divine angst

Bar/Bri continues apace. Today’s lecture was WAY too long and the lecturer spends too much time repeating the stuff in the notes instead of highlighting the nuance. He is, at least, entertaining. I have given up on the Paced Program for the time being and am instead just trying to keep up with the reading.

Work is heating up—I have four cases on my desk including two court appearances scheduled for Monday, and everyone keeps giving me more responsibility. It’s actually very cool—people seem to trust that I can handle the matters they’re giving me and that gives me confidence that I, well, actually CAN handle the matters they’re giving me.

Also, my last set of grades came in today, which means I can no longer procrastinate on my clerkship applications. This weekend, therefore, is set aside not for doing practice questions but instead for writing cover letters, polishing up my writing samples, and building my online applications. Right now, it doesn’t feel quite real—I’ve been telling myself for months that I’ll send my applications once grades come in; well, grades are in, so I guess have to back that up.^[1]

Oh, and yes, grades are in, which means I am officially done. Even though my degree audit doesn’t actually indicate that I’ve completed my last two requirements, I know I have and I know I’m done. I am officially a Juris Doctor. Hallelujah!

1. I realize this makes it sound like I don’t actually want to apply for clerkships. I actually DO want to apply for clerkships; it’s just the reality of actually having to write the cover letters and get my writing samples ready that I balk at. I think cover letters are just another opportunity to screw up, and as far as writing samples goes, I hate that I have lots of really good stuff that’s either cowritten, and so inappropriate to send, or too long, or not doctrinal enough, or is just too short. I have been looking for that perfect 10-12 page writing opportunity forever, and I have never quite achieved it. Everything I have that length is cowritten or or casual memo. Gah. ↩

I believe this is the latest I have ever done my taxes. I intended to do them over the weekend, but that whole internet being down thing meant I couldn’t, since I do my taxes online.^[1]

So I did my taxes, and, being half of a married student couple means that we did not owe a red cent and we got back everything we paid in, plus what seems like a little extra, which can’t be right, but I haven’t taken tax, so I don’t know. In any case, I finished my taxes, transmitted them online (well, federal taxes; apparently, I have to file by mail in this state, since we’ve never filed in this state before and don’t have whatever little identification number we have to have to file online. Boo. That goes in the mail tomorrow or Wednesday, I think), and even completed my FAFSA. (I would be more worried about La FAFSA except I know I’m not going to get anything but loans from my school because that’s all they EVER give me. Boo.) In the spirit of being fiscally responsible and productive, I even filled out my school financial aid paperwork.

Part of me feels bad about not getting this done sooner–I’ve always gotten my financial aid stuff done super early, so I can be as eligible as possible for as much money as possible. But two years at my school–and the anecdotes I’ve heard during that time–has taught me that it’s really not going to matter. My school gives awards out during the application process and whatever award you get then is what award you have for the rest of your time in law school. This means really, really, really good students who didn’t happen to have the LSAT and GPA numbers to get a scholarship offer when applying to law school end up with full loans for three years. And that pretty much sucks. It sucks more for those really, really, really good students than it does for me, but it’s still really pissy for me. Still, there’s nothing I can do about it, so I’ve accepted it.

And that’s why I didn’t do my financial aid documents sooner. That and the fact that the school didn’t send my W-2 to me and I had to request that they send me a duplicate. (Actually, the same thing happened to Mr. Angst–we have crappy, crappy, crappy mail service–so I wasn’t able to actually DO the taxes early on. But I could have done my FAFSA with estimated numbers. Eck. I didn’t.)

OK. I have to do a little work before I go to bed. Ta!

1. Note that I’m posting in the evening, which would indicate that our internet is back up. Yes, it is back up, and thank God. ↩

I take my last exam tomorrow. That means, of course, that I spent tonight finalizing my outline and preparing it to be well-used, should I need to use it. (The best sorts of exams are the ones where the issues jump right out and you never need to use your outline. So I hope I won’t have to use my outline tomorrow, but just in case, I want it READY.)

I had this brilliant idea that, since I’d spent some time color coding certain things in my outline–highlighting for some things and font colors for others–that I would just pop down to Kinko’s to print it off in color. We have a laser printer at home, and it doesn’t print in color and I wanted COLOR, dammit!

