Please interview me?

Well folks, I applied for the Gates Scholarship and will be hearing from them on March 16th as to whether I get an interview or not. I really want an interview!!! Seeing as I headline this here blog, I'm going to tell you why.

First of all, this is one of the most amazing opportunities offered by the University of Washington Law School. On the financial end of things, the scholarship provides for three years of tuition, books, transportation, lodging, and even a stipend for other expenses. It is a full ride scholarship in every sense of the word. However it provides so much more than money!

As a Gates Scholar you become a part of a strong community of professionals dedicated to public service. You have mentors in the law school and in the law community that help you reach your professional goals. They provide financial assistance and placement assistance for an internship during your 1L or 2L summer. The program is constantly putting on programs and seminars that let scholars and the broader community gain insight into Public Service Law and where it stands today. The Gates PSL Program surrounds you with the support that law students could only dream of!

Most importantly, the program would allow me to ultimately follow my dream of becoming a lawyer for underprivileged Indian tribes and individuals. It is the entire reason I am going to law school, and with the assistance of this program I am confident that I can make a huge positive impact on their futures. If I could just get an interview I know I could get that passion across. They require 5 years of public service after law school and I would be so happy to be able to do that and so much more!

Dear Universe,

Please let me get this interview. I will take it from there, unless you want to help of course.

Sincerely,

Me

Cheers!

UW Law School Open House

Well I just got home from the first annual UW Law School Open House for the class of 2013 and I am more excited than ever! The faculty that I met were awesome. The students who spoke to us were full of stories about the opportunities that UW has made available for them. I met a ton of great people, and one in particular who had actually taught on a South Dakota Reservation through the Teach for America program. I am so excited to be surrounded with such interesting and intelligent people. After our little Q&A session we watched the final round of a moot court competition which made law school much more real for me. I could see myself in front of the court presenting the case, and I was confident enough to think I could have done just fine!

The next step in my law school saga is to hear if I was chosen to give an interview for the Gates Public Law Scholarship... fingers crossed.

In other news, I was able to sign up for the evening Spanish class at South Seattle Community College today which means that I am going to graduate! Hooray for me!!!

Cheers!

Native Law Meeting

Today I met with the head of the Native American Law Program at the University of Washington, and I'm soaring on cloud 9! He explained the program and all of the opportunities for their students. The interesting thing is that not much of it is verbalized on their website. They give a few Native American law courses, but not as many as other schools. However he said that there were so many different of aspects of Native American law that students should take business law classes, tax law classes, environmental law classes, property classes, basically everything! They don't have a Native American Law Certificate, but their Environmental Law Certificate includes Native American law? They have a competitive law clinic where students are given the opportunity to actually represent Native clients in the Tulalip Tribal court system. Not to mention all of the research opportunities and work study opportunities. I am so excited to go to Law School! I hope this feeling never goes away...

Cheers!

Exciting Two Days!

Well I have an exciting two days coming up! Tomorrow afternoon I am meeting with the head of the Native American Law Department at UW to talk about the program. My goal is to introduce myself, learn a little about him, and learn about all the wonderful opportunities that I will be able to take part in. He only has a few minutes to talk, but this is my first contact with the law school since my acceptance!

On Friday I get to have a lovely visit with a counselor at South Seattle Community College. I am a University of Washington early entrance, double major, honors student going to a T1 law school next year and I have to go speak to a counselor at a lower end community college about signing up for Spanish 103. It seems like a waste of my time, but oh well! You have to do what you have to do...

After I meet up with Michelle we are going to head to the Admitted Students Open House at UW! I am going to do my best to meet as many people as possible, be confident and conversational, and find out when UW sends out financial aid information. Apparently financial aid is doled out based on your need, and according to my FAFSA my need is "A LOT... Damn you're broke!" I also want to get a sense of where people are planning on living next year...

Man, this week is flying by...

Cheers!

Law School Relationship

Seeing as this past Sunday was Valentines day, I figured I would speak about the idea of having a relationship in law school. I have a wonderful girlfriend who has been with me for almost the last two years. We met while I was playing baseball for the high school that she attended, and we have been loving it up ever since! However, right after we started dating she was accepted to a school that is a few hours away from UW. Now we manage to see each other every week and we talk all the time, so things have gone really well! Being the amazing girl that she is, she was willing to follow me to law school wherever I decided to attend. Now that I am going to UW, she gets to stay where she is. I think that in the long run this will work out best for both of us... She gets to finish her education debt free at a school she loves and I get the extra time I need during the week to be successful in law school.

