Wednesday, March 23, 2011

E & E Arrived, not much else, though...

As of today, no acceptance from CWRU, and no scholarship from UT.  However, I did get my Examples and Explanations:  The Law of Torts, Fourth Edition by Joseph W. Glannon.  This will give me something to do while I wait. 

I also got an application packet from Texas Wesleyan Law.  I have a soft spot in my heart for Wesleyan since I attended there as an undergrad.  I didn't get my degree, but I did get a full-ride, which saved me a small fortune.  Looking back, I should have gone to University of North Texas, where they would have accepted 36 CLEP hours towards my bachelor's.  TWU gave me 3. 

Don't ask me why I thought not-paying UNT's $400 a semester tuition somehow was worth going to school for an entire extra year (which turned out to be 3 extra years... long story).  That's not TWU's fault.  Nor is it their fault I didn't graduate.  I still feel indebted to them.

They mentioned their scholarships and gave me some stats on their entering class.  Their stats looked remarkably similar to University of Toledo's.  If my circumstances were different, I'd love to go there.

The acceptance letter mentioned that they saw my LSAT score.  They congratulated me on having put in a lot of work to get a good score.  Unfortunately, the opposite is really true.  I half-assed my preparation and ended up with a score that's considerably below my potential.

This is re-opening my dilemma of whether to reserve my spot at University of Toledo, or to let the spot expire.  I can take the June LSAT and if I get the score I think I'm capable of, I am pretty sure I can go.  Without a higher LSAT, I'm afraid my chances of a scholarship are basically doomed. 

With even a slightly higher LSAT, I would qualify for a full-ride at Cooley.  I honestly don't think that's such a bad thing, but I've had an attorney friend advise me not to go there at all.  I dunno, if I'm not going to someplace 2nd tier or better, I honestly don't see how where I go really matters at all.  I have heard that Cooley is a brutal law school to attend.  It sounds like they admit pretty much anybody.  However, they sound far more difficult than other schools to finish. 

Could be that you have to teach yourself the law there, I dunno.  Hard to put my finger on what, exactly is wrong with them.  Personally, I think if you can get a law degree that doesn't cost you anything, and you can pass the bar and practice law, that's good enough.

Who needs $100,000 in debt if you can avoid it?  I'm trying to see how a Toledo law degree is worth $60,000 more than a Cooley degree, but for the life of me, I can't answer that question.

At this point, I am leaning back towards not reserving my seat at Toledo.  I would then re-take the June LSAT and apply to both Cooley and Toledo when the results come in.  Toledo may not think a 159 LSAT is going to help them, which gives them no incentive to award a scholarship.  However, a 170+ may be a different story.

The ultimately worst-case scenario is that Toledo doesn't give me a scholarship and I miss out on joining the class of 2014 and join the class of 2015, instead.  I feel some urgency about this since my business looks like its dying, but really, waiting a year may be undesireable, but it's not that big of a deal.

Now that I have this E & E to work through, I know my workout routines will become sensationally regular.  Whenever faced with an unpleasant task, I generally try to procrastinate by doing all the slightly less unpleasant tasks I can, first.  So, it'll take me a long time to finish the E&E, but on the bright side, my house will be spotless and I'll have six-pack abs.

Okay, just finished the first chapter of the torts book.  These things aren't bad at all.  The reading is actually interesting.  It's teaching good concepts, but it's not overly specific on memorizing cases or anything like that.  This, I would guess, is the macro-level view. 

There are 29 chapters in the book, so if you did a chapter a day, this would take a month.  It didn't take very long at all.  If you focused solely on it, it wouldn't be unreasonable to knock out the entire book in a weekend.  I see no reason why you couldn't burn through all the E&Es for your semester before the semester began. 

Now, though, I want to know two things: 

1.  How to outline.
2.  How to take exams.

I need the LEEWS course. 

I just ordered a logic section prep book. 

I'm travelling out of town this weekend.  I think I can finish this E & E in airports and on airplanes this weekend.  The logic games book should arrive next week.  I'll order LEEWS and get moving on it.  I also need to register for the June LSAT.  I'll wait until the seat-deposit deadline to make sure I don't get a scholarship, first.  If I do, I may not re-take the LSAT.

So, I'm preparing for my first semester, but at the same time, I'm getting ready to reload, re-test and re-apply.

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