While at work yesterday, I received a phone call from the assistant dean of admissions at George Mason University School of Law offering me admissions to the full-time program beginning in fall of 2006. I squeaked with joy, and then sprinted to Caitlin’s desk and tearfully shrieked, “I GOT IN!”. She exclaimed that we had to tell EVERYBODY, at which point I mentioned that by yelling loudly in an open office, I pretty much already had.
I have been avoiding discussing the whole law school thing on here until I could report something positive, and yesterday gave me the opening I needed. Two weeks prior, after an incredibly intense week of waiting and checking the mailbox obsessively, I received my rejection letter from Georgetown Law. I never actually saw the offending letter, as Paul opened it and read it to me over the phone while I was at work, and I asked him to shred the letter, the envelope, and the mailman before I came home, but I still remember exactly what it said, and it sucked.
I wasn’t particularly upset about the rejection, as I had seen it coming, but I decided to grab a few consoling beers with my coworkers after work just to “take the sting out”. Eight or nine Miller Lights later, I burst into ridiculous drunken sobs, crashed into my apartment in miserable hysterics, and sliced my Georgetown Law sweatshirt to shreds with a butcher knife from the kitchen. I then called Caitlin and laughed and cried and laughed at how pathetic I was acting. It was ugly.
But I moved on. There were enough negatives to attending Georgetown Law (the $36K yearly tuition, the daily commute to DC) that I was able to see the silver lining of the rejection cloud. I called Mason Law that same afternoon and asked if they’d accept my application late, and the following Tuesday, I hand-delivered a completed application to the admissions office. Astoundingly, I received my telephone offer just ten days later, only two days after receiving the email saying my application was complete. Maybe Georgetown didn’t want me, but Mason clearly did, and I could not possibly be more excited.