Really, I don't see how anything is going to change when I start Law School. Although I will be a hell of a lot more busy it will all come down to how I manage my time, and seeing her is worth skipping an hour or two of xbox in the afternoon. It's funny how things always seem to work out for the better in the end!

I'm sure that I will have much more to say after my first year at UW...

Cheers!

Re: Accepted at UW

Now that I have had a few more days to accept the seemingly impossible fact that I will be at UW Law next year, I am more excited than ever. Apparently I wasn't the only one who was surprised because my lawschoolnumbers.com profile became a hot topic on the law school blog @ www.top-law-schools.com. A whole bunch of over confident potential law students were dumbstruck by the fact that I was accepted before them. I love this feeling of victory, and I look forward to the many victories to come.

Seeing as I hadn't even considered UW a possibility after my LSAT, I never took the time to actually gain a deep understanding of their program. They are well known for the credentials of their faculty, and the head of the Native American Law program is very respected in his field. They also offer a few courses in Native American law as well as an opportunity to work for public defenders in Tribal Courts. I have to go sit down and speak with Mr. Anderson, the head of the program, to see about the other opportunities that they allude to on the website.

UW also has a great student to faculty ratio of 11:1, and the new dean says that relationships are easy to build with the faculty. The new law building is absolutely gorgeous, and over the weekend I spent a little time looking around. Sadly, I wasn't able to access the floors with classrooms because they are for students only. It looks like I will have to take a guided tour after all. Apparently the 1L classes are pretty big (as much as 90 students), but during 2L and 3L those class sizes shrink down to 25. I am also a little awestruck with the shiny diamond that is UW Law. They are the highest ranked school in the entire Pacific Northwest, and if I want to practice in Seattle than UW is the place to be. The tuition is also a bargain right now, although that is probably going to change over the next few years.

I want to make sure and get a gift and write a nice thank you letter to the faculty that gave me recommendations, but I don't know what to get them??? I'll ponder and post later.

Cheers!

law.washington.edu

Accepted at UW!!!

My Dad just called with unbelievable news. Now when I say unbelievable, I mean that I still don't believe it's true. I was just accepted at the University of Washington Law School. That's a tier one law school folks. They are one of the top ten public law schools in the country. They are by far the top law school in the Pacific Northwest. According to lawschoolpredictor.com, I was an automatic reject. I never even considered the idea that I would get accepted, and now that I am coming to believe it...

How could I say no?

Cheers!!!

No love today...

Well I didn't hear from the UW law school today, and according to lawschoolnumbers.com nobody else did either. The difference between today and yesterday was that I dealt with the waiting much better... Let me give you (and myself) some advice for dealing with waiting in the future.

Keep yourself as busy as you possibly can. It doesn't need to be productive, but it needs to keep you from thinking about whatever you are waiting for. Today, for example, I was busy from 8:30 until 1:30 with various school things. I came home and was so hungry that I only thought about food, and after overeating I was so full that I took a two hour nap. I woke up and got ready for work, where I discussed religion, politics, and how awesome New Zealand is with another tutor. Now I am waiting at the library for a textbook that I need, so I am filling my time by listening to TBTL (www.tbtl.net) and writing to all of you (I wonder if anyone else reads this?).

In fact, my slate is absolutely 100% full until I get to see my wonderful girlfriend tomorrow! So take that anxiety!!!

Cheers!

P.S. Please let me know my UW fate tomorrow...

Lewis and Clark!

I was accepted today at Lewis and Clark which is pretty exciting. I love its location, and it has a good reputation in the Northwest. Sadly I didn't really like the campus and was a bit turned off by the ultra liberal student body. There wasn't a scholarship offer in the packet and I don't know if one is coming separately, which makes it pretty expensive. We will have to wait and see...

In other news, my dad is letting my girlfriend and I borrow his Honda Element for a Spring Break Law School Road Trip. Whew... quite a mouthful. I need to come up with a catchier name to paint on the side of the car. Maybe I will print up a few t-shirts as well. This means that we can actually camp IN THE CAR! That's right folks. All 5 ft. 11 in. of me can stretch out comfortably in the back.

