Should I Apply ED?

[annesm]

Hi!

Okay so I am working on applying now and I'm strongly leaning towards applying Early Decision to Georgetown. I have a 3.94 (From Virginia Tech, English Major) GPA and I got a 165 on my LSAT. I was wondering whether I could get advice on whether or not this is a good decision. While money obviously matters, my parents have agreed to pay for a portion of my tuition, and I could live at home, so the money spent wouldn't be prohibitive. But I've seen your blog about ED, and it seemed like there were some schools where it wasn't a benefit. I'm worried about admissions because my LSAT was slightly lower than I'd hoped, and I think I'm on the cusp of a lot of the places I was looking at, but with little certainty. If you had any advice that would be great!

Andy

[Dave Killoran]

Hi!

Okay so I am working on applying now and I'm strongly leaning towards applying Early Decision to Georgetown. I have a 3.94 (From Virginia Tech, English Major) GPA and I got a 165 on my LSAT. I was wondering whether I could get advice on whether or not this is a good decision. While money obviously matters, my parents have agreed to pay for a portion of my tuition, and I could live at home, so the money spent wouldn't be prohibitive. But I've seen your blog about ED, and it seemed like there were some schools where it wasn't a benefit. I'm worried about admissions because my LSAT was slightly lower than I'd hoped, and I think I'm on the cusp of a lot of the places I was looking at, but with little certainty. If you had any advice that would be great!

Andy

Hi Andy,

Thanks for the message! You mean this blog, right: Applying to Law School: To Early Decision or Not to Early Decision. Assuming so, you can see that the data suggests that Georgetown doesn't treat ED candidates much differently. That said, I've always heard from Adcomms they they give ED candidates a slight preference because those candidates show true commitment to the school (the data may not show this to us because it's not complete; that is, it's not based on seeing every outcome, only those outcomes that were reported to the site). So, on that basis, applying ED typically gives you a benefit.

The downside to ED is that you lose your ability to negotiate financial aid, and for some candidates this is a dealbreaker. For you, that doesn't seem to be entirely the case.

So,the question that is most central to me is, Is Georgetown far and away your top choice, so much so that you want to do everything possible to get in? Because if so, then it's worth putting in an ED application. If you are more on the fence, then I'd not apply ED, and I might even think about taking the LSAT again. With your 3.94 GPA, every point in the 160s is going to significantly increase your chances of admissions in the T14, as well as the financial aid package offers you receive.

I'd focus on the question in the prior paragraph and then go from there. Please let me know if that helps, thanks!