But I did not want color enough to spend ONE DOLLAR PER PAGE to have my 47 page outline printed in beautiful, glossy, laser-printed color. No sirree. I hauled my butt–IN THE RAIN–down to the Kinko’s only to discover that color prints cost a f–king DOLLAR EACH. And, frankly, I didn’t feel like spending FORTY-SEVEN DOLLARS on my outline. No matter HOW pretty it is. I mean, 90% of it is BLACK, so the $47 I would spend to get that 10% color seemed unreasonable.

Back home I came, then, and printed it out in black and white–and it’s not nearly so pretty, even though I attacked it with multicolored highlighters so I get at least SOME of the same effect. But it was FREE to print at home, and that, I suppose, makes it all OK.

I’m off to bed, now, to get as decent a night’s sleep as I can (still debating whether or not I should take some Nyquil; I think I’ll just take a regular Sudafed, except the “regular” Sudafed doesn’t actually have any Sudafed IN IT), before I wake up early and go get this thing over with.

By the by, I know I was tagged with the Christmas song meme, and I PROMISE I am going to do it. I’ve just been really, really swamped over the last few days, what with doing all this learning and outlining (and last-minute Christmas shopping and shipping, too).

Happy holidays, all! I’ll be back tomorrow, likely somewhat tipsy.

The management company for our new apartment is seriously unprofessional. I suppose that’s obvious, given the prior problems we had, but it’s reaching new levels.

I have been trying to get our leasing agent to fax us a copy of our amended lease ALL WEEK. She was supposed to send it yesterday, before I left the office, and didn’t. She was “with people all afternoon.”

So she called this morning and left me a message, saying she was making getting us the contract a super-duper high priority (yes, those were her words) and to call her and let her know if I wanted her to fax it to a different number or overnight it.

I called back and said she should overnight it. She could fax it to my dad’s office, but I’d need to tell someone there to expect it, and I don’t want to have to deal with that. She said she’d call me when she was in her office (she was on her way) and get the address.

That was two hours ago.

I called again, got her voicemail, and left our address. I told her to call me when she’d sent it. If this is “super-duper high priority,” no wonder we’ve had so many problems!

Frankly, if we don’t have a copy of the paperwork before we get there, it’s not the end of the world. But it’s mighty annoying! And unprofessional! And just reinforces, over and over, my dislike of this management company and their employees!

Sigh. Off for coffee and—you guessed it!—more packing.

So, OK, Law School sent me some paperwork to fill out and return (loan stuff, ugh) and they were kind enough to provide a self-addressed envelope in which to return these papers.

Except that only in some weird universe where paper stretches would I be able to fit all the stuff I have to send them into this envelope. I think I’d be hard-pressed to get a single piece of paper to fit in this envelope. As it is, I have six sheets of paper—not onion skin paper, either!—and I can barely get them IN the envelope. Once they are in, though, the flap won’t close. I mean, unless I want to glue the flap to the papers and not to the envelope.

Plus, the papers I was trying to shove into the envelope gave me a wicked paper cut. Those papers suck, and not just because they’re loan papers!

Sigh. How hard is it to order the regular, #10 size envelopes instead of the smaller, business-reply mail size?

Tell me how bass-ackwards THIS is:

Our future management company sends out lease renewals to tenants. If the current tenant doesn’t renew, the company assumes they’re moving out and RELETS their apartment. But what if the tenant decides, oh, TWO WEEKS before they’re supposed to move out, that they don’t WANT to move out? THEY DON’T HAVE TO. The company just “accomodates” the people moving in by putting them in a similar or better apartment, with rent discounts if necessary.

OK. Hold on. Isn’t the proper way to manage tenants completely OPPOSITE of the above method? Every apartment I’ve EVER lived in assumes the tenant is staying unless the tenant gives written notice that they’re leaving! That would seem to be the logical way to manage tenants, at least to my mind. But hey, what do I know about property management?

So we’re working on a solution.

The building has already reserved a different unit for us—same floor plan, five floors lower in the building. (We were supposed to be on the top floor, with no one above us.) I have two big issues with this: (1) there is an increased likelihood of noise, having an apartment above us, (2) the laundry and exercise room would have been ONE flight of stairs up for us; now they’ll be either FIVE flights up or a VERY SLOW elevator trip up. (The elevators are ridiculously slow.) I was hoping to avoid the elevators except when going OUT; now we’ll have to use them to go UP also, for laundry and exercise. (Mr. Angst suggests that the five flight trek will be a good warm-up for working out. I am not convinced. That also doesn’t improve the laundry situation.)

