Strongly considering Summer Start.

Indiana law offers a program that most law schools don’t, the Summer Start program, where incoming 1L students take one class (torts) from July 6th through August 6th. It meets four days a week, a couple of hours a day, and hacks out one of your first year classes. It gives you the chance to warm up toward the full load you’ll get in 1L, and gives you the chance to get your feet wet in dealing with law classes, which are apparently much different than anything you do in undergrad…not to mention giving you the chance to get acclimated to the new town without having to spend nearly as much time on your studies for the first couple of months as you’ll have to when the full course load kicks in.

The domino effects of a single moment are amazing sometimes.

The Woody Allen movie Match Point was really interesting. It started with a tennis player’s final match, in a tourney that he decided would make up his mind as to whether to continue pursuing professional tennis or would give it up. In a third set tiebreak, the main character hits a ball that catches the top of the net, goes up, comes down and bounces off the top of the net again and lands on his side. He easily could’ve gotten it over for the point, won, and continued pursuing professional tennis…but by the difference of less than an inch, his entire life changed and he took a different path, ultimately one that led him to some really bad things. It pursued this theme further, showing little moments that could really go either way and have endless ramifications.

As I look around on some sites that track other applicants’ cycles, I’m mystified to see a handful of applicants getting waitlisted or rejected outright by Indiana-Bloomington with GPAs far better than mine, and LSAT scores of 163…in fact, I haven’t seen a record of anyone with a 163 admitted yet. Only one score lower than that (among what I’ve seen) has gotten in, and he did early decision…probably the boost he needed. Meanwhile, I get accepted early on, scholarship offer and all, with a 165 and a terrible undergrad GPA. A couple of bubbles makes all the difference in the world.

Worst…commute…ever.

Midway through another mundane work day, I look out the window and see snow. Since I didn’t hear about it in the forecast, I shrugged and figured it wouldn’t stick. I forgot about it for a while. I look up later and see it sticking…but not that bad. By the time I was off work, I was starting to get a little worried about driving home. I do have the worst snow tires ever, after all. I might as well be driving on those stone wheels from The Flintstones.

I get going, and while I’m not liking what the snow flurry is doing for my visibility, I seem to be getting by okay. I get on Grandview, and it’s slow going, but I’m not anticipating big problems. That is, until the traffic in front of me slows to a crawl on a hill. “Uh oh…I’d better not come to a standstill while on an incline.” Sadly, that was exactly what happened. I don’t know what the hell caused it, because those cars zipped away moments later as I was spinning my wheels and stuck. Not only did this situation look bad, but I had the majority of the workforce at BP on the road behind me. That is a LOT of cars, being stuck behind you in two way traffic. So, on top of being stuck, I had become an embarrassing obstacle to a huge amount of vehicles.

Awfully funny to look back just a few months.

It’s pretty enjoyable for me to go back and read my old blog entries from the beginning of this process; so much changes in a relatively short period of time. I had no clue what I would end up wanting as far as school choice went, I needlessly freaked out about an LSAT score that served me just fine…oh well, the journey is more interesting than the destination a lot of the time.

Every time I gave my rankings of preference as I started my application cycle, I kept adding disclaimers along the lines of “these can and will change” (this lawyer-like habit is nothing new to me…in all aspects of life, I largely try to avoid using absolutes when I talk; I don’t want to corner myself into situations of giving my word then either feeling trapped by my words or look like a flake by going back on them)…but this whole thing has been even more unpredictable than I was imagining going into it. For a point of reference, out of my 18 applications, here was the order of my top 10 when I first sent my apps out.

Oscars were boring.

I usually don’t watch the Oscars from beginning to end, I generally just check in once in a while to see who’s winning the big awards…but, having seen most of the nominees this year, I tuned in for most of the show. I was bored stiff.

I just don’t see what Slumdog Millionaire did to justify this whole parade of awards. Milk did well for itself also, and I wasn’t any great fan of that film either. Although I think Penelope Cruz did a really fine job in Vicky Cristina Barcelona (enjoyable movie by the way), I do wish that Taraji Henson or Viola Davis or Amy Adams had taken down the Best Supporting Actress award, just because I hated seeing The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Doubt both shut out from getting any major awards. Great movies. I can’t really argue with any of the acting award recipients, though.

Hugh Jackman is likable, but he was a boring host. I can’t think of many segments that were particularly entertaining, except for maybe the Steve Martin/Tina Fey presentation early on. I did enjoy those two.

