October 2007 - Posts
Dear Asha,
I plan to submit my application within a few days. However, I am just beginning some exciting projects that may come to fruition in the next few months. Depending on the outcomes, I may want to provide additional information to the Admissions Committee. Once my complete application is submitted, is it possible to supplement it?
J.S.
Dear J.S.,
It is possible to supplement your complete application. However, keep in mind that once your application is complete -- that is, once we receive the basic components of your applications, including your LSDAS report and two recommendations -- your application will enter the queue to be reviewed. Once it is under active review, during which your application is circulated outside of the Admissions Office to faculty readers, any supplemental material received in the meantime will be held until the file is returned. This means, of course, that we can't guarantee that your supplemental material will be included at the time that the file is reviewed. And, we will generally not re-review a file upon receipt of supplemental material.
If you feel very strongly that your file be considered only after you obtain any additional information you think might be relevant, I would suggest that you wait to submit your application until you have everything you are waiting for (but before our deadline of February 15).
As I noted previously, there is no inherent disadvantage to sending in your application later rather than sooner, though it may mean that you will not get your decision until later in the season.
On the other hand, if your file is reviewed without the additional information and you are waitlisted, the supplemental materials may be useful in the event that we revisit your file. So, the decision is up to you -- best of luck!
-- Asha
Bishop’s Orchards
1355 Boston
Post Road
Guilford, CT 06437-2399
About 14 miles from the Law School
For months I had seen signs along I-95 for Bishop’s Orchards
and wanted to check it out. Though I had
gone with the intention of wandering out in some field and picking my own
fruit, what I found when I got there was more timely and just as cool.
On the one side, they have a whole grocery store, with
everything from bushels of apples to homemade chicken pot pies (and apple pies,
and pumpkin pies, and berry pies …). They
even sell Turkish Delight for those of you who read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and always wondered if the
stuff could really be THAT good. Though
you may not be able to find your brand food favorites, the shopping experience
is worlds nicer than going to the Shaw’s on Whalley Avenue (super long lines,
no matter what time of day, and something about that place just makes you feel not
so fresh). They also have a little
garden area where they sell firewood and plants.
On the other side, they had a huge pumpkin patch complete
with a hay maze and a make-your-own-scarecrow tent for kids. I firmly believe that getting your pumpkins
this way is so much more fun than going to the grocery store or Home
Depot. At the entrance they have wagons
so that you can fill it up with pumpkins and gourds and dried, ornamental
corn. They even had a mini petting zoo
with what looked like a llama or ostrich (or some other tall furry and feathery
animal). The parking lot was packed by
the time we left, and as we drove off I saw a family loading into their minivan
a life-sized scarecrow dressed as a 10 year old boy.
Pick up a bottle of their homemade apple
cider on the way out and you’re all set for a weekend of carving pumpkins and
enjoying a New England autumn!
The Law School recently hosted its annual Alumni Weekend. The Weekend brings together alumni for three days of classes and events designed to reconnect them with each other and with the School. Each Weekend has a theme and this year’s was particularly timely: elections, media, and politics. Attendees engaged in discussion over these topics both formally in the various seminars held during the Weekend and informally over the many meals shared with classmates, faculty, and students. I encourage you to check out the videos from the Weekend on our website.
A few highlights from the Weekend included:
- the interactive polling game in which alumni voted on hot-button issues and then played pundit on the outcome;
- awarding of the Yale Law School Association Award of Merit to alumna Linda Greenhouse, Supreme Court correspondent for the New York Times; and
- remembrances for alumnae Jane Bolin, the first Black female graduate of the Law School and the first Black female judge in the U.S., and Reverend Pauli Murray, a poet, professor, civil rights lawyer, and co-founder of the National Organization of Women.
The Weekend also provided the opportunity to unveil the Law School’s new Knight Law and Media Program to alumni. The Program is targeted at students, journalists, scholars, and policymakers interested or involved in law and media. It includes courses on law and media, research fellowships, and summer internships. There will be more information about the Program on our website in a few weeks. In the meantime you can read a bit more about the Program in this press release.
Dear Asha,
I'm interested in designing
a joint JD/PhD program with Yale's Department of English. Can you tell me
anything about whether Yale encourages individually designed programs? Does my
unusual profile make me a more or less desirable candidate?
Thanks,
A.M.
Dear A.M.,
I’ve
received a number of variations on the question of joint degrees, so I hope my
response to this one will answer most of them.
First, let
me explain how our joint degrees work.
If you would like to do a joint degree with Yale Law School and another
program, you must apply and be admitted to each program separately. During your first year or second year at
Yale, you can petition the Faculty Committee on Special Courses of Study to do
your joint degree with the other program.
If you are approved, you will be allowed to use up to 12 units of
coursework (about one term) from the other program towards your JD. This thus reduces your total in-residence
time requirement at the Law
School to five semesters,
rather than the usual six.
The other
program may, at your request, allow you to credit Law School
coursework towards its program. In such
a case, your total time required to complete that degree would be reduced as
well. Certain programs, such as the
Graduate, Divinity, Forestry, Management, and Medicine schools at Yale, as well
as the Woodrow Wilson School
for International and Public Affairs, have in practice approved such an
arrangement. However, you may also pursue
a joint degree with other programs and institutions; the caveat is that Yale Law
School can only approve
and grant credit for work completed for your JD; we have no control over
whether the joint program will reciprocate.
So, always check with the program or institution with which you are
considering a joint degree to find out what their policy and requirements are
and whether they will give you credit for Yale Law School coursework.