Our leasing agent is meeting with the regional manager this afternoon to find out what sort of additional “accomodations” they’ll offer us, since we’re getting an apartment that’s equal on a floor that’s not as good. In other words, what kind of monetary discount are we going to get? And then, I suppose, we’ll have to sign a new lease, or a lease addendum, since our current lease is INVALID.

After all of this is worked out, the apartment locator we worked with is getting a negative review from me about this building and management company. I hope they will refuse to work with them in the future. They specialize in helping graduate students find housing and I imagine this kind of crap is just what they’d like to avoid as they grow this portion of their business.

Does anyone have any opinions on LIBOR vs. Prime?

Law School Health Center requires that I send them my immunization records. This poses a small problem, since they require that my physician fill out the immunization records section of my health forms. Unfortunately, my physician doesn’t have my immunization records on file because, duh, she hasn’t been my physician my whole life.

I have a copy of my immunization records that I somehow obtained from my undergraduate school’s heath center. But I don’t trust that they still have my records on file, and I don’t trust them to send any forms to Law School Health Center.

My physician says they will take my copy of my immunization records (an original, stamped copy) and Xerox it and forward it to Law School Health Center along with the rest of the form that they’re supposed to fill out (or that I think they have to fill out; more on that below). But they can’t certify any immunization dates and records for shots that they didn’t administer. And I haven’t had any shots done by my physician.

How do people get this stuff done? Unless you’ve been going to the same doctor your whole life, how can you get your immunization records certified? I know I’ve had all my shots—after all, I was allowed to enroll at my undergraduate institution, and they required all the shots—but how do I prove this to Law School when I’ve changed doctors so many times over the course of my life?

I guess I have to call Law School Health Center and find out if I can bring that stamped, original copy of my immunization records to them in person (thankfully, the deadline for turning it in is not until September 30) to fulfill that requirement. Meanwhile, I have to figure out which parts of the other forms are required—the main instructions say, “Law students don’t have to fill out Part II,” and page 2 says, “Law students don’t have to fill out this page.” But page 2 has part II (not required) AND part III (required?). I have no clue. And those pages are required by July 15!

Gah! Bureaucracy! Infuriating!

Update: Law School Health Center was wonderful. The guy I spoke to laughed when i said my doctor wouldn’t sign the form because they didn’t give me any of my immunizations. He said, if that copy of your immunization records has been signed at some point by a doctor or nurse practitioner, we just need to see a copy of it (not even the original!). And I don’t have to have my doctor fill out part III on page 2. I just have to fill out pages 1 and 4 and attach that copy of my immunizations and I’ll be done with it. Relief! Joy!

It’s really happening! Law School wants paperwork: my official undergraduate transcript and a certification of enrollment. (I got to check the “I will be enrolling and I have removed my name from all other schools’ lists” option. That was nice.)

I’ll pop my transcript request in the mail today, and Law School should get it by the end of the week if the post is cooperative; I think I can email the the certification form.

In other news, I completed my other loan applications last night, so I have asked for all the money I need for the school year. I’ll have a few more pieces of paperwork to sign later this summer, but I’m essentially done even with that chore.

It’s getting more real by the moment.

Stupid LSAC. Thanks for the nice “eff you!” to me and to anyone who applied to law school last fall or earlier.

Many of us actually PAID our $50-something to be able to use LSAC’s fancy-dancy electronic application system, the one that automatically populates all your applications with your basic data. But new applicants, people applying August 2005 and after? Nope, they won’t pay. From now on, it’s gonna be FREE.

Somehow I don’t think the system got CHEAPER for LSAC to administer. They just decided they didn’t need more money from a group of people who are already strapped for cash, what with paying hundreds of dollars to a) take the LSAT, b) sign up for LSDAS, and, oh yes, c) pay application fees.

Think they could have done this last year? Absolutely. Do you think they care that thousands of people unnecessarily shelled out money that went directly into their pockets? Nope.

They suck.

Josh is so right. This student loan stuff is too easy. I sent in a form today for some money. Mr. Angst sent his the other night. With no more effort than signing my name (or him pushing a button), we have a promise that someone will send us thousands of dollars at the beginning of the school year.