I’ll probably go back to just checking in on who won after the fact next year.

17 days and counting.

Really looking forward to my trip to Bloomington in two and a half weeks. I’ve scouted out restaurants and things to do, and have developed a loose itinerary for the 48 hours I’ll be in town there. My contacts at the school, as well as TripAdvisor, have been quite helpful. I’ll have plenty to do during my couple of days there. I wish I was able to do this about a month later, because it seems like it’s still going to be pretty cold in mid-March, but the April 1st commitment deadline forces my hand.

Most schools seem to require a commitment/deposit on April 1st or April 15th, so I’m surprised that half of my schools haven’t responded to me yet. Are they expecting that they can accept people in late March and hope that people commit to them mere days later? I’m sure that in some cases they can do so, but it seems like they’d miss out on a lot of good prospects in the meantime. It doesn’t really matter in my case, though, as eight of nine schools I’m pending with simply don’t matter anymore, and the ninth (Arizona) only matters if they sweep in with a big scholarship offer or if Indiana misses the mark when I visit, both fairly unlikely scenarios. I do keep checking my mailbox though, just out of curiosity…I’ve gotta get some kind of entertainment out of those application fees.

Down to four.

Rejected by Notre Dame. Completely and totally expected, so my disappointment level is pretty minimal. Glad I applied, though. In general, I’d have to say I aimed correctly with my applications. I got into my high targets (#36 Indiana-Bloomington and #42 Wake Forest; still waiting on #38 Arizona), I got waitlisted at #27 Illinois, and I got rejected outright at #22 Notre Dame. Gives a pretty decent sketch of where my application was competitive and where in the rankings it started to become too much of a reach.

So, it’s looking more and more like Indiana all the time.

2009 Oscar Picks

Best Picture

Nominees:
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Milk
Frost/Nixon
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire

Should win: I’m not as big of a fan of Slumdog Millionaire as the rest of the world seems to be. It’s a fine movie, but I just didn’t see greatness in it. I’m much more inclined toward Benjamin Button, a moving drama with great performances all around. My second choice would be The Reader.

Update 2/13/09

I’ve been in touch with current students from both Indiana and Wake Forest. I remain convinced that both are great options, but my interactions with Indiana have been more to my liking and my leaning is becoming stronger and stronger in their direction. I’ll still be making both visits of course, even if I don’t attend Wake I’ll be happy to take a quick trip to North Carolina…it’s absolutely beautiful, if memory serves me right.

I sent in my official withdrawal to the University of Idaho. I originally had planned on waiting to see if they might offer me a scholarship, just out of curiosity…but when I become 100% certain that I won’t attend a certain school (or at least be able to use their acceptance as leverage in scholarship negotiation), I’m going to withdraw from it after I get an acceptance or waitlist. With each school, there are people out there who really want to go there and are waitlisted or borderline for getting accepted…I don’t want to take up a spot that could go their way any longer than I have to, if I’m completely and utterly certain that I won’t be making use of the acceptance. It’s a courtesy to the school that was kind enough to accept me also; for planning purposes, I’m sure they’d rather know right away if a student isn’t going to attend.

Going to wait another month, though, on McGeorge in Sacramento…I’m only 99% sure I won’t be attending there. They would stay in play in the very unlikely scenario that I dislike both Indiana and Wake upon visiting. If I love Bloomington like I think I’m going to, McGeorge will probably get a withdrawal from me as soon as I get home from that trip.

The Office: “Lecture Circuit”

Well, one of my readers did complain to me about my lack of Office recap last week. My apologies…I want to plead for mercy based on the fact that “Lecture Circuit” didn’t end last week, it was “To Be Continued” and completed tonight. I admit that I was simply lazy a week ago and made the two part excuse up later, but I think it works and I can comment on both parts of the episode in this post.

Appearing in both part one and two, I absolutely loved Dwight’s sign that read, “It is your birthday.” Fantastic. I actually thought all of the inept Jim/Dwight party planning stuff was pretty entertaining, that sign is one of the only memorably hilarious things that came from it, but I enjoy watching those two interact both as enemies and buddies. I loved it when Jim got mad at Dwight for working so long on a sign that announced the party’s delay, then to show how superfluous it was, stood up and simply announced the delay, only to have Stanley say, “I know, I just read it on the sign.”

