divine angst

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!!

Two schools that I’ve submitted apps to have not in any way acknowledged their receipt. This makes me nervous, although just a bit. When will they ask for reports? When will they tell me they’ve received my stuff? When when when?

When I applied to college, yea so many years ago, one of my applications was, apparently, never considered. It was very odd. I sent everything in along with my check, and I never heard anything else from that school. I wasn’t particularly interested in that school, so I didn’t fret about it. But law school is a bit different.

For one, I think I’m not really supposed to call these schools to ask about the status of my application. But without calling, I am at the mercy of the schools as far as being informed that my applications have been received. One school got a check from me, so I can always monitor my checking account to see if it’s cleared. The other, though, was paid online when I submitted. They have my money, but I have no way of knowing when they’ll take a look at my application.

I feel sort of helpless, and I don’t like that.

I just sent Northwestern.

I also discovered that I forgot to attach my resumé to one of the apps I sent last night. Oops. I printed it off and stuck it in an envelope, along with a required “attachment” that had to be mailed anyway. Hope that’s not a big deal. I figure as long as they get it, it’ll be fine. I’ll call next week or maybe after Thanksgiving to make sure it got there and is appropriately attached to my file.

And now the worry begins. Thanks to LSAC’s nasty little, “You can never take this back are you sure you want to transmit now?” alert, and my own forgetfulness as stated above, I have begun to fret that I forgot something, put something down wrong, had typos in my resumé, or personal statement or otherwise did something totally boneheaded that will get my application sent to the circular file without a second glance.

If this is what waiting is like, I can do without it. Thankfully (?) I have in-laws coming for a full week to keep my mind off of it all. And Mr. Angst informed me that I will be captain of the kitchen at Thanksgiving and Mrs. Angst-in-law will not try to take charge. I.e., I, who have never cooked a full Thanksgiving meal all by myself, will be doing so this week. Oh, I’ll have Mrs. Angst-in-law and my own mother to help. But the cooking will all be mine, right down to the pastry shells and giblet gravy. God help me!

I sucked it up and submitted my four of my top five apps last night, figuring they’d all get at least my first two letters right away, and the last one whenever it arrived.

It arrived at LSAC this morning. That means I can go ahead and apply to Northwestern, which doesn’t take updated reports from LSAC so I didn’t apply last night because I wanted to wait and make sure that they got ALL my letters since I REALLY would like to get into Northwestern.

So in a few minutes, perhaps, I will run upstairs to the PC and apply (I’m at home this morning) to Northwestern, thus sending off into the ether my top five apps.

Wow. It all happened so fast, and before Thanksgiving, just like I wanted it to!

I do, by the way, have other apps. Those will need to wait for the next pay period (and perhaps some early Christmas money…).

LSAC has processed my SECOND letter of rec, which was sent on Wednesday of last week!

I am giddy with excitement.

My first-sent letter of recommendation was received and processed this morning! If this trend continues, the second should be received and processed tomorrow, and the third on Monday or Tuesday.

You know what this means? I no longer have any excuse whatsoever for not submitting my applications.

I’m beginning to feel like a total slacker. At home in the evenings, or over the weekend, I feel there’s something I should doing that I’m not, but I can’t quite put my finger on it. And then I remember—my law school applications.

They are, for the most part, done. This is a good thing. I am holding out on several of them because they don’t require letters of recommendation, and I don’t want my LSAC reports to be sent without letters because then they won’t consider my letters when they consider my app. That would be a bad thing.

But there are other apps that require letters, and on which I’ve had to name my letter writers. So there’s no real reason for me not to send those in. Except that I have been slacking. I need to sit down, print those apps out, proof them, correct them if necessary, and go ahead and transmit them. But I haven’t.

There’s a little voice in my head—the one trained to make these kinds of comments by growing up with my psychologist mom—that says my slacking is because I don’t really want to go to law school. The problem with that voice is that it’s purely reactionary and knows nothing at all about real motives. It’s the same voice that wants to excuse me for saying hurtful things by saying, “You can’t make anyone feel anything they don’t already feel.” In other words, that little voice only knows the jargon.

I do want to go to law school. But I’m in a spot now where I am really having to deal with some of those tough questions I didn’t want to think about back in August. Like, since my LSAT wasn’t as high as I hoped, I will have a tougher time getting into the schools in Chicago that I want to go to; but remember, Mr. Angst is also applying to graduate school. So, what happens if I get into only my Chicago safety, and the only school he gets into is in Chicago? Then we both end up in Chicago, in schools we maybe aren’t thrilled with.

That kind of silly problem is plaguing me. It’s silly because it’s completely unknown and unknowable and worrying about it right now is purely a waste of energy.

