Thursday, March 30, 2006
Preview weekend in review....or something
We're back from D.C., and, I must say, I was quite impressed with the entire weekend of events that George Washington put on for us. The professors that talked to us seemed extremely interested in teaching future lawyers (as opposed to publishing in journals), the students seemed intelligent but down-to-Earth, the facilities were nice and comfortable, and I met a few other prospective students that I would most likely enjoy hanging out with. On top of this, the city was much cleaner and there was more happening than either myself or my wife were expecting. Anyway, without further ado, I will be sending my seat deposit tomorrow to hold my place. I was hoping for a small token scholarship or grant of some sort, but unfortunately, this seems to be a very big weakness of GW... they are quite stingy when it comes to aid and don't even pretend to be otherwise.
I hadn't expected the weekend to be as enlightening as it was, but I am glad we decided to go and check it out. I feel much better making the decision now to not attend the U of M than I would have felt otherwise. I didn't believe what I had read on other sites and message boards about the "feel" of a school, but that's exactly what it was... it felt comfortable, like a place I could see myself for the next 3 years. I didn't get that feeling at the U of M.... it was surprising.
Having said all of that, I am still in contention at a couple of those same "elite" schools I had mentioned in previous posts... today I received a "reserve" letter from Columbia. This is basically their waitlist and I'll be returning my "please don't forget about me!!" postcard in the morning and hope a bunch of people decide NYU or Harvard is the better school for them. Also, I'm still holding out hope for Georgetown...they seem like my best bet of the top tier schools. We walked around their campus (both undergrad and law school) while in D.C. and it was as nice as you would expect. I didn't get the chance to talk to any students or faculty, but it doesn't make much difference as I'd go there regardless. The big sell from GW was that they are located in Washington... so is Georgetown...plus, well, they're Georgetown.
Harvard also finally sent my rejection letter. It arrived with the Columbia waitlist today. Now I'm just waiting to hear back from NYU and USC... I'm pretty sure I'll withdraw from USC if they do end up accepting me unless they offer scholarship money for some reason. Seeing as I am more interested in public policy sort of issues, D.C. makes much more sense than SoCal. Well, hopefully soon. I don't expect to hear anything from the waitlists until the end of April or early June. In the mean time, I guess I could start packing up the house since we'll be moving again soon no matter what.
I hadn't expected the weekend to be as enlightening as it was, but I am glad we decided to go and check it out. I feel much better making the decision now to not attend the U of M than I would have felt otherwise. I didn't believe what I had read on other sites and message boards about the "feel" of a school, but that's exactly what it was... it felt comfortable, like a place I could see myself for the next 3 years. I didn't get that feeling at the U of M.... it was surprising.
Having said all of that, I am still in contention at a couple of those same "elite" schools I had mentioned in previous posts... today I received a "reserve" letter from Columbia. This is basically their waitlist and I'll be returning my "please don't forget about me!!" postcard in the morning and hope a bunch of people decide NYU or Harvard is the better school for them. Also, I'm still holding out hope for Georgetown...they seem like my best bet of the top tier schools. We walked around their campus (both undergrad and law school) while in D.C. and it was as nice as you would expect. I didn't get the chance to talk to any students or faculty, but it doesn't make much difference as I'd go there regardless. The big sell from GW was that they are located in Washington... so is Georgetown...plus, well, they're Georgetown.
Harvard also finally sent my rejection letter. It arrived with the Columbia waitlist today. Now I'm just waiting to hear back from NYU and USC... I'm pretty sure I'll withdraw from USC if they do end up accepting me unless they offer scholarship money for some reason. Seeing as I am more interested in public policy sort of issues, D.C. makes much more sense than SoCal. Well, hopefully soon. I don't expect to hear anything from the waitlists until the end of April or early June. In the mean time, I guess I could start packing up the house since we'll be moving again soon no matter what.
Saturday, March 18, 2006
"...goes to Washington" (at least for a visit)
I've come much closer to making a decision between the U of Minn and GWU, but I don't think I want to say 100% which it will be. On Wednesday, we're flying out to D.C. for the admitted students weekend preview at GW. We're going to spend a day looking at Georgetown while we're there as well. If things there go as expected, then I think I'll be ready to say I've definately made up my mind...at least between these two schools. However, there is a slight new wrinkle...I received an acceptance to Boston University this past Monday. Now, I have to say, I really haven't done my homework as much as I should have. I applied to a ton of schools because I didn't have any good idea of where I would be accepted and now I'm scrambling a little bit to decide which one I really prefer. Everything I've heard about Boston and Boston University has been very positive, which only complicates things further!
I'm still waiting on anything at all from NYU and Harvard, and Columbia also has to make their decision from earlier but they told me sometime at the end of March. As I've said before, I'm not making plans based on any of these schools since I'm pretty sure I know what the decisions are going to be, but it will be nice to eliminate even that slight bit of uncertainty as soon as possible. I'm still holding out hope that I'll get off of Georgtown's waitlist but I can't depend on that either. So, not much new since the last post, but it had been awhile so I thought I should at least say that much. Hopefully I'll have more to say when we get back from D.C.
I'm still waiting on anything at all from NYU and Harvard, and Columbia also has to make their decision from earlier but they told me sometime at the end of March. As I've said before, I'm not making plans based on any of these schools since I'm pretty sure I know what the decisions are going to be, but it will be nice to eliminate even that slight bit of uncertainty as soon as possible. I'm still holding out hope that I'll get off of Georgtown's waitlist but I can't depend on that either. So, not much new since the last post, but it had been awhile so I thought I should at least say that much. Hopefully I'll have more to say when we get back from D.C.
