Welcome to my first blog. I am excited to have the opportunity to share a bit more about the admissions process with you and to let you know about what’s happening in general at NUSL. Feel free to post comments and start conversations with me or others who post comments.

For those of you who applied Early Action, rest assured that we have started to read your applications and will mail all decisions on or before January 15th. It’s such a pleasure to read your applications – you are such a diverse and interesting group of people. I have to say that you remind me why I love what I do – you all inspire me. I wish I could admit everyone!

If you are interested in public interest law, I hope you were able to get your application for the Public Interest Law Scholarship in this week. It’s a great opportunity to gain both recognition for your social justice work and some financial assistance as you obtain your law degree. The deadline for the scholarship application is January 2nd.

Finally, my thoughts are with the people of Kenya and Pakistan after this week of intense violence in these two countries. I have always been proud to be part of a law school that tries to make a difference in the world. Somehow it matters even more in the face of the news coming out of these countries.

Take care and stay in touch!

It’s been a very busy week in our office! We continue to read the Early Action files so that all decisions will be mailed by January 15th as promised. There’s a lot of applications and we like to take our time with each one – so it has been a jam-packed week of reading. We’re all very tired but we’ve been inspired by your experiences, passion and goals.

We’ve also had lots of visitors to the law school because many of you are on break for the holiday. It’s always great to see people take the time to do this. Visiting the law school really helps you understand our culture. I often have applicants tell me that they have such a better understanding of who we are and what makes us different once they come here. I also love to hear when they’ve had a great time meeting the people in our community – the common phrase is, “everyone is so friendly here!�

So if you can fit it into your schedule, come for a visit – we’d love to have you. You can find out more by going to http://www.slaw.neu.edu/admiss/visit.htm

On another note, can you believe the election season is starting? We’ve all been discussing the candidates and agree we have a lot of homework to do to find out all we can about them and their positions on important issues. Just today one of our staff members, Jennifer, sent us a bunch of different op-ed pieces and articles about candidates. I, for one, can’t stop listening to NPR! It’s a lot of fun and interesting to chat about what’s going on. I hope you’re doing the same.

Take care and I look forward to sending you another blog soon.

It’s been a while since I’ve written something here. We hit the March 1st application deadline and we’ve been working very hard to read and make decisions on applications as quickly as we can. Time just got away from me in the midst of all the reading!

About the application process…
As you might remember from my first blog, there are a number of applications we hold until we can see what the entire applicant pool looks like. So, not only are we reading new applications, we’re also re-reviewing our held applications. We care deeply about the time and effort you took to apply and want to make sure we’re being as fair as we can in the admission process. We also know how difficult it is to wait and we are doing our best to give applications a thorough review while also letting you know our decision by mid-April.

I know some of you have expressed concerns about the deposit deadlines for other schools. Unlike undergraduate admissions, where most schools have a May 1st deposit deadline, law schools have a variety of deadlines. There are four different deadlines law schools might follow – April 1, April 15, May 1, May 15. Northeastern follows a May 1 deposit deadline. If you applied to a school that has an April 1 or 15 deposit deadline, you should be able to get an extension on this deadline if you haven’t heard from all of your schools. This is particularly true if you are waiting for financial aid information from other schools.

I find the variety of deadlines very confusing but law schools are not willing to change this in the near future as far as I can tell. We do our best to get all of our decisions out before our final decision deadline of April 15th so that you know as early as possible your choices in law schools. We know you’re anxiously waiting to hear – so I hope this explanation helps you understand what is happening and what to expect.

One final note – we have had an increase in applications this year (about 200 more applications than last year) which is great but also means there are more applications to read. We aren't only looking at LSAT and GPA numbers (although they are important) but the volume of applications does have some impact on the competition. This is why we work so hard to get to know you through your application, and all of the work you put into helping us get to know you better is much appreciated.