Their Decision
- Acceptance – You have been accepted. You should have a priority list prepared before you begin to receive notifications. If you receive an acceptance from your first choice, you should make the deposit and inform the other schools you no longer wish to be considered. If you receive an acceptance from the school ranked third, you need to decide what to do about your first and second choices, but you can inform the lower ones that you no longer want to be considered for a position in their incoming class.
- Hold – You have been neither rejected nor admitted, but the decision is pending. The school may be waiting for more information from you, such as grades from your final quarter, or may want to see the applications yet to be submitted before making a final decision on yours. A "Hold" will ultimately be followed by an acceptance or a rejection Waiting List – You have not been rejected, but instead have been placed on a waiting list to be used in case all those who have been accepted do not attend. In general, it is unwise to be too optimistic unless you have some indication that the list is in order of priority and that you are at the top of the waiting list. Since there are no guarantees, you should probably put down a deposit at a school that has accepted you and that you would like to attend if you receive no more acceptances.
- Rejection – You have not been accepted to that law school.
Your Decision
As you rank order the schools and receive acceptances rate each school for each factor with a number (1 being the lowest and 5 being the highest), and then determine which school has the highest total points. However, the chart is "over-standardized," because each factor has an equal opportunity to receive the range of scores. You might want to pick a single most important factor (i.e. "Opportunity for part-time employment) and weight that factor by giving "bonus" points. Add comments under categories to highlight the qualitative aspects involved. No decision should be considered final until you have visited the school and gained a sense of the atmosphere or character of the school through conversations with admissions representatives, students, and faculty.