Lincoln/Coverdale

Seven score and three years (and a day) ago, General Lee surrendered to General Grant at Appomattox Courthouse.

While at Michigan Law last weekend, I had a couple of small world-type encounters. Thursday evening, a man saw my name tag and said, “Jesse Kirchner? I think you helped me on my application essay!” Last year, while working on applications and essays, I spent lots of time getting and giving writing help on a prelaw forum. It took me a few moments, but it all came back when he reminded me that I had saved him from including some passages in his essay that could have been construed in a rather perverted light. Let’s just say that it was a Werther’s Original away from completion.

Anyway…I was really glad to have met this guy. He was as nice and friendly in person as he was in his emails. He has already committed to attending Michigan and I look forward to seeing him around in a few months.

I also happened to meet a man who was a graduate of my alma mater. Not much coincidence there, right? Turns out he started out as a physics major. I’m into name dropping, so I mentioned Peter Fisher — a professor in the lab where I did my undergraduate research. Turns out this guy had worked in the lab for my thesis advisor Prof Ulrich Becker just months after I’d graduated. He even said he had heard my name at the lab. I was quite amused by all this.

I spent parts of last Thursday, Friday, and Saturday attending the Admitted Student Weekend at the University of Michigan Law School. Although I sent in my deposit a few weeks ago, I wanted to see more of the campus and meet some people.

I had made a couple assumptions before arriving: 1) that the students would be relatively young, and 2) that most of the students at this event had already decided to attend Michigan Law. I was wrong on both counts. I was older than most of the people I met, but I think I only met a few who were still wrapping up their senior years in college. Most had spent a few years working. This should make for a more interesting group of students. Although I learned more facts in college than during any other four-year period of my life, I think my opinions and points of view have undergone significant change during my 20s. I’m hoping a similar trend applies to people who aren’t me because I find that opinions forged during the certainty of adolescence leave a foul taste in my mouth. I should probably stop eating them.

On the second point, I only met a couple people who had committed to attending Michigan. I had assumed that this late in the game, most people would have pulled the trigger. From what I gathered, lots of people were either waiting to hear from or deciding between really good schools. Having only applied to Harvard, Michigan, and Wayne State (and been rejected at Harvard) made my choice pretty easy. From what I’ve heard, Michigan manages to significantly impact decisions during their preview weekends, so I expect to see lots of familiar faces in the fall.

I’ve had just about enough of the Tigers losing. Yes, I know it’s early in the season, but I’d like to see a non-zero winning percentage.

Via Deadspin: