<p>parabella–</p>
<p>I noted that most of your S’s acceptances came before the end of the year. What was the experience on the time to respond back to the law school (if required) and/or payment of seat deposits?</p>
<p>Not parabella, but last year my D had until mid-late April to make her decision as to where to deposit. This applied to schools to which she was accepted in early December as well as those she heard from in late March. Unless there is an ED commitment, I don’t know of a school which requires seat deposits before the spring.</p>
<p>runnersmom–</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>What runners mom said. Your S will need time to sort out all the acceptances, scholarship offers, plus there are admitted students weekends in the spring. With my S if took only one ASW to decide, some kids attend a few before making up their minds.</p>
<p>There are cases, where there is a named scholarship involved that the school will limit the time you have to respond and accept the scholarship.</p>
<p>thanks everyone on the accept/decline response cutoff issue. I was aware of the scholarship response time issue. </p>
<p>I had seen where HLS (for instance) had posted that it was extending the application cutoff for first time LSAT takers whose test locations closed due to weather Dec. 7 & 9. It made me wonder about the existence of any response date on the applicant’s part.</p>
<p>So, did most of your applicants visit a law school on admitted student day? Did they visit several?</p>
<p>I know my S seems to have a preference list for this process, but I hadn’t focused on the idea of whether he might want to visit after acceptances. It would be an opportunity to investigate the housing availability.</p>
<p>S’s plan was to visit his top three schools. HLS was first on the schedule. He came back with his decision made.No regrets. :)</p>
<p>Take this for what it is worth: “fit” matters much less for law schools than for colleges. You aren’t there to meet your best friends, grow as a person, learn to navigate adult life in a safe cocoon, or anything else: you’re there to learn a profession so that you can practise that profession for the rest of your life. </p>
<p>Unless you set foot on campus and loathe the place, it is much more important to find the school with the best job prospects in the area you want to live in, or the school with the best scholarship offer.</p>
<p>“Fit” would be a way to decide between Columbia and NYU, UCLA and USC, or Brooklyn and Cardozo.</p>
<p>Sorry to change this up, but I have questions about Law Schools in general. My S has done very well in small Private Liberal Arts College. He took the LSAT in October 2013 and has decided not to apply to any T14 schools. Wants to live in Illinois after completing Law school. He has been offered multiple scholarships from schools in St. Louis and Iowa…did not apply to any Illinois schools. He was also offered a full tuition scholarship from Michigan State University Law. He is starting to feel overwhelmed because he didn’t expect to receive offers like this. Does MSU Law School have a good reputation for producing prepared attorneys?</p>
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<p>Not a smart move. The biggest feeders into the Illinois legal market are Illinois-based law schools. </p>
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<p>Doesn’t matter if Illinois employers don’t hire much from there. Moreover, MSU has horrible employment scores: <40% of grads get a job – any job – requiring a legal degree. Nearly a third are just unemployed.</p>
<p>Time to send out more apps. Alternatively, retake the LSAT and aim for a T14 (Chicago and Northwestern), or Illinois on a full ride.</p>
<p>Boomer: I have to ask-why did your son, if he intends to live in Illinois, not apply to a single law school in Illinois? And why did he apply to law schools in Missouri, Iowa, and Michigan? There may be a piece to this question that I don’t see. And when you mention St. Louis, which schools specifically? And the scholarship to MSU-what strings are attached? In other words, what GPA does he need to keep the scholarship? If it’s a sure-thing three year deal and your son just wants to be a lawyer, that would be hard to beat. But it would be pretty tough taking that degree to Illinois and expecting it to carry much weight. As BB points out, unless you are attending a top school, geography is very important-if you want to practice in Illinois, attending an Illinois school is a big plus. Frankly, unless it’s a top school, you’re taking a big chance in attending law school out of state.
But the application cycle is over for this year; as bb suggests, it may be best to retake the LSAT and aim for a top school-or at least apply to some Illinois law schools.</p>
<p>OP here. I saw some stats on “portability” of law degrees expressed in the ability to get law jobs in state X with a law degree from law school Y.</p>
<p>I only looked at the top 3 schools as rated by USNWR. They were very portable.</p>
<p>Is the regional limitation on law school degrees something that applies even to many or most of the T14? If not, which degrees seem to lack portability?</p>
<p>The T14 are generally considered “national” schools. All others are primarily local. (Sure, T15-T20 can stretch geographically, but the ‘stretch’ declines rapidly as one drops down the food chain.)</p>
<p>Thank you.</p>
<p>I looked at the LSAT website today. </p>
<p>They released the December 2013 number of test takers and percentage change from December 2012. Down 6.2%. I have no idea how the December 2013 test sites weather closings were handled. If the test takers were rescheduled later in December, this may be an “overall” reduction.</p>
<p>such an app decline is a big positive for those with high numbers, particularly 17x…</p>