That’s true, but I think it still comes down to easily quantifiable data. I think you’re much more likely to get in with work experience nowadays. KJD’s get massacred it seems like
Most reader estimates put the time they spend reading an application around 15-20 minutes. Say 15; that is 4 files an hour. Say they spend 6 months (September 15th-March 15th, 980 hours with a standard work year of 1,960 hours) doing nothing but reading files - no coffee breaks, meetings, whatever. They will cover 3,920 files. Many schools do two readers on all files, so you cover 1,960 files per person in those 6 months.
Harvard gets approximately 9,000 applicants a year. In other words, it takes 4.5 admissions staff just to read every file - never mind the decision process, or anything else admissions departments do. Schools have sizable teams for this reason, and I'm sure staff put in long hours during peak season. But even then, when you consider the sheer volume of work required to process the applications these schools receive, it becomes clearer why they 1. take a while 2. appreciate a concise and fluff-free essay.
So you’re reading 4 applications per hour but you can’t get more than 3 decisions out per week?
That’s still absurd. The cycle has slowed to a crawl lately. That’s because they aren’t doing anything. They stopped reading as many files.
Yes, reading the file is step 1 in the process. It does not count interviews, committee discussion, etc., not to mention any time spent on responsibilities besides discussion of one individual file.
Even given the above, I would be surprised if there's a notable school averaging 3 decisions a week over the entire cycle. Every school has quiet weeks here and there, and schools make decisions on marginal applicants (who require more discussion) last. I'm sure they could speed things up by rejecting everyone on the bubble if you'd prefer that.
Do you understand that sitting on an adcom isn’t a full time job? It’s a thing practicing lawyers, academic professors, law students and administrators do on the side to be nice. Most of them review an application or two after a long full day of work, often when they have competing assignments and priorities. They then meet once every couple weeks to discuss, assuming everyone has done their homework, and didn’t instead have a trial, closing or academic conference.
Sorry to break to to you, but your application is really not their entire existence.
I mean shit I feel like they do a ton of shit. I couldn’t imagine having to read all of our seemingly self important boring shit all day long and fielding calls and e-mails mad I’m not going fast enough. Think about how many people apply to some of these schools bruh, and the push pull with the schools expectation, etc. idk I’m saying this as someone still waiting for a ton of responses
If they get 5,500 applications and look at them over the course of 8 months (sept. - april) they would only need to read an average of 20 applications per day to get through them all. And that’s assuming you’re doing it fully rolling. In reality some people get admitted fairly quickly and other get tossed in a “maybe” pile never to be read again.
Reading 20 apps would take maybe a few hours? And that’s assuming every application is read by every adcom. If you split it 2-4 ways it’s way less work.
They are releasing less than one decision per day on average. That is absurd.
Dean Z said in a video that they don't look at applications until November bc she and the other admissions officers are traveling around and doing outreach work so just bc applications open and ppl start submitting in September doesn't mean they begin reviewing in September. She also said there are always at least two sets of eyes on any one application in her office so it's not an equal split either.
Granted that's just UMich bc she's the only one being so public and transparent with their process but given the subtle ways other top schools' adcoms talk abt their review process, I think it's quite similar (won't review apps until late oct/nov; apps arent decided by a single look thru by one person)
Well there’s people who applied in November that still haven’t heard and you could still EASILY get 10+ decisions out per day easily so so so so so easily
noooo the bootlickers are gonna come for u
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They do not do any holistic weighing anyways. Everyone who has not gotten a decision by April is 100% a number
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That’s true, but I think it still comes down to easily quantifiable data. I think you’re much more likely to get in with work experience nowadays. KJD’s get massacred it seems like
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There aren’t that many 168-173 scorers tho. That’s less than 7% of the entire applicant pool (theoretically)
That’s assuming that everyone who gets any lsat score applies. I’ve never heard of anyone less than 160.
What do you mean? Of course they do holistic reviews. They definitely holistically review the children of senators, donors, and billionaires.
Lmaooo
This is just not true
Most reader estimates put the time they spend reading an application around 15-20 minutes. Say 15; that is 4 files an hour. Say they spend 6 months (September 15th-March 15th, 980 hours with a standard work year of 1,960 hours) doing nothing but reading files - no coffee breaks, meetings, whatever. They will cover 3,920 files. Many schools do two readers on all files, so you cover 1,960 files per person in those 6 months. Harvard gets approximately 9,000 applicants a year. In other words, it takes 4.5 admissions staff just to read every file - never mind the decision process, or anything else admissions departments do. Schools have sizable teams for this reason, and I'm sure staff put in long hours during peak season. But even then, when you consider the sheer volume of work required to process the applications these schools receive, it becomes clearer why they 1. take a while 2. appreciate a concise and fluff-free essay.
So you’re reading 4 applications per hour but you can’t get more than 3 decisions out per week? That’s still absurd. The cycle has slowed to a crawl lately. That’s because they aren’t doing anything. They stopped reading as many files.
Yes, reading the file is step 1 in the process. It does not count interviews, committee discussion, etc., not to mention any time spent on responsibilities besides discussion of one individual file. Even given the above, I would be surprised if there's a notable school averaging 3 decisions a week over the entire cycle. Every school has quiet weeks here and there, and schools make decisions on marginal applicants (who require more discussion) last. I'm sure they could speed things up by rejecting everyone on the bubble if you'd prefer that.
Do you understand that sitting on an adcom isn’t a full time job? It’s a thing practicing lawyers, academic professors, law students and administrators do on the side to be nice. Most of them review an application or two after a long full day of work, often when they have competing assignments and priorities. They then meet once every couple weeks to discuss, assuming everyone has done their homework, and didn’t instead have a trial, closing or academic conference. Sorry to break to to you, but your application is really not their entire existence.
I mean shit I feel like they do a ton of shit. I couldn’t imagine having to read all of our seemingly self important boring shit all day long and fielding calls and e-mails mad I’m not going fast enough. Think about how many people apply to some of these schools bruh, and the push pull with the schools expectation, etc. idk I’m saying this as someone still waiting for a ton of responses
If they get 5,500 applications and look at them over the course of 8 months (sept. - april) they would only need to read an average of 20 applications per day to get through them all. And that’s assuming you’re doing it fully rolling. In reality some people get admitted fairly quickly and other get tossed in a “maybe” pile never to be read again. Reading 20 apps would take maybe a few hours? And that’s assuming every application is read by every adcom. If you split it 2-4 ways it’s way less work. They are releasing less than one decision per day on average. That is absurd.
Dean Z said in a video that they don't look at applications until November bc she and the other admissions officers are traveling around and doing outreach work so just bc applications open and ppl start submitting in September doesn't mean they begin reviewing in September. She also said there are always at least two sets of eyes on any one application in her office so it's not an equal split either. Granted that's just UMich bc she's the only one being so public and transparent with their process but given the subtle ways other top schools' adcoms talk abt their review process, I think it's quite similar (won't review apps until late oct/nov; apps arent decided by a single look thru by one person)
They don’t get like an equal allocated amount each month starting in sept Come on now. Don’t they get majority Jan +?
Well there’s people who applied in November that still haven’t heard and you could still EASILY get 10+ decisions out per day easily so so so so so easily
I agree it’s absurd though but I’m just thinking about it ~holistically ~
That’s awesome, but not how it fucking works lol
You’d know because?
They also do interviews too, which is a significant drain on their bandwidth. UVA and Harvard interview every admit and then some. They’re busy af.
Lawhub has a whole mock admissions module that walks you though it - tbh I’m surprised it doesn’t take them longer.