What I need to do is shove all distractions aside and transmit some of my apps RIGHT NOW. OK, not right now, since I’m on a Mac and have to wait till I get home to use the PC. But today. And here comes that little voice again, sounding so reasonable, saying, “But you have to finish that drywall repair, and go to the Home Depot to pick up spackle and paint and a closet rod and brackets. And then you need to spackle and paint so you can hang that closet rod tomorrow.” And I think, well, alright, I can put it off for another day; but tomorrow we have to hang the rod, then move our clothes back to our closet. And Wednesday I have choir, and Thursday we need to straighten up for the cleaning lady coming on Friday—as well as Mr. Angst’s parents. And then we’ll have family staying with us until Sunday after Thanksgiving.

The little voice is trying to convince me to wait; then I can blame any dings on my own stupid procrastination instead of on whatever reality gets me dinged—whether it be numbers or background or just not fitting what the adcoms want.

So I’ll try and put the little voice on mute. Tonight, while my lovely chicken braises in the oven, I’ll print out those three or so apps that need to get sent RIGHT NOW, and work on them until it’s time to go to Home Depot. And then, I will send them. So there.

My last letter, the one written by my current boss, will be sent out tomorrow. (I didn’t even have to remind him of the deadline! He’s good…)

So now I can stop fretting about whether or not the letters will be sent and start tearing my hair out over how long I know LSAC is going to take to process them.

I have until, approximately, November 26 to continue to work on my apps through LSAC on the Web. This is because, stupidly, you can only access the online system for 30 days after registering for it. I don’t really understand that system. What I think will probably happen in my case is that I will end up transmitting electronically four or five of my apps; I’ll print the others and send them by mail. Sigh. I wonder if it wouldn’t be quicker, in some ways, for me to just send them all by mail.

Another letter writer has informed me, ever so graciously, that her recommendation is IN THE MAIL!

All these people, beating my deadline! It’s marvelous!

My #1 letter writer just emailed me to say….he’s done! It will go out in the mail tomorrow!

Please, gods of LSAC, be good to me and process it QUICKLY!

Sigh. I feel a great weight has been lifted from my shoulders.

Well, my apps are pretty much ready to go, except my resumé is not quite done. I am missing one little bitty piece of information that I really do want to include—it’s just a small detail that I can’t quite remember—and I have to wait for a reply to an email I sent before I’ll have that info.

Meh.

If (oh hope, oh hope) I get that email tomorrow, I can get some of my apps sent out before the weekend. That means I’ll be able to relax and enjoy myself. We have a houseguest coming and there’s a football game, and it’s finally football weather…I can’t wait for it to be the weekend!!!

All of my recommenders now have the same deadline. Next Friday, November 12. I hear rumors on the evil boards that LSAC has been taking WEEKS to process letters. I hope this will not be the case for mine. Theoretically, they’ll all arrive at the same time, since they’re all coming from the same city, and I won’t have to worry about which letters get sent to schools first or second or third.

Meanwhile, I obviously did NO work on my apps on Tuesday night. Not only was it election night, but Mr. Angst also skipped class that night, so we spent some rare weeknight time together. A much better way to spend the evening than hunched over a monitor, I’ll tell you what.

But tonight…well, tonight I’m pretty sure he won’t skip class again. That will leave me with a choice between watching Joey (snort) or doing some actual work. I think I’ll polish up my apps and try to send off my top choices.

It’ll feel good to actually be a law school applicant. Right now, I kind of feel like I did in ninth grade when I had told everyone in eight grade we were moving to another city, and then we didn’t and I showed up on that first day of high school and everyone looked at me like I’d just been telling tales and hadn’t followed through. (Not like fourteen-year-old me could have followed through on such a thing, but, hey, fourteen-year olds aren’t always rational.)

After realizing I needed my exact class rank, and realizing that it was not noted on my transcript, I had to have my alma mater send me that information. It arrived last night.

I am pleased to say that my rank, percentage-wise, was better than I had thought, though the actual number was one (1) place lower. In other words, I almost had it right. (This is pretty good, considering I calculated my rank based solely on how many other people received a certain GPA distinction in my class, and put myself at the bottom of that number.)

So tonight I think I’ll go back in and polish up those applications, tweak the information where necessary, and perhaps (!) send off my top choice apps. No reason not to, right? Still need to check that letter of recommendation thing, to make sure I can put a “hold” on letters that I don’t want to have sent first.

I began my apps last night, using LSACD on the Web.

After tinkering with two computers, one server, a laptop, and adding me
as an administrator to most of those machines, I could finally use the
damn web application. Stupid Service Pack 2! Stupid Windows! Stupid
LSAC, making us use stupid Windows!

