chances of getting into Columbia and Chicago off the WL

[dimrod80]

Did a little LSN research. 

Columbia has 146 acceptances (excluding people who've withdrawn), 78 deferred, and 136 on the WL for 360 spots. 

Chicago has 97 acceptances, 32 deferred, and 49 people on the waitlist for 200 spots. 

Granted that LSN does not include everyone... but these chances of getting off a WL don't look so bad. 

[gator005]

I agree, your chances don't look too bad.

Does anyone know how accurate LSN actually is or how much of the applicant pool it represents? I'm wondering because I don't want to get my hopes up!!

[zerofact0r]

Only about 10-20 people, accordng to Montauk's interviews with Deans in his book "How to get into the top law school", are ever really taken off the waiting lists, out of 200-300 people.  That gives you about a 5-10% chance, and there's probably very little rhyme or reason to.  Everyone on the wait list probably have a similar range of numbers and experiences.

Those spots aren't the number of people that they're going to pull off the waitlist, it's the total size of the waitlist, and I guarantee you they fill it.  A waitlist the size of 360 is never a safe bet.

[Sooner]

One fact you may not be adequately accounting for: schools don't waitlist people unless they are comfortable that they will fill their class with a normal yield from their admitted applicants. Admitting from the WL is a last resort to fill unanticipated gaps. I think all this analysis illustrates is how incomplete the LSN population is compared to the actual population. Chicago, for example, admitted over 700 people last year.

We all know that getting admitted off the WL at any school is really rare.

[AshleyChristina]

The deadline for notify Chicago was May 1st and based on some posts it looks as if they've already started accepting people off the waitlist.