Too easy, man, too easy.

I received an email today that my school sent all my financial aid paperwork to me last week. I’ve been checking the mail regularly, but haven’t seen it yet. Maybe it will come today. I have until the end of the month to review the stuff, accept my loans, and send all the paperwork back.

I have until the end of the month to be this debt free. (Not that I’m completely debt free, but without the house or the nice car, well, the debt is lower than it was.) And I know that I won’t actually BE in debt until August, when the money is disbursed. But this is a mental thing, more than anything.

I have just a few more days to be able to think of myself as relatively unfettered. I’m not considering this option, but, theoretically, I could say, “No. I won’t go to law school this fall.” I could just find myself a job in Our New City and support Mr. Angst while he gets his degree. I could focus more on starting our family. Of course, that means I could continue being just what I am today—an underpaid, overqualified professional getting through the daily grind. There’s some romance in that vision, actually, but I prefer my romance on the big screen. So that’s not the choice I’m going to make.

Instead, I’ll be filling out this paperwork and investing in my future. That’s what we do. Any time we take a risk, we invest in the future. As gambles go, this law school thing is pretty solid. I’ll be in a lot of debt, but chances are I’ll be able to pay it off.

So, off to research those interest rates! Off to compare incentives and repayment schedules! Off to delve into the paper torture.

There’s a lot of noise out there right now (see one post) regarding consolidating student loans to lock in lower rates.

And because this involves the federal government and money, it is, of course, totally confusing. So I’m going to throw some info at you right now, gleaned from my years of applying for financial aid and doing everything possible to save a few cents in the process.

First, you can only consolidate federal student loan debt. This means Stafford Loans for most of us. (And Perkins Loans, though there may be drawbacks to consolidating Perkins Loans because they already have such good terms.) There are some other loans that are eligible, too, including PLUS loans from undergrad. (See the full list here.) But all those private loans you took out? Not eligible. You may be able to refinance them through your lender, but that is NOT the same as consolidation.

What is consolidation, then? A primer: You have separate federal loans for each year of school you took out federal loans. You could also have more than one loan in a given year, since subsidized Staffords are disbursed separately from unsubsidized Staffords and Perkins and PLUS loans. Yeesh! And in many cases, all of these loans will have different interest rates. They also will all have separate repayment schedules, based on their dates of disbursement.

Consolidation allows you to combine all of the debt into a single loan, and that single loan will have a single interest rate and a single repayment schedule. The interest rate will be based on the current federal student loan interest rates. (Oh, and not everyone who consolidates right now will end up with the same rate—it does vary depending on when you took out the loan. Yeah, it’s really confusing, but websites like Sallie Mae have some helpful FAQs and some wizards to help you figure out if you are eligible for consolidation and what your new rate will be after consolidation.)

Consolidation also allows you to extend your repayment period—up to 30 years from the date of consolidation. So if you just started repayment and you have 9-1/2 years left, consolidating will give you an additional 30 years, for a total of 30-1/2 years. Whee! However, if you’ve been repaying for five years, consolidation may not be the best option for you, unless you are about to take on some additional financial burdens, like buying a house, having a child, or going back to school. (Of course, you can consolidate anyway and continue to make the same payments. However, you could possibly be putting your money to better use in that scenario. But that’s fodder for a different post [and different blog]. If you don’t know what I am talking about, contact a financial advisor.)

One other thing—I am pretty sure that you have to have at least $10,000 in debt to be eligible to consolidate. (At least, that’s what Sallie Mae told me when I wanted to consolidate undergraduate debt last year.) Look into it.

What about in-school consolidation? You can consolidate while you are still in school and lock in that low, low, rate on your existing loans. You will lose your grace period on those loans, though. Now, while you’re still in school, you won’t have to pay on them—you’ll get “in-school deferrment” as long as you are enrolled at least half-time. But once you graduate, you won’t have that 6 month grace period to get your stuff together and start earning some money. You have to start paying back right away. If you’re at the end of your schooling and you have a lot of debt, it still might be worth it to consolidate anyway, especially depending on how much lower your monthly payments will be if you consolidate. But do be aware of the ramifications.

What if I take out more loans after I consolidate? You can always consolidate federal loans as long as you have at least one eligible loan that isn’t already consolidated. But any time you reconsolidate, you get a new interest rate, based on the base interest rate for that year. So if you consolidate now, get the good rate, and take out another loan for next year and consolidate NEXT summer, you will reconsolidate to the new, HIGHER rate for next year. That would be silly, yes?

Now, if you have already incurred most of your debt and you’ll only be taking out a little for next year, it could definitely be worth it to consolidate now on the lion’s share, and just pay that extra loan separately. If you just started incurring debt, though, crunch the numbers a few times to see whether you’ll come out ahead. And of course, remember that, if you extend repayment, you may end up paying more in interest over the life of the loan than you otherwise might have. Even with a low rate.

There’s a lot of information out there about reconsolidation. Do your research. Basically, if you’re just about to enter repayment or you’ve only been in repayment for a short time, consolidation is almost a no-brainer—do it. But if you’ve been in repayment for a while, it’s probably worth running the numbers and maybe talking to a financial advisor before consolidation. Ditto for in-school consolidation.

In-State Financial Aid Office recently notified me that I can’t receive financial aid because I haven’t been admitted to any program for the fall.

Huh? Yeah, basically, I took one undergraduate class under my maiden name, and so I’m in the student system with that name. When my FAFSA came in, they went looking for my SSN and found it—under my maiden name. But I was admitted to In-State Law School under my married name.

So, somehow, all these systems can’t talk to each other and see that I, with the same SSN and campus electronic identity but two last names, am really one person, and just merge all my data. I’m not going to be attending In-State Law school, but I would like to know how much aid I might get from them. So I have to take my marriage certificate (or a certified copy) all the way to campus, to the Registrar’s Office (and this is a HUGE pain because there is no parking anywhere near there) and have them change my name in the student system.

This, even though I’ve changed my name in the EMPLOYEE system. But even those two databases apparently don’t talk to each other.

Seriously? Totally annoying.

I got a preliminary financial aid package from one of my schools today. As expected, it consisted entirely of loans. Mind you, it included the maximum subsidized Stafford loan as well as a hefty chunk of “need-based” loans (which appear to have a more favorable interest rate), but it’s still all loans.

Granted, it’s nothing I wasn’t preparing myself for. Of course, Mr. Angst and I chatted briefly about it, and he mentioned that he’s pretty sure his entire program will only cost about what one year’s tuition will cost for me. That makes my stomach kind of hurt, but it also makes the debt spreadsheet (yes, I have a projected debt spreadsheet) look a little less ominous.

Still, thinking about all of it makes my stomach hurt again.

I guess I’m a little spoiled—my undergraduate student loans were small, mostly because I worked hard and got scholarships, and also because my family had some bad financial times right when I was going in. Doesn’t seem like the same rules apply in law school—my financial situation next year will be much worse than my parents’ was when I was a freshman in college, but it seems I still won’t get any grants. Also, it doesn’t appear that law schools convert loans to grants for good grades. Man, I was really lucky in college.

Look, I know most law students must be taking out loans for all this education. What I really want to know is how you can make the nausea go away? If you’re a law student or a recent graduate, tell me how you manage. Do you still make enough money to eat and live and have an occasional good time and buy work-appropriate clothes after the big chunk of change comes flying out of your bank account at the beginning of the month?

Anyone out there want to tell me how they do it?

Mr. Angst called me this morning to report that his SAR (that’s “Student Aid Report”) had flagged a particular item on his FAFSA—specifically, the item where he reported that there would be 2 persons in our household in college next year. Right under the item where he reported that there are 2 persons in our household total. (Never mind that the phrase “in college” is, in itself, incorrect.)

I checked my own SAR and, sure enough, the same item was flagged.

Now, as this information is correct, we were both a bit confused. He was more agitated than I—this is his first experience with the FAFSA. And as I looked for information on the FAFSA website, I got a little nervous myself. They say they flag information that is “inconsistent” with other parts of your application.

I couldn’t figure out how this information could be inconsistent with anything else, so I called. I actually talked to a person! And you know what she told me?

“Oh, no, don’t worry about it. It’s fine.”

This doesn’t inspire a great deal of confidence in the FAFSA folks. Maybe they just can’t comprehend that two people—married, independent people—would be going to school at the same time. I admit it, it’s a little insane, but it can’t be that unusual. Can it?