The funniest thing is that the problems were caused not by our lack of
computer savvy, but because of our over-abundance of it. Between the
two of us, we have mastery of three operating systems and working
knowledge of another two and regularly do things with our machines that
make our friends say, “Wha?” We’d have been better off if we were a
little more ignorant.

I think LSACD on the Web is sort of indicative of the relationship
between law and technology in general. It looks and smells like you
need some technical know-how to use it, but when you investigate, you
find that you need to start with the lowest common denominator or none
of the directions will work. In other words, if I had just added
another user to the original machine, instead of trying to log in
remotely with my domain identity, all would have been well. Sigh.
Live and learn.

The applications aren’t difficult, at least. There are some things
that are annoying–high school GPA, for instance. I’m putting mine
down in the 100-point scale, because I have no clue what it would be on
a 4.0 scale and I’m not sure my high school will tell me. Also–class
rank in college? I have no clue. I know the general percentage. I
wish I’d known I would need that information when I was up there last
weekend. I had the foresight to get a copy of my transcript, and my
exact major GPAs. But class rank? Of course I wouldn’t ask for that.
Phbbt.

And then there’s the way you’re supposed to select your major for the
common information stuff. I had two, so I just used “Other” and filled
in my majors, using a handy / (slash) between them. This despite LSAC
saying how important it is to use the standard abbreviations, so the
schools can properly download the data. I think many of their
instructions are just filler, to make people who frequent the boards
happy. I avoid directions, because if you have to read the manual,
it’s probably not good design, right?

Sigh. I think I might have to unlearn that prejudice.

So this is how my plan goes:

On Monday (by which I will, presumably, have my LSAT score), I will purchase LSACD on the Web. I will install it on my husband’s computer, the one with the really excellent big monitor that sits at the desk with the really cushy chair. I will begin filling out my applications.

Meanwhile, I will give my main letter-writer his requested packet of information about me. I may get that to him today or tomorrow, but if it has to wait till Monday, that’s not a big deal. He will need my LSAT score anyway.

Hopefully, by the end of next week, my portion of my applications will be completed. I will send them in as money allows—and as I complete any additional essays they require.

With this plan, I will have turned in all of my apps by the first week of November, and they will be complete as my recommendation letters are sent in. My deadline to my letter-writers is November 12. So my apps will be complete by Thanksgiving.

Now I just have to figure out if I can afford to drop $1K on application fees.

Here’s my question:

Is the LSACD on the Web worth the money and the hassle?

The cost is $54, which isn’t high and I can afford it. But it only works on PCs, and I have a Mac at work and a Mac at home. I do not have VirtualPC. But we also have PCs at home—three at last count, plus a laptop. So I could work on my apps at home on one of those machines. But that’s inconvenient to me and to my husband, who is usually on at least two of those machines in the evening.

Those of you who’ve used the service, how much time would you say it saved you? What information ends up being universal? How much other information did you have to fill in for each individual application?

Because if the only things that carry over across the board are the basics, like name, address, and phone, it’s probably not worth the money OR hassle for me since I’ll have to fill in all the other information for each application anyway—and I’d have to do this on a PC. Most of the schools I’m applying to have electronic applications, so it’s not like I’m filling in anything by hand.

Tell me what you think.

Hooray! LSAC has received the missing transcript! Cause for great celebration and rejoicing.

Update: It looks like Janine knows why: blogs are magic.

I have been religiously checking my LSDAS status online lately, since I (finally) requested transcripts from two schools I attended post-bachelor’s. My academic summary won’t be complete until these transcripts are received and processed, and I am eager to have that part of LSDAS out of the way.

I ordered these two transcripts on the same day—September 22. One of them has been received and processed. The other hasn’t even been received. So I called that school this morning, since my check has cleared and they obviously have to have done something about the transcript.

Yes, they say, we sent it, to the address on the transcript request form, and we sent it on the 22nd.

But, then, why has LSAC not received it yet? What is the delay? This is holding up things, at least partially because, when I signed up for LSDAS, I listed the courses taken at these two schools as “undergraduate” because they were undergraduate level. Apparently, LSAC counts them as “graduate” because they were completed post-bachelor’s degree.

So my little mistake is what is really holding up my academic summary—if LSAC knew the courses were post-bachelor’s, they would have created my academic summary already, and I wouldn’t be worried about what will happen if they don’t receive this transcript before I am ready to start sending applications.

Argh. All signs point to me having to write another check, fill out another transcript request form, and this time pay for FedExing so I know the thing will be received. I suspect the original transcript was sent to the wrong address or something similar, and just hasn’t been returned yet.

LSAC has received my undergraduate transcript, but it has not processed it. This is unnerving and annoying.