So far I have 5 acceptances and a waitlist. As for the last three schools I am expecting a rejection from UW (sadly), a waitlist from U. Arizona, and potentially an acceptance from Arizona State? Who knows really...

Cheers!

New Mexico and Gonzaga!

I was accepted at New Mexico and Gonzaga today! Gonzaga gave me a $15,500 scholarship as well. Sadly, in my excitement I figured I would look at how much each law school would cost. It quickly put a damper on my excitement. Then I began looking at what lawyers earn and the hours they work, and it wasn't pretty either. However!!! I am a smart young individual with motivation and passion. With my business degree I will also have a unique skill set that will allow me to work as a lawyer in the business sector and/or eventually open my own legal enterprise!

Still, I cringe at potentially $1500 in student loan payments per month...

Cheers!

In at Oregon!

My Dad called and gave me the play by play as he opened up an acceptance letter from the University of Oregon today. They also gave me a $6000 scholarship that is renewable each year. I am very happy about this acceptance because it means that I now have the choice between Seattle and Oregon. I love that Oregon is close to home without being too close. I love that the law school is beautiful, the campus is beautiful, and it's in a wonderful location for me. I love that it won't be too expensive given the scholarship. I don't like that it doesn't have even the smallest Native American law program, and everyone warns that the job prospects are horrible in Oregon where the only real legal market is Portland. Lewis and Clark Law School is in Portland people!

I'm going to enjoy the feeling of acceptance though, and I pray for many more acceptances to come!

Cheers!

Law School Update

I was in my information systems class yesterday where the professor was lecturing on databases. After discussing the logic necessary to understand databases, he flashed a sample Logic Games question from the LSAT and I got physically sick. My stomach turned in knots and I began sweating as I averted my glance away from his slide. What is wrong with me? I guess the LSAT had a bigger impact on me than I thought...

I was also waitlisted yesterday at the University of Colorado. Now I would love to go to school in Boulder! They have an amazing school, an amazing law program, an amazing Indian Law program, and it's located in one of the most beautiful locations in America. I am going to accept my spot on the waitlist and begin kissing up to them as much as I possibly can without becoming annoying. They truly are at the top of my list of schools to attend... along with the University of Washington and the University of Arizona.

Now what I don't understand is why I haven't heard from some of the schools that are lower on my list. Namely, why hasn't Gonzaga written to me yet? It's not like there are people with great numbers just waiting to knock down the door in Spokane. As an almost business graduate please allow me to give you (Gonzaga) a little advice... If you want great people to go to your school than you need to get your acceptances out really early and throw a whole bunch of money at them. Every acceptance that people get from a better school is yet another potential applicant who rejects you before even hearing from you. What in god's name are you waiting for?!?

Cheers!

The beginning of the end... (of the beginning)

I promised myself that I would write about the untold horrors of waiting to hear from law schools while I was still in the trenches... but I couldn't bring myself to acknowledge the uncertainty. Now, I can joyfully report that I was accepted last Friday to the Seattle University School of Law! Not only is this the first that I have heard from any law school in months, but it was A) an acceptance and B) from a school I am legitimately interested in. Now I can actually plan on attending law school next year, which is such a huge weight off of my shoulders!

However the last few months have been their own sort of hell. I thought that studying for the LSAT would be the hardest part of the application process, or even writing a personal statement that doesn't say "I want to be a lawyer because...". Nope! It's waiting! Everyday for months I have checked my email religiously, hoping for any sort of contact from law schools. Hours have been wasted looking at websites like www.deloggio.com, www.lawschoolnumbers.com, www.top-law-schools.com. Everyday was another day without any confirmation that I was worthy of attending law school. All of the personal confidence that I have built over the last twenty years of life has been questioned. My parents and friends would always begin conversations by asking whether I had heard anything yet. Do they not understand that I want to know 100 times more than they could ever imagine?

I admit that I have allowed myself to fall down this dark hole, and that my overall quality of life has suffered for it. However, I am clawing my way back to health! I have taken a job as a tutor for student athletes at the UW. This is my first real job since Strikezone (batting cage) shut down, and it is a breath of fresh air. The work is positive and the pay is good. I don't quite have the hours that I need, but that will come in time. School is full of busy work in my last quarter at UW, but it helps to keep me focused on school rather than law school. Spring training is quickly approaching (THANK GOD!) and the M's seem like they have put together quite a team for next year. I am working out pretty regularly, and am reading "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" by Stephen Covey. My relationships with my family, friends, and girlfriend are all going well. Money is tight, but I'm getting by and it isn't worrying me too much. I'm supposed to be broke in college... right?

