Choosing a free education at a 4th tier law school? Forum

[cavalier1138]

It's just a waste of another year and I don't think I could do much better than my 158 score. Even assuming I study my ass off and get a 162 or something, that doesn't really put me into a much better position as far as options go in this state.

You do realize you're on a forum called "top-law-schools" right? What kind of responses did you expect? Maybe you should start a forum called "shit-law-schools" if you want to make dumb threads like this and have TTT shitters come flocking to you telling you how great your (not so bright) future is going to be.

Tbf "top" is ambigious as fuck and the site made profiles for not only top 100 schools but also TTT/TTTT schools.

Jesus, do you ever give up with that fucking nonsense? The site hasn't endorsed its own profiles for years. They're all horribly out of date.

And as always, you're completely misconstruing others' advice and bitching about "elitism" in a thread that is literally about whether or not the OP wants a fair shot at being a practicing lawyer. No one has even hinted that the OP should be shooting for an "elite" school, except the people counter-posting for the hell of it, because the strawman of "TLS says T14 or bust hur-hur-hur" just won't die.

[UVA2B]

It's just a waste of another year and I don't think I could do much better than my 158 score. Even assuming I study my ass off and get a 162 or something, that doesn't really put me into a much better position as far as options go in this state.

You do realize you're on a forum called "top-law-schools" right? What kind of responses did you expect? Maybe you should start a forum called "shit-law-schools" if you want to make dumb threads like this and have TTT shitters come flocking to you telling you how great your (not so bright) future is going to be.

This is the type of tired dogma that used to pervade TLS that has mostly been eradicated. Forget the name of the website and think of it more as a community where help and advice is offered based on what is best for the person seeking advice. NIU has incredibly suspect employment numbers, will still cost three years of life if a job doesn't come out of graduating, and would be a catastrophic mistake for many people considering it, but the OP is probably the type of person where going to NIU is less ruinous. It's certainly better than loyola. But that's not a holistic view of the situation either.

Like I said in my first post, NIU for free is better than Loyola for $150k in a vacuum, but these decisions should never be made in a vacuum. Goals, regions, source of paying for school, and usually some personal factors can be relevant in making these decisions. You'd do well to remember that in the future when you tiredly point out the name of the website.

[rpupkin]

OP got a full ride+ to a regional school, will graduate with no debt, has no delusions of biglaw and scored at the top of his/her PT range on his/her retake after taking a not-insubstantial number of PTs. If there is ever someone who is justified in attending NIU, OP is that person.

Nope. The people best suited to attend schools like NIU are those who have current employers who want them to get a law license. TTTTs make the most sense for those folks.

[pancakes3]

if OP aspired for local gov't/DA/PD in not-Chicago or has a [family] connection at a firm that would definitely hire him straight out of LS, all of the people saying "retake" would change their tune in a heartbeat.

As for the retake crowd: the idea that someone who took a legit prep course and more than 20 PTs and never scored above 160 can improve enough to get a 170+ for NU or Chicago seems very far fetched. Some people have an intellectual ceiling below what this site considers a "decent score."

1) the LSAT isn't an insurmountable strain on the intellect. the test literally only requires people to read newspaper-level difficulty passages and work out a couple brain teasers. it's not mind-melting stuff. the difficulty comes in the speed and the accuracy. you have to be fast, and you have to be perfect. mastering that is absolutely learnable. non-native speakers regularly score 170+. there's no excuse to say that there's a hard cap on the score for anyone who's a college graduate.

2) pointing to a nominal exertion of effort is a lazy and bullshit justification for not retaking. there are no points awarded for hustle; all that matters is the score. this directly translates to LS exams. there are kids that don't study at all for exams and cruise to A's and there are other people who live in the library and cop C's. at the end of the day, it doesn't matter. at least in the LSAT context you get to retake.

i get that "retake" is a bitter pill to swallow but that's just reality. refusing to deal with this reality is not a good idea.

[A. Nony Mouse]

It's just a waste of another year and I don't think I could do much better than my 158 score. Even assuming I study my ass off and get a 162 or something, that doesn't really put me into a much better position as far as options go in this state.

You do realize you're on a forum called "top-law-schools" right? What kind of responses did you expect? Maybe you should start a forum called "shit-law-schools" if you want to make dumb threads like this and have TTT shitters come flocking to you telling you how great your (not so bright) future is going to be.

