Decision made!!!

Alright! So I've made my decision for better or worse, and being the obstinate bullheaded type person I can be I'm going to be living with it for the next four year (if not even the rest of my life).

I am going to go to law school at Oklahoma City University. The scholarship and the opportunity to concurrently earn an MBA just sucked me in. The plethora of cute cowboys too ;) JK, my camel!

So, I'm now going to relax and enjoy the next three months because I know going back to school is just going to kick my tush. I don't remember how to study, and somehow I've got the feeling that it is NOT like riding a bicycle.

Carpe Diem!

Too many choices

Okay.... so I've been a little remiss in keeping this stupid blog up to date regarding the whole law school thing.

I visited Texas Wesleyan a couple a weekends ago, and was marginally impressed. I think the way the preview day was organized and the information that we were given is a really good indication of what life would be in that law school (i.e. expensive and perkless until graduation).
One of the really cool requirements for graduation from TWU is that every student must do 30 hours of pro bono work.

TWU is also all of 20 minutes away from my brother and his family. If I choose that law school hopefully that'll translate into more time with my nephew and my niece.

I was rejected at two of the seven schools I applied to, and I'm not really surprised. Furthermore I'm okay with that because fewer options = less stress. Decisions that are complex enough to require matrix analysis are NOT my strong point. You really should hear the office discussions regarding lunch every day.

I've been accepted at Loyala New Orleans. I've also been provisionally accepted at Quinnipiac (i.e. start part time and transfer to the full-time program at the end of the year).

So the N.O. school is appealing because I would be living in the city during the rebuilding efforts.

Quinnipiac is appealing because they have a program in healthcare law and a study abroad program in Ireland for the summers. There is also the possibility of interning in NYC (it may be a remote one, but I think that is the most likely school for that possibility in my case).

Be Careful What You Wish For

So I've been wishing to hear from some of the other law schools I applied to.

Well, I finally did and here is what the letter said:

Dear Chelsea:
This is not a denial letter.
As you know Valpo Law is a small school ... number of applicants who meet our admissions requirements far exceeds the number of seats in our first year class.
However, the admissions season is not over .... Your status is officially known as "admissions pending", a status above the traditional wait-list category.
...
Sincerely,
Valpo Admissions

So, I've heard back from a law school, but I haven't been admitted because they are waiting on a bunch of people who are probably in the same boat I am to say yes or no. However, because I WAS second string I haven't been officially denied a place in their school either.

I need to have a good long talk with my Genie and get this wish thing sorted out.

Decisions, decisions....

So, this weekend I went to Oklahoma City to check out Oklahoma City University where I have been accepted into the law school. I was pleasantly surprised by the whole experience, other that the little detail that it actually takes more time to fly than drive, but that is a completely different story.

Now, I have to admit my expectations were rather low because as one of the other admittees said, "The name just screams community college and not law school." However, when I got there at 7:00 in the morning I was able to wander around the campus and the building for the law school and poke my head into places that probably weren't intended to be viewed by the uninitiated. The campus just seems to be a bigger, red brick version of Southwestern.
There is this aesthetic uniformity among the buildings on campus, and the inside of the Sarkeys Law Center was a cross between the interior of the McCombs center and Olin. The law library also had a very strong resemblance to SU's library as well. So since I really liked SU's campus all of this goes into the plus column.

They have also offered me a fairly generous scholarship with maintanence requirements that I think I can actually attain. Another entry in the plus column.

I drove around Oklahoma City and the neighboring burgs, or townships, and found them to be generally pleasant. I found two apartment complexes that are ten minutes from the school and appeared from the outside as though they would be acceptable domiciles.

The Aberdeen is caddy-corner to a Methodist church and is about five minutes from the capital building; it is also near a non-emergency medical center (this means no ambulances) where I might be able to utilize my medical billing experience in getting a decent paying part-time job.

The Ambassador House is five minutes from an aikido dojo (the dojo is also about ten minutes from the school), and I would very much like to take that back up. There was a noticeable lack of gyms though, or maybe they just hide and disguise them a lot better than we do here in Texas.

So all in all I really enjoyed my visit to Oklahoma City and felt there were some distinct possibilities there. OKC also seems to have a disproportionately high ratio of good looking people (especially guys) for the size of the community. It is also overflowing with Chinese resturants.
However, I have also been admitted to Texas Wesleyan's School of Law and have also received a scholarship there (though not nearly as generous as OCU's). I will be going up to check out their campus in a couple of weeks.

I'm still waiting to hear back from several schools and although I'm pretty certain that I'm just waiting for all of the rejection letters to come in; I would like to have those before I commit myself to either of the schools that have already offered me a position.