All in all I am absolutely ecstatic to have heard from Seattle University. My top choices are still the University of Washington, the University of Colorado, and the University of Arizona so the waiting game is far from being over. However I pray that without having to worry about whether I am going to law school, the wait will be much easier. As I have learned from Stephen Covey, my reaction is my own choice. Much easier to understand than to actually put into practice.

Life Update!

Well, this past weekend I competed with some friends in the IKEA International Business Case Competition. We had to figure out an expansion plan for Apple's iPhone and put together a presentation over a 48 hour period. We presented on Monday and received nothing but complements from our judges, but we didn't win. I was a little bummed, but am still happy with the work that we did.

Also on Monday was the Law School fair on campus, where I was able to speak with a number of schools about their programs. The biggest change in my own perceptions was of the Arizona schools, which I am now very interested in. The number of schools that I am applying to seems to slowly keep growing. I am just happy to have discovered fee waivers...

Let's not forget that my birthday is on Saturday! I will finally shed all of the horrible stereotypes associated with being a teenager. Thank god!

Cheers!

LSAT Score Revealed to the World!

Ok, not really... However I did get my LSAT scores this past Friday, and have since experienced quite the flux of emotion. I had dreams of Harvard knocking down my door with full ride scholarships and a Ferrari that no one would have to know about. On the flip side, I had dreams of receiving a score that was so horrible my Undergraduate Institution kicked me out. Now I would classify my score as acceptable. I certainly did not do as well as I had expected, however I did not do so poorly as to rethink my decision to attend law school. In retrospect, my score made attending law school much more of a reality...

Am I going to be able to afford such a huge investment? I am 100% not interested in working for large firms that eat up young lawyers and spit them out like it's nothing. I am also not interested in helping you get divorced, or helping you sue your sister for stealing your '84 Honda Accord. Rather, my interests lie in helping people who are living with an injustice that they are not in the position to fight. I basically want to help the people who don't have the money to pay me back... To be fair, I am also interested in business law but have not given it much thought. Now helping the less fortunate among us sounds quite romantic, but the reality is that few people do it because they can't. With over $100,000 in debt from law school, young lawyers are forced to choose between their passion (and poverty) and selling out to big firms (with no life but an Audi in the driveway). I have been contemplating whether this is a good investment for myself, and the best I can come up with right now is, "Follow you dreams and the rest will work itself out."

Seems a bit vague to me, but we shall see...

Now I am pretty sure that I will get accepted to a law school. The question now is which one? Without diving into the guessing game, the early contender is Seattle University. It is a good school (tier 2) in the northwest, and has programs that I am interested in. Again I say, we shall see.

Here is my public thanks to my friends and family for your support through my up's and down's. It would have been much tougher without you.

"Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great ones make you feel that you too can become great." --Mark Twain

LSAT Experience (For those who took or are about to take the LSAT)

In my first blog post I promise to write about my LSAT test day experience, and while I was studying for the LSAT I would have loved to hear a first hand account... so here it goes.

When I first began contemplating the idea of law school I didn't have the faintest idea what the LSAT (Law School Admission Test) was. I had to learn all about LSAC (Law School Admission Council http://www.lsac.org/) and the CRS (Credential Referral Service), but enough with the acronyms. I learned that the LSAT is a hellacious test that forces your mind to process huge amounts of data in a very short period of time. I found that I could easily get all of the answers correct if I had an hour for each of the five sections, but you only get 35 minutes a piece. I bought the Powerscore bibles (http://www.powerscore.com/) and the the three published LSAC books of Preptests and went to work.

I started in June by reading through and taking notes on the bibles. About mid July I began going through timed individual sections of the preptests, and by the end of August I began taking tests. Now campus is basically deserted during the summer, so I would go on campus at 8:00 in the morning (to simulate the actual testing time) and connect my laptop to a projector in the business school. Using the LSAT Proctor dvd, I would take the tests. This was a godsend for me because it allowed me to actually focus on the test rather than my wrist watch. I kept this up throughout September and was actually relieved come test day that the grind was over. I did almost thirty complete timed tests...