The most bizarre interview you’ll likely ever see on late night TV.

The buzz about last night’s appearance by Joaquin Phoenix on David Letterman’s show was so strong on every news site around today that I checked it out on my lunch break…my goodness, this is as awkward as it gets. I’ve always liked the guy as an actor, but it seems like he’s lost his marbles somehow. I love the way Letterman handled a very weird situation.

EDIT: CBS got the first one I was linking to yanked. Here’s another shorter clip that still gives you the gist.

One thing about being waitlisted…

…it makes it very unlikely that I’ll be offered scholarship money, if Illinois even does accept me. With their tuition at basically the same price as Indiana’s, this would make it something of a tough sell for me if I got in. Pragmatically, it’s the better and higher ranked school…but is it better enough that it would justify going into $30K of extra debt? And again, I’m not sure if it’s the better fit for me personally. I’m really liking Indiana.

Notre Dame I’d probably find worth it to go into extra debt to attend. Illinois I have my doubts about…and if Arizona offered me an acceptance but with no scholarship attached, they’d be in the same boat as Wake Forest: very attractive school, but not noticeably better than Indiana, and trying to charge me more.

I’ll stay on the waitlist at Illinois, but they’re #5 of the five schools that I’m still strongly considering.

As I suspected,

Wake Forest probably isn’t going to offer me any scholarship money. I called their director of admissions and financial aid and inquired about whether or not I might be looking at any scholarship help; she was nice, but told me that in all honesty I probably wouldn’t be getting any offered to me. I completely understand…I was expecting them to reject me outright, after all. But, while I would still pay sticker price at Wake before I’d attend some of my lower-ranked options at a discount, this will make it harder for me to choose them over Indiana. The scales are definitely tipping in Bloomington’s favor.

As far as the price difference goes, there are still two mitigating factors to look at. First, as previously mentioned…Wake is more generous with grants than IU is, and I’ll know better how much that closes the current $6800/year gap between them when I get my total aid packages from both schools. This gal at Wake Forest assured me that I’d be getting that package from them well before the seat deposit deadline. The other factor to consider is that IU’s scholarship is only a guarantee the first year, and I’d have to maintain a 3.2 GPA to keep that for the next two years. That may not sound particularly difficult on the surface, but in a curved grading environment against students who were equally qualified to get into that school, it’s no sure thing. If I were to hypothetically lose that scholarship (though I don’t expect to), the two schools would be close to even in price over the course of the three years.

I was hoping the decision would simply come down to which school I liked best, as opposed to which school offered the cheapest package, but the good news is that I had already begun leaning Indiana’s way before this latest update. In order to secure my enrollment now, Wake is going to have to either bridge the financial gap quite a bit through grant money, or they’re going to have to look like the substantially better fit when I visit both next month. Either way, Indiana is definitely becoming the favorite and Wake Forest is facing an uphill battle for my enrollment now.

Illinois, Arizona and Notre Dame all remain in the picture if they choose to accept me.

Update 2/7/09

Alright, Chapman is out. I finally got the physical acceptance package from them…the scholarship offer was only 20% of the tuition. That’s not even as much as Indiana is offering me. Obviously even negotiating this one up wouldn’t get me to a level I’m satisfied with, since even within the state of California I would prefer McGeorge to Chapman (Sacramento offers a much cheaper cost of living, and isn’t so near L.A.)…so I immediately logged onto their website and declined their admission offer.

I also got a thin envelope from Notre Dame today. I figured this was the rejection I’ve been waiting on, but it wasn’t any kind of decision. It was just some form mailing telling me about outside scholarship opportunities that applicants should look into. This was particularly worthless since it was identical to an e-mail I got from them several days ago. Anyway, I’m only four weeks past the mark where they told me it’d be about eight weeks, so I’m just not expecting much on that front for a while.

A-Rod news disappointing.

I was sufficiently surprised by the new revelation that Alex Rodriguez tested positive for steroids in 2003.

Even as a Mariner fan who didn’t appreciate his phony personality, I thought in recent years that it would be a lot better for the game of baseball if A-Rod could keep his home run pace going and take the all-time home run mantle away from Barry Bonds; for some reason, I always believed that Rodriguez was just a once-in-a-generation talent who didn’t need steroids to be as great as he was. Now that I know that he was juicing, too…screw it, I don’t care if he catches Bonds or not.

