Is it too late to apply to law school? Alice is going to talk through whether you should apply late and how it can affect your ability to gain acceptance and, most importantly, scholarship money!

Episode Highlights

• Look at the list of schools that you want to apply to, and gauge the selectivity of those schools.

  • Some law schools have rolling admissions. What that means is from the day that the application's open or the day that they say they begin reviewing, they will continuously review the applications as they come in and they will release as they finish up that review. So if the school that you are applying to or plan to apply to is very selective, you're not doing yourself any kind of favor by applying right now. If you are applying to a school that is less selective, you may be in better shape.

    • Remember, less selective does not mean worse. Selectivity often has something to do with where the school falls on the rankings, but it does not objectively mean that the school has worse outcomes.

• Ask yourself, "How competitive of an applicant am I?"

  • Competitive in this sense means are you sitting right on or above those medians on your list of schools that you just compiled? You want to compare them to what you're looking at, what you've got to send in.

  • Your whole application is considered, but your LSAT or your GRE and your GPA are never not important. They matter. And if you are sitting below the medians, particularly this time of year, you really want to think about.

    • With rolling admissions schools, you may not have a lot of wiggle left. You may be a great candidate, but there isn't space for someone who is sitting two points below the median. If you have the ability to, why not put yourself in a better position? Why not make sure you are handing that admissions committee the strongest application that you can possibly put together? Why sell yourself shorten that kind of way?

• Reflect on the significance of cost in this decision.

  • More law schools offer merit-based aid and that budget is finite. If every student that is awarded a scholarship comes, admissions wants to be in good shape to pay that out because they made a promise to you. So while yes you may be qualified and you may get admitted, you cannot be given something that does not exist anymore. So in this case, waiting to apply next year could save you lots of dollars.

• Be honest with yourself as you think through all of these questions. It is worth it to have this conversation with yourself to make sure that you are putting yourself in the absolute best spot possible.

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