A few thoughts for current law school applicants during this excruciating time of year for you:
1. Law schools keep preposterously deep waitlists. The odds of getting an offer from one of them are slim. Do prepare mentally to attend the school where you put down your deposit in April, or make other plans altogether. (You do not have to go to law school.) But don't let law schools mess with your head all summer like a bad ex. Manage your expectations. Over the next few months, you can decide which waitlist schools you actually want to fight for during the summer, and which ones you want to let go. Not all of them will be worth fighting for, depending on what offers you already have.
Is a “hold” the same thing as a waitlist? Some schools, like NYU, have typically sendt out “hold” letters, and I interpret that as them just buying themselves more time. Admissions offices around the country (undergrad, law school, MBA, you name it) have been understaffed since Covid began, and they’re desperately trying to get through all of their applications. I’m sure you’d like to get a response back sooner, but at the same time, I’m also sure you want them to give your application a thoughtful review. So a “hold” letter is their way of politely asking for more time.
2. If you do get that happy call off of a waitlist, you will have very little time to make a decision. So decide ahead of time what your answer would be. That anticipated answer might change as more time passes, so reevaluate periodically. (Waitlists don’t close out until orientation starts, but you might not be willing to stay in the game that long.) When you get the call, you also won't have the time or the leverage to negotiate financial aid. If you hum and hah over a waitlist offer, they can just go to the next person on the list, because when a spot opens up, they want to fill it quickly. So as you decide ahead of time whether you would say "yes" or not, assume you'd be paying full fare, and weigh that against the offer and price tag of the law school you'd be withdrawing from. Related to that...
3. Don’t expect to get scholarships off of waitlists. Sometimes people are offered merit scholarships from a waitlist, but that’s unusual. In general, most law schools (all but Harvard, Yale, and Stanford) use scholarship money as a recruiting tool to try to attract their top choices and incentivize them to accept. If they had wanted to recruit you, they probably would already have admitted you and you wouldn't be on a waitlist. Scholarships sometimes do happen off of waitlists (sometimes a school really, really wants to fill that spot with whatever your profile is, and so they sweeten the pot), but don’t count on it.
4. For schools you would say "yes" to, do stay in touch over the summer. If your contact information changes, let them know, because you want them to be able to reach you at a moment's notice. Unless they expressly ask you to email them earlier, send them an email about once a month starting in late April or May to remind them of your strong interest (assuming that's true — see #1 and #2 above; if not, let that waitlist go). Those are called "Letters of Continued Interest," aka LOCIs, but you don't need to use that terminology in your emails. If you have genuine application updates (job change, graduation/finalized degree, summer plans, etc.) include those as well, unless they expressly ask you not to. If you have a new Character & Fitness issue to report, you must send that update as well. (Sorry!)
5. LOCIs will get very repetitive if you're sending them once a month. That's OK, and that’s actually the whole point — you want to stay on their radar. The length can be a few sentences to a few paragraphs. Don’t feel obligated to include a bunch of blah-blah filler. It’s enough to tell them they remain a top choice and that you look forward to their decision.
6. If you would accept an offer and withdraw your existing deposit AND also withdraw all your other pending applications, let them know that in your LOCIs. Pre-committing yourself that way makes it easier for them to call you instead of someone else when a spot opens up. (Should you expect to honor that commitment if they accept you? Yes.)
7. Don't turn into a stalker. Don't pester admissions officers online or in person. Don't pitch a tent in the quad. For your own sake, don't go down rabbit holes on Reddit. Waitlist offers are unexpected bonuses; don't stake your sanity or your happiness on them. Don’t track down faculty who are friends of friends and ask them to put in a good word for you. (That doesn’t make a difference anyway.) A promise to attend if accepted has far more weight than all those other tactics for demonstrating interest.
8. Some schools like to be fancy and call the waitlist something other than a waitlist (like "reserve"), but they're all the same thing once April 15 or May 1 (the typical deposit deadlines) have come and gone. Some schools won’t have told you anything at all by their own deposit deadline, which is pretty rude and unprofessional, but not unusual; those are effectively waitlists too by virtue of where you are in the admissions calendar, so once May 1 has come and gone, you should go into waitlist and LOCI mode with them too.
9. Follow directions, assuming you care about staying on a particular waitlist. Some schools make you opt into the waitlist; others put you there unless you opt out. Some ask for additional materials, others want only important updates. Some want you to submit LOCIs via their portal, others don’t have a portal and make you email your updates. Read their communications carefully. If they send you a Waitlist FAQ or invite you to a Waitlist Information webinar, take advantage of those. And if they invite you to submit more stuff or do an interview, do so. Especially in more competitive admissions cycles, that’s a classic “yield protection” move on their part to see who actually cares about receiving an offer. If you don’t jump through those hoops, you’re effectively taking yourself out of the running.
10. If you haven’t received a final decision yet by the school’s deposit deadline, you’re still in the game! Truly. For any school you care about, stay in active-applicant mode. The admissions cycle doesn’t close out until the first day of orientation. Why? Because there’s always someone who deposited but then didn’t show up for orientation and all of a sudden there’s a spot to fill. Obviously you’d only consider accepting an offer that late in the game for a school you really, REALLY care about. It’s hard to move across the country, with or without a family, find new housing, etc. etc. on such short notice. Be very clear in your mind about which schools, if any, make it onto your shortlist as the summer progresses and you approach your orientation start date at the school where you have initially enrolled. Remember: When it comes to making decisions about which schools you want to continue pursuing (or not), you drive the bus.