To be clear, I don’t really sit in judgment of these players who were doing steroids when Major League Baseball was doing nothing about it. If I was talented enough to be a big leaguer, and steroids were the physical risk I would have to take to make millions of dollars, I can’t say with confidence that I wouldn’t have done this also. I’d like to think I wouldn’t have, but I really don’t know. I’m simply saying that as far as this guy with a fairly unlikable personality to begin with goes, I’ve run out of reasons to pull for him; he’s not a player getting by on tremendous talent and hard work like I hoped he was. We’re officially a long, long way from having an all-time home run king who isn’t tarnished by the steroids asterisk.

As an aside, let me say that I think it’s ridiculous for Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Alex Rodriguez, or anyone else under suspicion of probable steroid use to be kept out of the Hall of Fame over this infraction. These are some of the players that really defined the game (and for A-Rod, still do define the game) over the last 15 years. People will always know what went on during this era, putting them in the Hall won’t exonerate them in the public eye or anything. This was something that MLB themselves pretty much enabled and fostered, and it seems like nothing short of selective prosecution to keep some of the best players of the generation out for this reason while some players of this generation who simply didn’t get caught will undoubtedly make it in there. The best players should be put in, and the public can view them for what they were.

2/6/09 Update

Well, I got waitlisted at Illinois. As their Dean of Admissions has previously admitted that applications that get reviewed later are more likely to get waitlisted than borderline admitted as they may have earlier in the cycle (since seats have started to fill up), there’s a good chance that this is the first time my LSAT retake may have cost me in any significant way. My application didn’t go complete until early January because of the fact that I was retaking, so that might have been the difference between an acceptance and this. This is a great school, borderline top 25 (they’re #27 right now, but they’ve hovered in and out of the top 25 in the annual rankings), and there are worse things than being waitlisted, but I obviously would’ve liked to have been accepted outright.

As I mentioned earlier this week, I was put “on hold for second review,” after which point the Dean rejected some, admitted a few, and put the rest on the waitlist. The e-mail today sent me to a form on their site that asked me if I would like to be on their waitlist; this is an efficient way of trimming the list down, I suppose, rather than having a bunch of non-responsive people on their waitlist who are already set on going elsewhere. I said yes, as I would still consider them strongly if admitted.

I also got my admission letter from Idaho in the regular mail…very thin envelope, just a form letter with a handwritten paragraph at the bottom from their Director of Admissions. I do continue to appreciate it when people in charge do that. No mention of scholarship money. I actually called them up and asked if the lack of an offer meant that they had decided not to offer one, and the lady told me, “Not necessarily, we continue to offer scholarships on an ongoing basis.” I’ll go ahead and wait a while before withdrawing from their school. They play the best angle they can in the acceptance letter, about how incredibly cheap it is to go to school there…unfortunately, while I’d only incur half the debt by going there, my job prospects wouldn’t probably even be half as good.

I still haven’t received anything in the regular mail from Chapman, even though the online status-checker says that I was mailed a decision last Wednesday. Lost in the mail? Who the heck knows. I called and left a voicemail that directly inquired about whether or not I would be looking at a scholarship offer with my acceptance. No way I’d pay sticker price at Chapman with the other options I have, but I won’t cross them off the list entirely until I know one way or another about the cost of going there.

Illinois non-update

My status with Illinois, on the online status-checker, changed from “in review” to “hold for second review.” So, they find me non-repulsive I guess, they’re still considering me. This is nearly a top 25 school (#27), so it’s honestly something of a compliment that they’re even continuing to give consideration to my candidacy. I’m still thinking this is going to turn into a rejection, but we’ll see.

As far as Midwest schools go, I honestly am not even sure I’d choose Illinois over Indiana when all is said and done. Indiana seems in some ways to be a better fit for me, being in a smaller town that appeals to me more (going off of what I read, and pictures of the area); academically they’re held in similar regard, but Illinois does offer brighter career prospects and is ranked higher for a reason. Like when Indiana accepted me and I knew I owed it to myself to take a long look at them despite not jumping out of my chair in excitement, I’d feel the same way if Illinois accepted me.

If they reject me, though, then so be it…I’ve already got a great option in that region with Indiana-Bloomington, and it would clear up the day of the 13th on my mid-March trip to see more of Bloomington and get a chance to take a closer look at apartments in the area in case I make it my ultimate destination (this would allow me to eventually get an apartment from here; I could get a place lined up via the internet, but I sure wouldn’t do it without seeing the place first).

