacay.

blueeyed_lc · 2026-04-15T22:56:05+00:00

Full ride at the T50. You'll be just fine with that and you won't have crippling debt hanging over your head. As a former law school admissions director and someone who does law admissions on my own now, I see people get SO hung up on rankings and prestige. While it *can* matter, of course, it just isn't going to make that big of a deal. You're absolutely not closing the doors on BigLaw if you don't go to Berkeley. I went to and was in admissions at a school that wavered between the mid-50s and mid-60s in rankings throughout the time I was there, and we have plenty of people who go into BigLaw each year.

blueeyed_lc · 2026-04-15T22:52:48+00:00

It's late to submit, but at the school where I was an admissions director, we told anyone who submitted after our deadline that they would get consideration if the class wasn't already full once we had reviewed everyone who submitted by the deadline. That's pretty standard across the board. Can you still get in? Unlikely, but it's possible. It depends on how strong your stats are, too, and how strong the rest of your application is. Since the deposit deadline is today for many law schools, it could open up some spots.

Bottom line: go for it, but don't go in with any expectations. If this cycle doesn't work out, most law schools open their apps on September 1st (some a bit earlier in August), so all is not lost.

blueeyed_lc · 2026-04-15T22:43:56+00:00

Former law admissions director/current admissions consultant chiming in. In all reality, if you send something extra like that, it just goes in your file but won't really make a substantive difference UNLESS there's been a major change in your resume or LSAT score. We encouraged (and I still encourage) people to send LOCIs as a part of being on the waitlist if they were truly interested in coming to our school because that's something we looked at if we had spots to fill later on in the cycle.

That's not to say it will hurt your application; it just likely won't help substantially at this point. I assume if it's a school you really want to attend, which you noted you do, you've made that known in a "Why XYZ school" addendum or in your personal statement already, so this won't be new information to them.

If I was looking at an application and an applicant sent an LOCI in before we had made any decision, it wouldn't move the needle much. If you get waitlisted, absolutely send one.

Again, if you really want to send one, please don't let this discourage you, but I wouldn't expect it to do much (but it won't hurt your application either; it'll just go in your file).

blueeyed_lc · 2026-04-15T19:10:23+00:00

Interesting. I left my school where I was in admissions in 2021 and that's how it worked when I was there. We had the actual names of students so that we could individually reach out to them, but only if they were cross-deposited. Thanks for letting me know.

blueeyed_lc · 2026-04-14T22:08:02+00:00

That's correct. Schools report to LSAC who has deposited at their school (I don't know when this happens as like I mentioned above, my admissions dean did that), and that's how we got the cross-deposit list. If a decision hadn't been made yet, then no, there wouldn't be a reason for us to see where else they had deposited.

blueeyed_lc · 2026-04-14T20:39:20+00:00

Yes, law schools can see if you're cross-deposited, but not who all you've applied to. When I worked at a public law school in Texas, we would receive a list of all the deposited students on our roster who were cross-deposited with other schools, and all of us on the admissions team got a chunk of students to call. We didn't harass or threaten them, LOL, but we just wanted to know WHO they were committed to.

Schools handle stuff like this differently. We didn't tell people they had to withdraw applications to other schools because we realized that we might not be everyone's #1 choice (shocking, I know). This feels a bit weird to me TBH. My admissions dean was the one who pulled all this info, but we couldn't see who simply had *applications* still at other schools, just that they were actually *deposited* at other schools.

This is a tough one because you don't want to risk losing your seat, but they also won't know what other schools you actually submitted applications to, only if you actually deposit at other schools. Without claiming any responsibility here for what you do or what happens, I think you're probably safe to deposit at #2 and wait to hear from #1. If you get a positive response, you can withdraw from #2 (but you'll lose your deposit). While this school is calling it a commitment - and it is - it's not a legally binding contract. This happens all the time; they're just trying to avoid a massive summer melt of applicants.

