WTFinancial Aid

This morning I woke up to a letter from my dream school saying Welcome to Dream School and had information about financial aid. I got excited until I realized that A) this school is my alma mater so I'm not sure if I got this because of that or because B) for safety's sake I listed this school on my FASFA just in case I got accepted into it. Unfortunately, I still haven't heard that I've been moved from the waitlist. Speaking of financial aid...

This is a screenshot of my actual tuition for this school year. To make things more intimidating, I will be paying for this by myself. I was fortunate enough that my parents paid for all of my undergrad, but I am officially cut off and have no clue what I'm doing.

I received a small scholarship from the school and an additional one from my high school that total to about $7,000 a year. This seems like a lot but is only a tiny dent into the 54K I'm about to shell out. I also applied for a FASFA and got $20,500 but that has a 5% interest starting now. Even more delightful is that apparently there are no law school government grants and the scholarships are very specific (certain race or certain concentration or even both) and aren't available until Spring semester... so now I get to venture out into the ever-popular world of massive, crippling student debt by myself for the first time :) 

Law school is becoming more daunting and stressful every week, and I haven't even gone to orientation yet. 

What it's Like to be Waitlisted for a Law School

I'm starting Law School here in 3 weeks and I've been a little nervous so I started searching high and low on the Mecca that is Pinterest for information that could prepare me for it. I was deeply disappointed to find that most the vast majority of pins were memes or cartoons about law school (super unhelpful) or people who graduated at the top of their class in undergrad and also from law school (not the most relatable for me). So I've decided to make my own blog because I feel like I can't find anyone in the same boat as me and it's killing me.

I took the LSAT in September of my senior year, and got an average score. Now, the first two years of my college career I was mostly a C/B student with some glorious A's thrown in; the second two years I was mostly a B/A student. With average grades, I wanted more than an average score and decided to try again in January to see if I could just get 4 points higher. I had already locked in one really good rec letter, so I pushed my application worries aside until the next semester. 

I then ended up making a worse score on my LSAT, playing phone tag with my "solid" rec letter and eventually never got the professor to send it in so I ended up with two rushed and half-assed rec letters, and I wrote my personal statement the day before the first application was due. My results were this:

Dream School - waitlisted
2nd Preference - application was deleted while I waited for my final rec letter
3rd Preference - denied
4th Preference - accepted and a minuscule scholarship offered
(I think I probably got every possible option when applying to a school)

But I found out in the order of 4, 1, 3, 2. After I got my first acceptance letter I got very confident in my chances of getting into other schools so I didn't accept the offer to the school. Then I had a mini heart attack when I received the other responses.

Of course, waitlists suck and even though I finished my senior year with my best grades and submitted a letter of continued interest to my dream school, by June I had still not heard anything so I called up the school that actually was interested in me and was reinstated into their school. I've found an apartment and am registered for class and am going to orientation, but it sucks not knowing if I'll end up getting to go to my dream school. I called them two days ago and unfortunately was told that there was no update on my waitlist status and that at the latest I'll know the first week of August.

The problem with being waitlisted is that it's basically as if you're a guy and go up to an attractive, but not out-of-your-league girl at a bar. You offer to buy her a drink and she lets you know that you seem nice, but she's waiting for better offers and if no hotter guys hit on her, then she'll let you buy her a drink at last call. You're rejected and embarrassed, but also know theres a slight chance that you'll hit a home run. You keep reminding yourself that Wes from How to Get Away With Murder was waitlisted until the last minute and it makes you feel just a tiny bit better about yourself. 

So that's where I'm at now with my law school journey—in school limbo. I'm not quite sure if this is supposed to be a divine test of perseverance and dedication or if this is one of those things that is a blessing in disguise. Hopefully, I'll find out soon enough and can adjust to phase two in this plan: being an actual law student.



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