The LOCI comes before he receives an offer of admission. If he reads top-law-schools or lawschoolnumbers, he’ll know when other students start receiving offers relative to their application dates. If he doesn’t hear from a school within a reasonable amount of time, he should send the LOCI, a kind of “why your school” statement.
My daughter knew she wanted UVA and wondered why they seemed to drag their feet on responding, because her stats were above their median and she had heard back from higher-ranked schools. Within 48 hours of sending the LOCI, she had an offer.
^^sure they would yield protect “one guy”; heck, they’d yield protect nearly everyone with those numbers… I would bet that pretty much every school below T6 would wait list him without a LOCI bcos they can pretty much be assured that he is into at least one of HYS, and will likely be offered big merit money from CCN. Even Penn would think twice.
I think what blue bayou is referring to are the letters that you submit with you application that are considered the supplemental or optional “Why Virginia/Penn/Georgetown/whatever.” Those would certainly be a good idea to send, but are a little different than a LOCI because you send those in with your applications.
I agree with bluebayou that you should do what you can to avoid yield protection. Start of with a “Why X” supplemental essay with those applications and follow up with a LOCI if they have your application a long time in waiting (i.e. held). Ditto if you are waitlisted due to YP
You wouldn’t really know if you were wait listed due to yield protection, would you? So I suppose the way to avoid this is by writing a good supplemental essay when you submit your application, keeping abreast of the time until you hear, and then perhaps writing a letter if you detect that you are waiting too long but wish to express continued interest.
@madamecrabster, one might. I’m pretty sure that I was waitlisted by that law school because they knew that I wouldn’t go there. I had friends from law school who were rejected by lower-ranking schools.
Yes, that is correct. Definitely complete the supplementals, and weave in why xx LS is a good fit, bcos that is exactly what the supplementals are usually seeking.
As an example, I know someone who got into several T10, but was waitlisted at Cornell, with numbers significantly above Big Red’s medians. She literally blew off the short answer, Why Cornell/Ithaca? question, by not taking it seriously and answering, “I’m from Florida and I’ve never seen snow.” WRONG (and stupid) answer to an Ivy League school, which prides itself on academics.
Thanks to all for their responses. To summarize, the main thing to keep in mind is to prepare applications thoughtfully and pay attention to the details. Otherwise he simply needs to continue to work hard in school and do interesting things on the side and perhaps consider legal internship options with a law professor or a lawyer to have a sense of the possibilities and the profession. Sounds doable.