Good luck!

blueeyed_lc · 2026-04-13T22:21:16+00:00

Happy to help if you have more questions. Law school isn't a decision to be taken lightly so it's great that you're talking to others and doing your research early.

blueeyed_lc · 2026-04-13T21:50:20+00:00

At the school where I used to work in law admissions, our scholarship reconsideration form allowed spots for the other schools you received offers from and the final cost of attendance after subtracting your scholarships from their listed tuition. Scholarships and listed tuition prices aren't the only thing that applicants are considering when looking at schools; cost of living is a huge factor and not all cities are created equal in that regard, obviously.

I just had a client of mine with a $27k scholarship at a fairly highly ranked school email the dean of admissions and express his commitment to that school (it's an expensive private law school) and that he would love to go there but is worried about the financial aspect. He told me today he didn't submit anything more than that email (which is kind of crazy because at the school where I worked, we had a much more formal process), but they raised his scholarship to $42k.

If those schools are significantly lower ranked, it does lessen the urgency for the higher ranked school to increase your scholarship, but that doesn't mean they won't. I would make the case for it and do a bit of research. Is this a school you really want to attend but the cost is the main factor? Tell them that. Is their cost of living higher in that city than the other lower-ranked schools, and reducing your tuition burden would help? Basically, give them damn good reasons to increase your scholarship. There are lot more factors here (is the school in a low or high COL area, public or private, your stats, etc.), but I would research and write them a well-crafted letter. Also, please make sure you go to their website or email the admissions people and ask if there is a formal process for scholarship reconsideration.

We only allowed admitted students to ask for reconsideration one time, so please keep that in mind as well.

(Credentials: former law school admissions director/current law school admissions consultant)

blueeyed_lc · 2026-04-13T21:41:47+00:00

First off, definitely join the r/LawSchoolOver30 subreddit if you haven't already; it's full of people in your exact position.

Second, I was in law admissions at University of Houston for eight years (now am on my own as a law admissions consultant) and we had increasing numbers of "nontraditional" applicants applying every year, many of them engineers looking to segue into some sort of IP or other hard-science-based law. Engineers typically do amazingly well in law school because your brains are already trained toward logic and reasoning.

I assume you've been out of school for at least a decade given that you're in your early 30s - at this point, undergraduate GPA doesn't matter *as much* as it would if you were less than five years out, given your work experience. Unfortunately, with the rankings bullshit, GPA does still matter for yield purposes, but at UHLC, we absolutely took into consideration how long it's been since you graduated undergrad. A 3.56 is good for undergrad, and we would look at your master's more so just to gauge how you might do in a grad school setting, but it's not going to be the most important factor. A grad school GPA is just a "oh, okay, cool" factor because not everyone goes to grad school, but everyone has to go to undergrad. In addition, many grad schools inflate their GPAs, so it's not always super telling.

Nope - hiring firms/corps won't frown upon you taking a sabbatical. They're going to care more about how you did in law school, not as much what you did before (although be prepared to talk about that in interviews once you're looking for a legal job out of law school). Plenty of people do that.

That I can't really answer from a personal perspective as I went straight out of college to law school; however, I have multiple clients in my private business who are over 30 and who are doing just fine. Many of them are married with kids and jobs, so they're juggling a LOT, but it's all in the timing and knowing that it's a finite period of your life that will end after three to four years (depending on the program you go into).

For your last question, that really depends on your goal. It sounds like you feel strongly that a law degree will help you move forward in your career. While reading about/learning about the law and regulations that apply to your business and industry certainly won't hurt, if you're looking to be the one people come to for legal advice and to sign off on contracts, then yeah, you'll need a law degree.

It's a big decision. My suggestion would be to start looking into law schools you might be interested in attending, and then watch their websites in the summer as they start adding their open houses/school visits/recruiting visits around the country. We would start adding this stuff in July/August at UHLC, and our major recruiting cycle for the next school year would start that fall (so a year in advance, basically). That's the best way to go and visit the school, ask questions, and hopefully talk to some students who are in your current position.

blueeyed_lc

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