I “mocked up” our taxes last night so I could finish and submit my FAFSA. In the end, I went with a lot of close estimates because I use TurboTax and didn’t know what numbers were going in what 1040 form lines. Point being, the FAFSA is done and sent. Whew! The taxes are not.

I hate taxes. I used to not mind doing my taxes—I almost always got a little refund. Not a big refund, as that would have pissed me off because who needs to give the government an interest-free loan, but a little one, the kind of refund that could pay for a fancy evening on the town or a new purse.

Not this year, though. Damn marriage penalty. I’m annoyed, angry, and a little worried after my bout with the numbers. We actually owe taxes this year, and it’s all because of the stupid marriage penalty.

Gr.

I’m currently working on my FAFSA, because I’d like to submit it soon. Actually, I’d like to have submitted it two weeks ago, but I won’t go there.

Problem is, we can’t even begin to start our taxes until Mr. Angst’s employers pony up with his W-2s. I’m happy to guesstimate some numbers for the FAFSA, but the FAFSA website does not indicate that estimates are appropriate.

I am pretty certain that Mr. Angst made X number of dollars last year, and that we will have paid X dollars in taxes. These things are not difficult to figure out.

The question is, if I estimate on my FAFSA, how close do I have to be for it not to look bad? If I’m off by $1000 on income, is that going to piss off a financial aid advisor? Likewise, if my estimate of our taxes is lower or higher by a few hundred dollars and I have to fix it later, what impact will that have on my financial aid awards? (Which, by the way, I am pretty certain will be nil. Sucky, but true. I do, however, want those Staffords.)

I hate the FAFSA. A lot.

I’m pleased to note that Northwestern does not require parental information for financial aid.

One out of five ain’t bad. (Actually, it should be two out of six, since UT doesn’t require parental information, either, being a public university. But since I probably won’t be going to UT, it’s almost irrelevant.)

Not only am I expected to pay out the nose for the LSAT, the LSDAS, law school reports, law school application fees, and, of course, transcripts, but I am also now expected to pay for the financial aid service the law schools REQUIRE me to use?

The College Board charges a registration fee plus $18 for each school I want to have my financial information sent to. So, let me get this straight: I’m applying for financial aid, but to do so, I have to shell out money? Isn’t that sort of ridiculous?

This crap is really starting to piss me off.

I mentioned in my last post some of my frustration with the financial aid process for law school.

Big frustration #1: Most law schools that I am applying to require my parents’ income tax information as well as my own and that of my husband.

I am…well, just slightly shy of 30, how about that?…and married. My husband and I own a home. I have been completely and 100% on my own since I graduated from college. I bought my first car without parental help (except that my dad drove me to the dealership and sat with me while I argued with the salesman). I rented my first apartment without parental help. I pay my bills on my own, get into debt and pay it off on my own, and somehow (gasp!) manage not to starve or go without clothing—on my own.

This does not seem to matter to law schools. GW allows you to waive the parental forms if you are over 30, but, again, I am not quite there. Another school has an option which requires you to sign an affidavit that you have not received money or gifts in kind of more than a certain amount from your parents in the last three years. That’s a nice thing, particularly for those who are perhaps estranged from their parents. But I am not estranged from my parents, and my parents are generous. My parents paid for most of my wedding. My parents offer to buy us plane tickets for family events we otherwise would miss. So I wouldn’t be able to sign that affidavit.

All of this is sort of moot, anyway, because even if my parents were helping me out right now by giving me money and supporting me, I still wouldn’t be able to apply for need-based aid from these schools because my parents simply will not fill out the forms. My mother might, if I ask nicely enough. But my father won’t. He didn’t when I was an undergrad, and I guarantee he won’t now.

My frustration with this aspect of law school financial aid knows no boundaries. It’s unfair in so many ways. It prevents students from even applying, whether or not they will actually qualify for aid. See, the fact is that, at least for next year, I probably wouldn’t qualify for any need-based aid anyway, just because of our current income. But I am locked out of even applying for it because my parents will likely refuse to fill out the forms.

A little voice in my head says, “Everyone takes out loans. Everyone pays them off. You can too!” And that’s a nice, reasonable statement. But another voice keeps whispering to me that debt is bad, and that anything I can do to reduce my debt or take on less debt, I must do. Oh, but the Catch-22? I can’t. Because, remember? My parents won’t fill out the forms.

