I am wondering which top schools bias their admission decisions on high lsat scores rather than high ugpas.
My personal story is that I am graduating with a horrendous 2.4gpa from MIT in electrical engineering and computer science (this is a 3.4 in MIT lingo, but it's a 2.4 in the language of every other American university). However, I studied at University of Florida for a semester in computer engineering and got a 3.67gpa. Futhermore, I took two classes at Harvard one semester and got A- and B+. If we factor in those grades, my entire undegraduate gpa is about a 2.6 or 2.7.
I could blame some of the poor performance at MIT to family issues and stuff, but the truth of the matter is that I just don't like electrical engineering and perhaps I'm not as good in quantitative problem-solving as other MIT engineers.
At any rate, my diagnostic lsat sits at a mediocre 157 but I expect to raise this to 170-175 after going through the LG and LR bibles (from powerscore) and several practice tests.
Thus, I would like to know which top shools tend to accept applicants with low GPAs but high LSAT scores. I am looking in the range of Georgetown and perhaps Boston College. Staying in Boston would be nice since I have a significant other who is studying at BU, but this is not necessary.
Of course, another option is to get into a school like Northeastern and then apply for a transfer to BU or what-not after the first year.

Why not apply to BU? BC seems to emphasize GPA more heavily than BU does.

WUSTL, Illinois, and Minnesota are all good targets. If you haven't got work experience, Northwestern won't work for you, but you could always apply. GW is also another option.

And if you kill the LSAT, I'd apply to the lower T14. Unlikely, but you never know.

--

I found BU and BC very splitter-unfriendly

by the numbers at least, BU and BC are both splitter unfriendly. I was a splitter and I'm going to WUSTL in the fall. Emory also is somewhat splitter friendly. Cardozo and Fordham are as well. Georgetown if you really kill the LSAT.

I appreciate your rather friendly and constructive comments to a 2.4gpa. Your answers definitely answer the question for this thread. Some of them point to work experience and other soft factors that might help out. I wanted to put my personal soft factors out there for any input as to whether they would help out with Northwestern or whatnot.
With respect to work experience, I agree that I do not have full-time work experience but I have worked two summers at Los Alamos National Lab (doing physics research), two summers at Massachusetts General Hospital (doing electrical engineering/biomedical R&D), and one summer at a biomedical company doing software development; all of these summer internships were full time for about 3 months each (so that's a total of ~15 months of internships). In addition, I hold a Nuclear Regulatory Commision license to operate the nuclear reactor at MIT, which is my part-time job during the semester and I've been doing this for about four years now.
In addition, I have one publication and one professional presentation to the American Physical Society.
Do any of these count as work experience?


P.S. I also have other softies like chess club president and being part of a minority group, but I assume these probably won't play a major role.

Washington & Lee is an excellent choice as well. I'd say it's part of the Minnesota/Illinois group and slightly easier than Wash U/GW to get in.

With a 2.6-2.7 GPA, and if you are able to get a 178-180, I could see an acceptance off the Georgetown waitlist in your future.

Northwestern is definitely not out of the picture depending on how you do on your LSAT.
Forget BC though- they are not friendly to low GPA/high LSAT people at all.

That's because they think they're Boalt Lite.

I kinda think that's true. There was a lot of speculation early this cycle that BC was really trying to make a numbers push, but I don't think the rest of the cycle really bore that out. We'll see what the final numbers look like.....but yes, they do ding people inexplicably.

... actually, yeah, it will. put black with an outstanding (172) LSAT score and your GPA won't even make the ad-com blink. start thinking T14 instead of BC. the fact that you're an engineering major from MIT will also work to your favor (although, not as much as it should).

but... thinking that you can go from a 157 to a 172 is either really naive or really confidant in your reasoning ability. either way, you can talk to the people are powerscore, less than 1% of their students make a 15 point jump. this isn't the GREs.

heaven forbid a school prefer a transcript showing hard-work over the course of 3-4 years to a test one can do well on if she studies for 1-3 months and only takes 3 hours to complete. Also, OP, the adcomms are aware that chemical engineering at MIT is extremely difficult, so Im sure theyll give you somewhat of a break on the GPA.

BC gives lots of money, more than BU, so keep that in mind.

Anyways, OP, you should see how you do on the LSAT. T14 is not out of the question.
Congrats on graduating from MIT!

Yeah, what minority group? Black, Mexican, Puerto Rican = bigger than a Nobel Prize.

OK, maybe not a Nobel Prize, but, then again.........

Again, thanks all for your constructive input.
In response to some of the posts, I actually grew up in Mexico City and then immigrated to the USA when I started high school. I eventually got naturalized so I don't count as an international student but as a URM, I think. I am as Mexican as it comes (well, except for the wet back since I flew into the states--I hope I did not offend anybody). In fact, I'm so Mexican that I hope to take advantage of an American law degree to enter the political scene in Mexico (not unusual for American-educated Mexicans) and try to improve the economy and quality of life in the country. But this is several years down the line.





