<p>Yesterday our out-of-town friends came to visit us as they were moving their elder son to med school. They told us of the story of how their second son is now enrolled at Harvard Law after attending classes for a few days at Columbia.
Apparently there was a girl who had always wanted to attend Harvard Law but was on their wait list. One day, after starting classes at Columbia she wrote an email to Harvard admissions stating that she was still interested in Harvard and will move immediately if they would get her off the wait list. I was told she spent 6 hours composing this email.
Our friend's son who was also enrolled at Columbia and waitlisted at Harvard, heard of this girl's story through a mutual friend who was already admitted at Harvard. He quickly wrote a similar email in 2 minutes. Bingo, he was also admitted.
This very motivated girl round shared housing with our friend's son and they moved up together. It was very fortunate that Columbia started classes before Harvard.
Moral of the story, never give up.</p>
<p>Great info-but I have to ask-how much $$$ was lost in the form of the seat deposit/non-refundable portion of tuition, etc at Columbia? And if they weren’t self-pay, what’s the process for getting the loan money refunded and sent to another school?</p>
<p>He lost the deposit but Columbia refunded all of his tuition. On his off campus housing, he lost his deposit plus one month’s rent.
His parents paid for his expenses and tuition.
Apparently, Harvard had a summer melt, students leaving for Yale.</p>
<p>I don’t think the moral of this story is never give up. The moral of the story is if you have the numbers and their class is not filled sending an email wont hurt. To tell people not to give up is wrong information. If you have a 150 and 3.3 no matter how many emails you send you will not get into Harvard.</p>
<p>Somehow you missed the information that these students were already waitlisted at Harvard.</p>
<p>Your moral of the story was: “Never give up”. Not “Never give up if you are on the waitlist.” Therefore my updated conclusion of sending a quick LOCI wont hurt is correct. I did not miss any information.</p>
<p>There’s actually a message for all prospective law students here about wait lists. My kid got off a waitlist the week before classes started. He was on a few wait lists, and had told this particular school that he would 100% enroll if admitted off the wait list.</p>
<p>Yeah, he lost some money but he was able to go to a cheaper school in an area where he was willing to work someday. School #2 was also higher ranked, even if not a T14. School #2’s financial aid office helped him with the loans and someone helped with locating housing, so the whole thing was pretty painless despite the stress of changing plans a few days before school started. </p>
<p>Agree those LOCI can’t hurt.</p>
<p>Upon review, this situation is really impressive-and not just the Columbia to HLS part. The students moved to NY, got started in classes, got accepted at HLS last minute, then got everything collected and moved to Cambridge, found a place, etc and started at HLS. To possess that level of flexibility and organization for a last-minute transition will serve them very, very well in their legal careers.</p>
<p>The difference in career opportunities between Harvard Law and Columbia Law is minimal. After your first law firm job out of law school, no one will care if you went to Harvard or Columbia.</p>
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<p>particularly, if you are willing to pay sticker!</p>
<p>NYULawyer, just curious, are you a law student or a practicing attorney?</p>
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<p>3L at a law school. Just completed summer internship at NYC Biglaw with a return offer.</p>
<p>^^^^ Congrats! I don’t want to derail this thread, so I just started another one. If you have any input over there I would really appreciate it.</p>
<p>“After your first law firm job out of law school, no one will care if you went to Harvard or Columbia.”</p>
<p>Depends what else you want to do. If you want to teach, go to the USAO for the DDC, ACLU, etc., every little thing on your resume will count, and going to Harvard Law is not a little thing. It can even matter, I am sorry to say, for lateral partner hiring at the snobbiest firms.</p>
<p>Is the difference marginal? Sure. Is this whole system silly? Absolutely. But I don’t agree that no one will ever care if you went to Harvard or Columbia after your first firm job.</p>