And they shouldn’t have to. I’m sure some people are saying, “Well, just convince them to fill out the forms.” But, see, this is the real problem! That law schools require married, older, self-supporting, self-sufficient adults to petition their parents for their income tax information. It’s wrong! The only purpose to it is to reduce the financial aid applicant pool, and that’s wrong, too. Law schools should come up with some other way to weed out the students whose parents are going to pay for their education and stop requiring those of us whose parents won’t to subsidize someone else’s education at the expense of our own financial solvency.

I’m just getting warmed up here, and if I keep going, I’ll land on the subject of exorbitant law school tuition. I don’t really want to go there right now, so I’ll stop ranting. But good golly, I get hot under the collar over this. It makes me sick to my stomach—with both anger and nerves.

…it’s off to work I go—tomorrow. Two weeks of vacation, and I’m definitely not quite ready to get back in the saddle. Sigh.

We visited some family this weekend, and they are all pretty excited for me getting into GW. Heck, I’m still pretty excited. I’m just really pleased to know that my lower-than-expected LSAT score hasn’t shut me out of schools I actually think I’ll be happy at.

I think the next step is to start my financial aid documents. I have some rather harsh words about law school financial aid (including a very heated rant about some schools’ requiring my parents’ income tax forms), but I won’t throw those out right now. I’m in a pretty good mood, and thinking about all that will just stress me out.

I had my Northwestern interview this morning. I had to drive to a nearby city for it, so I was on the road again. Despite having to travel again so soon after coming back from a week away (and I am sure that sentence could read better, but I don’t feel like working on it), the interview went off pretty much without a hitch. She was very nice and personable and made me feel very comfortable; we talked quite a bit about the environment at Northwestern, which I was starting to think might be too corporate or business-oriented (she disabused me of that notion, so hurrah!). Somewhere in the midst of it all, she told me that she felt I would fit in quite well at Northwestern, that my experience, etc., would make me a good match.

I hope the adcoms feel the same way! I’d be thrilled to get into Northwestern; it would take some of the pressure off of me if we end up going to Chicago for Mr. Angst.

So now I’ve finished everything I needed to do for my top five apps; they’re all just waiting to be read, I guess. I suppose I should get cracking on that Chicago-Kent essay, and maybe send in my American application. I have the week off—theoretically, I have plenty of time to do both. We’ll see how realistic that is, though!

Northwestern’s online status check is finally back up, but the information is moderately incorrect.

For instance, my status shows that my application was received on October 15. This is completely wrong, since I didn’t start work on my apps till the beginning of November.

It also lists me as being complete, but I haven’t had my interview yet. So I can only hope that their system upgrades are causing some glitches. I didn’t go through all the waiting to get my interview set up only to have it not count for squat!

Meanwhile, I haven’t been working on my two additional apps as I promised myself I would this week. I haven’t even been working on my Christmas cards, which I also said I’d get done this week. I’ve been basically lazing about like, well, like a woman on vacation. I can’t really complain. At least I’ve bought 3.5 Christmas presents. A little productivity is better than none.

I should be happy—UT has finally ordered my LSDAS report. However, they have somehow managed to LOSE the copy of my resume that I sent them when I sent my application.

See, I submitted my app electronically via LSAC, but forgot to attach my resume. So I just sent my resume in an envelope with their “race-gender affirmation” letter.

And I guarantee I know what happened. Some $8 an hour employee opened my envelope, saw my affirmation letter and some extra paper, and didn’t know what the extra paper was and probably threw it away.

Now I have to scramble to get a my resume together—by which I mean find the file on my computer that is the CORRECT resume for UT—put it in the mail TODAY before we LEAVE TOWN, and HOPE and PRAY UT gets it this time.

I’d call, but I’m not sure I woulnd’t end up talking to a moron on the phone. Or at the very least, someone who is too excited about their impending Christmas vacation to bother helping me.

Grrrr.

UPDATE: OK, I was a little peeved when I wrote that. I did call, the woman I spoke to was helpful, and informed me that the only stuff that shows on their online information page right away is the stuff they got with my application. Since I sent my resume under separate cover, it’s not yet been associated with my application. She even took my name and will make a note on my file that my resume is around there, somewhere.

When I get back from the holidays, I’ll follow up to make sure all is well.

NOW I can be happy about this! Yay! UT requested my report!!