Who knows how long “second review” at Illinois will last…hopefully I’ll know my fate there within the next few weeks. I leave on that trip five weeks from today.

Couple of tidbits on President Obama…

Asked in a television interview why he hasn’t used the oft-repeated “war on terror” phrase coined by the Bush administration, Obama said he believes the U.S. can win over moderate Muslims if he chooses his words carefully.

“Words matter in this situation because one of the ways we’re going to win this struggle is through the battle of hearts and minds,” Obama said in an interview with CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360.”

That’s naive as hell. We are not going to win the hearts and minds of Muslim fundamentalists by deliberately failing to acknowledge that terrorism has been and continues to be a huge problem.

Financial aid update: Indiana-Bloomington vs. Wake Forest

Well, I already mentioned that IU-B offered me an annual $10K scholarship that puts their price tag at a cheaper level than Wake Forest. Unfortunately I see that Wake has started to dole out scholarships, and I haven’t heard anything. Apparently they’ve invited these people to a scholars open house in a few weeks, and I haven’t heard anything on that front either. There’s still time to hear about that of course, but the symptoms aren’t good.

I e-mailed the Director of Admissions and Financial Aid at Wake, laying out very clearly that her school is in competition with Indiana for my enrollment and that Indiana has offered me money to make them the cheaper choice. I then asked her if a decision had been made on whether I’d be offered a scholarship or not. This attempt to leverage my scholarship offer and negotiate is very much an accepted practice at this stage of the admissions process, every bit as much as haggling over the price of a car. Anyway, I sent that e-mail on Sunday night, and haven’t heard back as of yet. I tried to follow up by phone today with her, but she wasn’t in the office.

Price tag is no small factor, and if Wake won’t play ball and make themselves the cheaper option or at least come close to being so, I’ll be happy to attend Indiana. I’ve actually been in touch via e-mail the last couple of days with a current first year student at IU, who speaks glowingly of it and makes it sound even more appealing to me. The school sounds like a great fit for me. He assures me that I’ll fit in fine as a 29-year-old, he assures me that it’s easy to meet people and make friends (something he said he was worried about as well going in), and he had nothing but good things to say about the school and town. With these things in mind, the scales have tipped toward me favoring Indiana, for the time being. They could easily tip back at the drop of a hat, there’s tons of allure in North Carolina for me…but right now if I was to place a bet on where I’d be in seven months, it’d be Bloomington, IN.

Might want to tweak those automated mailings, Idaho…

At 4:53, I get an e-mail from Idaho saying “congratulations again”…at 9:15 I get what was clearly supposed to be the first e-mail offering me the initial congratulations. Funny SNAFU, nothing more.

I wish they had a better law school, or more accurately I wish they had a school in a better legal market (the school itself sounds like it’s decent, but Idaho’s legal market doesn’t sound like it has much to offer job-seekers), because I would’ve loved to make a return to the Palouse. I just don’t see it happening, though.

My record on the cycle moves to 5-1-1, with five consecutive acceptances now. I think it’s safe to say that when I said I’d probably only get into 5 or 6 places after my failed LSAT retake, I undershot by at least a few. Just for fun, let me revise my predictions for the rest of the cycle…

Predicted acceptances
UNLV
University of Wyoming
University of San Diego
Santa Clara University
Gonzaga University 

Predicted rejections
Illinois
Arizona State
Arizona
Notre Dame
Pepperdine
Seattle

Notice that all of the ones that still matter to me appear in my “predicted rejections” column. Honestly, while I’m pretty confident in the Notre Dame rejection, I think there’s a decent chance I can produce one acceptance between Illinois and Arizona.

I give myself about a 40% shot at getting accepted at Arizona, a 20% shot at getting accepted at Illinois, and maybe a 3% shot at getting accepted at Notre Dame (these statistics line up closely with empirical data, I’m not just going by gut feel, though I’m using intuition to measure a few intangibles and round up or down). If you wanted to look at it statistically, that would mean that I shouldn’t be confident in getting accepted by any of them individually, but it gives me about a coin flip to nab one acceptance from the three if you look at it collectively. I’d be perfectly happy with going 1-for-3 within that group. At this point, I’ll be quite okay even if I go 0-for-3 in that group…

The other eight schools…I just don’t care about them very much anymore. Maybe they could do something to turn my head upon hypothetical acceptance, but I doubt it.