Now the test was on a Saturday, so on Friday my Dad took the day off from work and we went hiking up at Sunrise (Mt. Rainier). We hiked the Burroughs trail, which I highly recommend. Aside from the sheer beauty of the scenery and the pleasure of breathing fresh mountain air, the hike served as a nice getaway from it all to get a little perspective on life. I would highly recommend some sort of getaway the day before the test. DO NOT STUDY! You need as much mental stamina as you can get on test day, and studying the day before can only hurt you. Get your mind right for christ's sake!

The night before I got my one gallon zip lock bag full of testing materials put together. I set two alarms, put in some ear plugs (greek row is noisy during the summer), and struggled through a night of restless sleep. I woke up early the next morning and had my normal breakfast. Do not make yourselves a huge breakfast! Your nerves will get the better of you, and you may end up regretting that four egg ham and cheese omelet. Now, LSAC suggests that you leave a half hour early to make sure you get there on time. For some reason I interpreted this as 'leave a half hour before I am supposed to arrive'. So although I arrived at 8:15 for an 8:30 test, I was one of the last people to get into the check in line.

Now I took my test at Kane Hall at UW, which has huge auditoriums for our notorious 400 person freshman lectures. We had to turn out our pockets and reveal the contents of our zip lock bag before entering the testing room, which I didn't get into until after 9:00. At the check in desk they made me sign my ticket, and then I went up to my seat. After everyone was seated the staff came around and fingerprinted us before reading the testing instructions and handing out the test. We filled out our personal information on our answer sheets and began potentially the most important test of our lives, or so it feels like.

Some interesting notes: At break there was a mad dash of hundreds of test takers for a single bathroom with two stalls. I had to go to another building, which was a bit unexpected...

There weren't really any big disturbances during the test, although people sporadically had to leave for a bathroom break. Train your bladders and hold off on that second cup of coffee!

I hope that helps, and please feel free to contact me with any questions!

Cheers

Introduction and musings of the LSAT

Well hello! This is my first actual non-academic blog post, so I believe an introduction is in order. I am a fifth year senior at the University of Washington, and am so damned close to getting a degree in history and a degree in business administration that I can taste it! I have a wonderful girlfriend who has no idea that I have taken up blogging, although she will know soon enough :) I grew up in the Seattle area, so my views are inherently a little to the left. I spent the last year taking Native American history courses and interning with the Duwamish Tribal Government. This knowledge and the related experiences have led me to consider and ultimately decide upon going to law school.

Now law school is a funny thing. Given the current economic crisis facing our country (which I heard today on KIRO 97.3 FM that we are actually climbing out of) I would assume that a record number of people are applying to law school. I mean, who would want to venture out into this job market when you could hide in law school for another three years? However, my Dad pointed out an article that claims fewer people are applying due to the financial obligations associated with graduate work. I guess there are always two sides to every story. My point is that I feel that there is going to be healthy competition to get into good schools. Now I am in a pretty comfortable academic situation going into applications, but who would have known that there is this monster lurking in the waters that preys upon the hopes and dreams of unsuspecting law school applicants... I am frightened to even speak its name, but for the sake of my new blog I feel I must. Yes, it is the LSAT.

One half day test that means more than four (or in my case five) years of college. I am fortunate enough to have that god forsaken test in my past, having taken it on September 26, but I am still waiting for my score. I will fill a different post with my thoughts on the LSAT, for the entire reason that I have taken to spilling the wanderings of my mind into a blog is to deal with the stress! I have four days until one little score will be branded on me like a tattoo that can never be removed. My mind has been filled since test day with discussions from pompous assholes who have felt the need to post their scores of 176 and 178 (cough, *bullshit*, ahem) all over the internet, and yet I keep searching for more. Somewhere is the one post that will make all of my anxiety go away! Right?

Wrong, I know. There is no comfort outside of 'I know I did my best', and thoughts that 'when one door closes, another always opens.' Perhaps some of you have turned to your God for peace of mind. I have turned to blogging. It seems to have worked for now... Cheers!

P.S. If you haven't listened to the podcast 'Too Beautiful to Live (tbtl.net) you simply aren't living life. You can check it out on itunes as well. I have nothing to do with the show outside of being a fateful Ten.