I guess it's both, confidence and naivety. I usually run out of time and don't end up answering about 1/4-1/3 of the sections, which hurt my score tremendously. I am pretty confident that with plenty of practice and by picking up some techniques from powerscore, I'll be able to increase my lsat significantly by increasing my speed and keeping the same accuracy; I don't think a 13 point increase is out of the question. However, I may be a bit naive and might be underestimating the difficulty of increasing my speed by so much.
One has to shoot for the moon to end up among the starts, though, so I'll still be shooting for a 175.

So in summary of all the posts, it seems that the top schools for people with high LSAT scores but low GPAs (in challenging undergraduate programs) is the following:

Rank School (Notes)
9 Northwestern (Significant work experience would be necessary)
14 Georgetown (172+ on LSAT)
19 WUSTL
20 George Washington (172+ on LSAT)
22 Minnesota
22 Emory (Somewhat splitter friendly)
25 Washington & Lee
27 Illinois
27 Fordham (Somewhat splitter friendly)

In addition, if the applicant is a URM, more 10-20 and perhaps additional T-14 would be into play.

Since your 2.6/2.7 is from MIT in such a difficult field, I think you're looking at acceptance to Georgetown if you pull a ~173+.

So tell me if I've been approaching this wrong. I figured that a school that was "splitter-friendly" had a high LSAT/GPA ratio. So I've been looking at that column on LSP. I wondered why the chances of being admitted with a (moderately) high LSAT and low GPA didn't always correspond with a higher number on that column. (Indiana's ratio is 5.76, but nobody mentioned that as splitter-friendly??)

Is there a difference here? I feel this could almost be an LSAT question. I'm not getting the logic.

I don't think many consider indiana in the "top law schools", but it's most def a splitter. I talked with their adcomm and he basically admitted they will take a very very serious look at anyone with a 164, regardless of GPA. Check out the profiles on LSN:

Indiana: http://indiana.lawschoolnumbers.com/sta ... Cycle=0607

WUSTL: http://washu.lawschoolnumbers.com/stats ... Cycle=0607

You can see the distinct vertical cutoffs at both 164 and 167 respectively.

Your GPA will be higher than just the MIT GPA (LSAC will take into account at least some if not all of those other classes, I'm pretty sure). Being Mexican helps immensely. If you really can get into the 170s, and apply to a wide range of schools, you will get into lots of T30s and, I would think, one or two T-14s. Just please don't take jumping from 157 to low-mid 170s (about 70th percentile to top 2% or higher) for granted. It's definitely possible, but not especially likely.

for what its worth, I scored a 157 on my diagnostic, studied hard for about a month, and got a 177 on test day. Let that give you hope.

Study a bunch and take the LSAT and we'll go from there.

Again, thanks all for your constructive input.
In response to some of the posts, I actually grew up in Mexico City and then immigrated to the USA when I started high school. I eventually got naturalized so I don't count as an international student but as a URM, I think. I am as Mexican as it comes (well, except for the wet back since I flew into the states--I hope I did not offend anybody). In fact, I'm so Mexican that I hope to take advantage of an American law degree to enter the political scene in Mexico (not unusual for American-educated Mexicans) and try to improve the economy and quality of life in the country. But this is several years down the line.

I might be wrong on this one, but 1% seems like a really low number for increasing 15 points. I have been studying for 7 weeks, and went up about 10. I feel as though I am no where close to reaching my potential, and would be very upset if my score did not go up 5+ points in the next two months. I am just now getting a good grasp on the games, and I have only studied some for LR, and really nothing for RC. Either the average person entering powerscores class has already studied for two months+, or people are just plain lazy. From my experience in reading this board, and from people I have discussed this with in person, I believe that number should be more like 20-25 points. For anyone who cannot add 10 points onto their diagnostic, they just didn't work hard enough in my opinion. This is if they scored less than a 165 diagnostic.

If you started at 157 and put in 3 months of hard work (you're obviously intelligent) I would be very surprised if you didn't hit 168-170, and if you dedicated 6 months, it is very likely that you would be in the mid 170's. The one exception to this is if you scored like 19/23 on logic games the first time (as is more prevalent in math majors/related fields). That would make it much more difficult to get 170+, and I would adjust my goals slightly.

I might be wrong on this one, but 1% seems like a really low number for increasing 15 points. I have been studying for 7 weeks, and went up about 10. I feel as though I am no where close to reaching my potential, and would be very upset if my score did not go up 5+ points in the next two months. I am just now getting a good grasp on the games, and I have only studied some for LR, and really nothing for RC. Either the average person entering powerscores class has already studied for two months+, or people are really lazy. From my experience in reading this board, and from people I have discussed this with in person, I believe that number should be more like 20-25 points. For anyone who cannot add 10 points onto their diagnostic, they just didn't work hard enough in my opinion. This is if they scored less than a 165 diagnostic.

If you started at 157 and put in 3 months of hard work (you're obviously intelligent) I would be very surprised if you didn't hit 168-170, and if you dedicated 6 months, it is very likely that you would be in the mid 170's. The one exception to this is if you scored like 19/23 on logic games the first time (as is more prevalent in math majors/related fields). That would make it much more difficult to get 170+, and I would adjust my goals slightly.

Fordham has not been very splitter friendly at all this year...like, at all.