The Hottest V.O.T.S.M.L.M.A.P Updates Yet!

We're on our way to reaching critical mass as we reach the the three quarters point with our next five letters. Now that all those far-fetched reach schools are out of the day we can get into that oh so juicy middle to safety school range of the curve, where V.O.T.S.M.L.M.A.P's are won and lost. Let's see if your lack of faith in me has paid off:

Harvard Law School +5

Number of supposed applicants: "...approximately 7,000 candidates are applying to an entering class that is limited to 550 students."

Rejection Phrase: "I am sorry to report that, after full consideration, the Admissions Committee has denied your application for admission..."

Well Wish: "...and best wishes for your education and career plans."

The last of the elites to fall; no shocker here. Those snobs up in Cambridge sure took their time, at least all the other top tier law schools were prompt. I thought maybe they'd do something crazy to show off to the other Ivies to say "hey, we're Harvard we don't need to accept nothing but qualified students.

George Washington University Law School +4

Number of Supposed Applicants: "Each year we receive thousands of applications for the limited number of seats in our program."

Rejection Phrase: "Unfortunately, we are unable to offer you admission to our fall 2007 entering class."

Well Wish: "We appreciate your patience throughout our admissions process and thank you for your interest in our law school."

I appreciate that they appreciate my patience too. I didn't really have any great desire to go here, a strictly rankings based application. I also find schools named after presidents, no matter how reputable the institution, sound like high schools.

Fordham School of Law +4

Number of Supposed Applicants: "This year the Admissions Committee finds itself faced with the hard fact that it has many more qualified applicants than it has places in the class."

Rejection Phrase: "...and has concluded with regret that it cannot offer you admission to the School of Law."

Well Wish: "On behalf of Fordham Law School I wish you the very best in all your future endeavors."

I've got to admit, this one hurt a little. Fordham was one of the handful of schools I actually wanted to get into and had a chance of getting in. It's going to be even harder for applicants next year since by the time I got my rejection letter they went up 7 spots in the new US News rankings into the top 25. Do I sense a correlation?

Boston College Law School +4

Number of supposed applicants: "Also, we are constrained by the limited number of seats in the first year class for which we expect to receive nearly 7,000 applications."

Rejection Phrase: "I am sorry to inform you that the Committee on Admissions has denied your application for admission..."

Well Wish: "I wish you the best in your pursuit of a legal education and regret our decision could not have been a favorable one for you."

BC was purely a ranking choice and all things considered might have been the college I cared the least about getting into. My feelings about the letter almost bordered on relief, almost. I really didn't want to go to any school in Boston, unless Harvard had an extreme lapse in judgment.

University of Connecticut School of Law +3

Number of Supposed Applicants: "The admissions Committee faced the daunting task of selecting the incoming class from a large and competitive applicant pool."

Rejection Phrase: "I regret to inform you that we are unable to offer you admission to the class entering in the fall of 2007."

Well Wish: "...and than you for permitting us to consider your application."

No well wish, what's that about? You'll never move out of the low fringes of the top 50 with that attitude, U. Conn. It's kind of a surprising rejection since I felt pretty confident about getting in, mainly because they sent me a free application (which was the only reason I applied there in the first place). Nothing gained, nothing lost (except my confidence in getting into better schools).

Well it's been a surprising and varied list of rejection letters this time around. What have I learned thus far? I've learned that getting into law schools pretty tough and my unique brand of charisma and sexuality doesn't translate well into the personal statement format. While I don't want to break up a good streak, perhaps another acceptance letter or two might show up one of these days? Anything is possible as we make our way into the exciting bottom of the curve (and a few wait lists here and there)! See you all at the final verdict. Victor Out!

What do we become? Assholes or something?

A friend of mine recently called me out of the blue to ask me a valid question about a major space time continuity issue involving Back to the Future I & II. I would say spoiler alert, but I can’t imagine anyone reading this blog to have not seen the Back to the Future Trilogy or that there are actually people who read my blog. In any case, the question dealt with Doc Brown’s Back to the Future II explanation of the alternate 1985 they accidentally created when the Biff of 2015 gained access to the Sports Almanac and the Delorean. Basically, if Marty and Doc still existed in the alternate 1985 they created in the past along with their alternate 1985 counterparts, shouldn’t Marty have had an alternate doppelganger in the alternate 1985 he created when he helped his parents meet in 1955 in the first movie? This question then sprung a whole host of other questions like how come the improved version of his family at the end of the first movie live in the same crappy house in the beginning of the film save for the fancy BMW and better jobs? Or why would Marty still be friends with Doc Brown if things were better now? Or why Marty is friends with Doc at All?

I eventually came to the final conclusion to just accept that it’s a fantasy and to chalk it up to suspension of disbelief. I realized that these tedious, unanswerable questions would have only served to take away from the enjoyment of the greatest movie trilogy in cinema history (that’s right I’m talking to you Three Colors Trilogy.).