In
considering a joint degree, you should think about a few things. First, as I mentioned previously, you must be
enrolled at Yale to petition to do a joint degree, and at the time you
petition, you must be accepted into the other program. This means that you either need to apply to
the other program at the same time you apply to law school (or already be
enrolled), or apply no later than your second year at Yale. The second thing to keep in mind is that you
may only receive Law School credit for coursework completed prospectively, i.e., you cannot receive
credit for any work you completed before you matriculated at the Law School. In this vein, if you are a PhD candidate who
has reached ABD status, you cannot pursue a joint degree, and if you defer your
entrance to Yale Law School
to begin another program, you cannot use any of the work completed during your deferral
towards your JD.
With
respect to individually-designed programs, Yale encourages coursework outside
the Law School within the parameters described
above, if you are a joint degree candidate.
If you are not a joint degree candidate, you can still take up to 12
units of class outside the Law
School at the
undergraduate, graduate, or professional schools (including up to two semesters
of language courses!). There are also
numerous courses cross-listed between other programs and the Law School
each semester. So there are ample
opportunities to get an interdisciplinary legal education without doing a joint
degree.
Finally, an
intention of doing a joint degree will have no impact on your chances for
admission. We do ask on the application
whether you are considering a joint degree – this is mainly for us to get a sense
of students’ interests. However, at the
point of admission, you will be evaluated solely for the JD program, so keep
that in mind as you put together your application!
-- Asha
Please submit questions to 203blog@yale.edu.
Dear Asha,
I received a confirmation e-mail
that my application has been received, but have not yet received confirmation
that my application is complete. Is this simply because it is early in the
admissions season and applications are not yet being considered, or is it
possibly indicative of a missing component in my application?
Sincerely,
A.P.
Dear
A.P.,
When you hit “submit” on your
electronic application to Yale
Law School,
we receive your basic data and an indication that you have applied. Base on this data, we will send you an
“application received” email. However,
it will take us another week to receive your actual application in the mail. It may take an additional week or two for us
to receive your LSDAS report, which contains your LSAT score, transcript, and
recommendations.
Before October 15, LSAC will not
release an LSDAS report to Yale until it contains at least two letters of
recommendation. After that date, LSAC will
release your report immediately and continue to send us updates as you provide
recommendations.
Your application will be complete
once we receive your application, LSDAS report, and two letters of
recommendation. At that point, we will
send you a “file complete” email and your application will enter the queue to
be read. In early spring, if we still
have not received all of the components of your application, we will send you
an email letting you know what is missing from your file and give you time to
provide those materials.
Although we have already begun
considering applications, there are a couple of important things to know about
our system. The first, which I have
mentioned in a previous posting, is that your chances of admission will not be
affected by when your application becomes complete. The second is that we will not fill up the
seats in the class until we have given all applicants a chance to complete
their files and we have read every last application. So relax -- we won’t forget about you, we
promise!
--Asha
Please submit questions to 203blog@yale.edu.
http://www.newhavenroadrace.org/
Well, my blog posting about the New Haven Road Race was
intended to be this brag-fest about how great it is to run through scenic New
Haven accompanied by the music of 12 bands and with people watering and feeding
and hosing you down along the way.
That was before I ran the 12.4 mile race, when the memories
of my last half-marathon were but a distant memory and I was looking at this
upcoming race through beer goggles. (Next year when I say I’m running this
again, will someone PLEASE remind me that at mile 10 I’ll be wondering what in
the world I was thinking?!)
But, so as not to discourage any aspiring New Haven 20k-ers, here are some race
highlights:
- “Eye
of the Tiger” playing at the start line, makes you feel like you really
could be Rocky and run the fastest race ever
- Orange slices, GU,
Gatorade and water at almost every mile
- There
really were people hosing us down as we ran. Some people were authorized and
race-sponsored hosers, but others were just random homeowners watering
their lawns.
- The
nicest people you will ever meet running along-side you. At mile 10.75
when I was about to keel over in the middle of the street at least half a
dozen people stopped (or at least slowed down) to ask if I was okay and
needed anything.
And hey, no matter what your time at least at the end you
get free Dunkin Donuts and beer. You
heard me right. Beer. After a twelve-mile race. Yeah, doesn’t make sense to me either, but at
least a hundred people were lined up waiting for their cup.
Until next September, I’ll be on the look out for fun races
in the area. And, in the meantime, check out the iPod/Nike Sports kit ! …
Yale Law School hosted its eleventh Global Constitutionalism Seminar last week. The Seminar is a unique event that brings together Supreme Court and Constitutional Court judges from around the world. This year eighteen justices spent four days at the Law
School meeting with faculty, students, and each other. Each year there are a number of topics selected for discussion. This year’s topics included secrecy and judicial hearings, the design of judicial review, and the relationship between national and transnational constitutional law. The Seminar provides the justices with an opportunity to engage these topics with their peers and leading legal scholars.
While the justices were at the School they also met with students. Justice Anthony Kennedy gave a lecture (more on that later), Justices Stephen Breyer and Kennedy spent time talking with two student groups: the American Constitutional Society and the Federalist Society, and Justice Kate O’Regan of the South African Constitutional Court led a breakfast talk with interested students.
Opportunities like this, while amazing, are not unusual at Yale Law School. A veritable parade of legal luminaries passes through the halls of the School throughout the year. While they’re here to attend or speak at the many lectures, conferences, workshops, and seminars that the School sponsors, they often make time to meet informally with our students. I tell prospective applicants that in order to get an accurate sense of the intellectual offerings of the School, one needs to look beyond the course catalog. Events like the Seminar provide an impressive supplement to a traditional legal education and the opportunity to speak with the individuals helping to shape the law offers an unparalleled educational enrichment. Where else can you have breakfast with a constitutional court justice or have a Supreme Court justice preside over your moot court final?