Once you’ve submitted your law school applications and celebrated your achievements, there may be a variety of reasons to contact the schools. Before doing so, make sure to analyze whether the reason supports your candidacy.
Calling or emailing just to put your mind at ease, for example, is not in your best interest. Any post-submission anxiety is understandable, considering the stakes and the amount of time and effort you invested in your applications. However, outreach in the vein of “just checking” will do nothing to speed up the admissions decision and may be off-putting and potentially damaging to your candidacy.
Here are five compelling scenarios that would justify contacting law schools after you have submitted your applications.
[Don’t make these mistakes that can keep you out of law school.]
1. Legitimate questions: After you submit your applications, you may have procedural or technical questions.
Perhaps you wish to submit an addendum but do not see an option to upload it on the school’s platform. Maybe you wish to send a letter of continued interest and want to understand the mechanics, such as addressee and proper sending mode.
Questions of this nature are legitimate, and you should feel free to ask them. The caveats here are to make sure you do your due diligence first to see if you can find the answer yourself. Then, consolidate your questions into one call or email, rather than bombarding the school with separate inquiries.
2. Campus visit: If you wish to visit a school to which you’ve applied, you can certainly let the staff know. The mere fact that you are visiting will likely be included in your file, which could have a positive impact on how your application is read.
Your outreach to a school about your plans to visit signifies that your interest is real and worthy of this type of investment of time and money.
Also, if you advise a school that you will be visiting, the school has the opportunity to have a decision-maker meet with you, which could be tremendously valuable. There’s no downside to telling a school you’ve applied to that you want to visit.
[Look for these things during a law school visit.]
3. Application update: Another compelling reason to contact schools is having a meaningful update to share.
Say, for example, you have improved your GPA, have a new part-time job, secured a new internship in which you’ve developed relevant skills, published a research paper or received an award or honor. These types of updates would justify informing the schools to which you’ve applied.
Ask yourself if the news you intend to report is something you would have included in your original application to support your candidacy. If the answer is yes, then let your schools know.
Exercise judgment, however. Telling them you designed your first webpage, for example, is neither a relevant nor a meaningful enough update to justify a post-submission call or email.
4. Letter of continued interest: If you are wait-listed at a school and remain eager to attend, it is useful to write a letter of continued interest after applying to strengthen your candidacy.
In addition to any formal process required to inform the school you wish to remain on the waitlist, a letter is a more personal and substantive overture indicating your intent to stay on the waitlist and your continued commitment to attending that school.
Such a letter should typically contain a gesture of gratitude for consideration of your candidacy; an expression of interest in attending the school, including noting if the school is your first choice; substantive updates to your application; and an offer to provide additional information in support of your candidacy, such as an additional letter of recommendation.
Keep your letter brief, do not press to be admitted off the waitlist or for information about when final decisions will be made, and aim to send the letter within a few weeks of being notified you’ve been wait-listed.
You can send more than one letter, but only in the event of new information to share. Even in that case, you should not be communicating with the admissions office more than once a month.
[Understand the anatomy of a law school letter of continued interest.]
5. Scholarship negotiation: Another good reason to get in touch with law schools after application submission is for the purpose of negotiating scholarship funds. A letter of continued interest is an effective way for applicants to reach out to admissions committees to begin the negotiation process.
This type of letter should contain the components mentioned above but should also include some of your admissions results. You don’t need to include or discuss every admissions offer or scholarship award; rather, focus on the schools you are most interested in.
Your primary goal in this initial letter is to determine whether you qualify for additional funding, so be strategic about what information you share regarding other offers. You will need to persuade admissions committees that you remain enthusiastic about the particular school, which will make them more likely to negotiate funding with you.
This letter could be the beginning of a conversation around funding, and back-and-forth communications may ensue.
If you intend to communicate with law schools after submitting applications, be sure to think about why and assess whether the reason is compelling.
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5 Reasons to Contact Law Schools After Applying originally appeared on usnews.com