What I also came to realize was that we were not all that far off (only a mere 8 years) from the wondrous 2015 of Back to the Future II. 2015 Hill Valley was one of the earliest and still one of the best imaginations of the future I’ve ever seen in a movie. It was fantastic without being unfathomable, it was flawed without being dystopian; a vision of the future with enough roots in the 20^th century to make it strangely believable. With that being said, the film has obviously set the bar for what I’ll expect the world of 2015 will hold. I’m not expecting cold fusion or flying cars but I will be quite disappointed if certain innovations aren’t available, here’s my top 5:

5. Automatic Dog Walkers. You only saw them for like 5 seconds in the movie but I think they’d be pretty nifty. A fairly simple concept, I’m sure somebody has a blue print for one somewhere. I suspect we’re getting pretty close to them too, we already have the Rumba and vacuuming your home seems just as if not more complicated than walking your dog. I’m even going to be lenient on the floating element, they could be wheeled or have tiny robot legs; perhaps by 2030 they’ll even pick up the poo.

4. Power Laces. A jacket that talks to you, automatically adjusts to your body size, and blow dries itself when wet seems like a pretty tall order for 6 years; but sneakers that tie themselves? I think the always competitive athletic shoe industry can swing that. They already have shoes on the market with microchips in them to keep track of your running or something or other, why not take the logical step forward. The world’s been yearning for another sneaker innovation since the Reebok Pump.

3.Hydrated Pizzas. When I was a kid that Black & Decker pizza hydrating machine was, behind hover boards and the time machine itself, the coolest item in the movie. That Pizza Hut pizza looked great! Imagine fresh delicious pizza from a non-perishable little disk in seconds. Let’s see Digiorno compete with that! I refuse to believe the army doesn’t have a working prototype for such a machine.

2. 80s Nostolgia Cafes. Who knows, a place like this might actually exist right now. Maybe robotic Ronald Regan/Ayatollah waiters aren’t taking orders but with a three decade upgrade of a Johnny Rockets and you got yourself a Café 80s. There’s really no technological roadblock getting in the way of one being made, we just need the nostalgia to build up to a critical mass, and thanks to the good folks at VH-1 we’re steadily getting there.

1. Hover Boards. Need I say more! Since the movie came out people have been looking for these things. There have been twenty years of rumors and hearsay about an actual hover board existing but so far I only ride them in my dreams. When director Robert Zemeckis joked that they were real, there were enough desperate fans to cause a stir. According to the wikipedia page on hover boards there have been similar boards that used hovercraft like air technology, but I won’t be fully satisfied until somebody comes up with a legit one that just mysteriously hovers off the ground. I suspect it’ll involve powerful magnets of some sort.

Even Hotter V.O.T.S.M.L.M.A.P. Updates!

Well another batch of letters and another long awaited update of the V.O.T.S.M.L.N.A.P. is upon us. With this new batch of five I'm officially halfway through the long journey towards securing another three years of not working. So without any Dancing With the Stars-esque fanfare and filler let's get on with the countdown:

Yale Law School +5

Number of supposed applicants: "This year the Law School received over 3,300 applications for an entering class of 185."

Rejection Phrase: "We regret that we are unable to offer you admission for the fall of 2007."

Well Wish: "...and extend to you our best wishes for the future."

Number one law school in the country, well it's a relief to know that potential bracket buster's off the table, eh? High marks for their stationary, a fine grade paper befitting their lofty ranking.

Cornell Law School +4

Number of Supposed Applicants: "We received a very large number of strong applications for the 190 seats in out first-year class."

Rejection Phrase: "I am sorry to inform you that we will be unable to offer you a place in the class entering this fall"

Well Wish: "I wish you the very best in pursuing what I am sure will be a successful and challenging legal career."

"A very large number of strong applications", eh? What's with the fuzzy math, Cornell? I expect some hard numbers from any Ivy League institution, you could of at least made something up: five thousand, ten thousand, eleventy-jillion?

University of Maryland School of Law +3

WAITLIST

That's right, another interested but on the whole not totally commited party! My second DC Area waitlist thus far, perhaps they're impressed by my tales of the big city up north. To boot, according to the letter, it's not just a regular waitlist but a "preferred waitlist" which they claim that "most commonly, all applicants on that list are offered a seat". So who knows, I'm just a few declined acceptances away from upgrading this to an accepted.

Temple University Beasley School of Law +2

WAITLIST...sorta

The waitlists continue to roll on in. It's a bit of a surprise, Temple was in the lowest point tier of the pool, usually where are all the safe choices lie, so I think more than a few people might be losing some points after this (thus demonstrating the exciting unpredictability of the V.O.T.S.M.L.N.A.P.) . Since I only applied because they gave me a free application I'm not overly concerned with this one, in fact I might not even send the waitlist letter in depending on other letters. This'll have a more definitive status in the next update.

Seton Hall University School of Law +2

ACCEPTED

That's right, the first accepted of the V.O.T.S.M.L.N.A.P. A total safety school, no real doubts here, but hey beggers can't be choosers. It's a fine school overall and thus far the only school that accepted me for sure, so who knows, if all else fails it's the PATH to Newark, baby. Go Pirates!

Well the riveting human drama that is the V.O.T.S.M.L.N.A.P. continues to be written. It's ten down and ten to go so if anyone still wants in on some of this action there's still an unpredictable half to go; the handicap is now figured at -7 not an impossible hole. I've nearly completed my mission of being rejected by every exclusive top tier school so onward to the second tier. See you all out the final verdict. Victor Out!