Yeah, this is a shit response. Stop.

[lavarman84]

OP got a full ride+ to a regional school, will graduate with no debt, has no delusions of biglaw and scored at the top of his/her PT range on his/her retake after taking a not-insubstantial number of PTs. If there is ever someone who is justified in attending NIU, OP is that person.

Nope. The people best suited to attend schools like NIU are those who have current employers who want them to get a law license. TTTTs make the most sense for those folks.

Yea, those are the people best suited to attend a school like NIU, but it's not indefensible for OP if OP understands and accepts the realities of the decision. OP has sort of waffled between acceptance of it and not.

1) the LSAT isn't an insurmountable strain on the intellect. the test literally only requires people to read newspaper-level difficulty passages and work out a couple brain teasers. it's not mind-melting stuff. the difficulty comes in the speed and the accuracy. you have to be fast, and you have to be perfect. mastering that is absolutely learnable. non-native speakers regularly score 170+. there's no excuse to say that there's a hard cap on the score for anyone who's a college graduate.

Yet, that's not reality for everyone. People have their limits.

[rpupkin]

OP got a full ride+ to a regional school, will graduate with no debt, has no delusions of biglaw and scored at the top of his/her PT range on his/her retake after taking a not-insubstantial number of PTs. If there is ever someone who is justified in attending NIU, OP is that person.

Nope. The people best suited to attend schools like NIU are those who have current employers who want them to get a law license. TTTTs make the most sense for those folks.

Yea, those are the people best suited to attend a school like NIU, but it's not indefensible for OP if OP understands and accepts the realities of the decision. OP has sort of waffled between acceptance of it and not.

I never said or suggested that it was indefensible for the OP to attend NIU. It's not clear, though, that the OP appreciates the risks of attending that school. OP seems to assume that the default outcome is a low-paying job as a lawyer. But that's not even close to a sure thing for a grad from a school like NIU.

Up thread, you criticized other posters for exaggerating how bad the job outcomes are for grads from NIU. I understand where you're coming from; I've made similar points in other threads about TTTs. But the unexaggerated picture is still quite bleak: at least a third of NIU's grads will likely never work as attorneys. That's a huge percentage.

[dm1683]

1) the LSAT isn't an insurmountable strain on the intellect. the test literally only requires people to read newspaper-level difficulty passages and work out a couple brain teasers. it's not mind-melting stuff. the difficulty comes in the speed and the accuracy. you have to be fast, and you have to be perfect. mastering that is absolutely learnable. non-native speakers regularly score 170+. there's no excuse to say that there's a hard cap on the score for anyone who's a college graduate.

It might not be mind-melting stuff for you or I, but many people just don't have the cognitive ability to score in the 97th percentile or higher on this test. Your bias is betrayed by your characterization of RC passages as "newspaper level difficulty" - if you're talking about thinkpieces in the economist or new republic, maybe, but this is far beyond "front page of the Cleveland Plain Dealer" stuff, at least in terms of the content and concepts (the structure is pretty similar but you could say that about most short non-fiction). Ask any trained LSAT instructor who has worked with all levels of students if, given enough time and effort, anyone can score in that range. The answer will be uniformly "no." Many people can, but many cannot. An elite score on the LSAT requires intelligence that is at least above average. The LSAT is similar to other intellectual disciplines; there are some people who just aren't able to perform at a high level (I have been a writing tutor for three years at my uni and I can attest to this). "If I can do it, you can too" is easy to say, but it's just not the case for a large chunk of people.

2) pointing to a nominal exertion of effort is a lazy and bullshit justification for not retaking. there are no points awarded for hustle; all that matters is the score. this directly translates to LS exams. there are kids that don't study at all for exams and cruise to A's and there are other people who live in the library and cop C's. at the end of the day, it doesn't matter. at least in the LSAT context you get to retake.

You are mis-characterizing my argument. I don't think that putting in x amount of effort means you shouldn't retake. I only claim that after studying for months, taking 20 PTs and never scoring above 160 on any of them, it's pretty unlikely that OP has some hidden stores of brainpower waiting to be unlocked which will launch him/her into 170-land - unless he/she just doesn't get games, which ARE completely learnable (again, for most).

I am not advocating that OP not retake, nor am I saying that retaking is a bad idea. I just think that in this specific case, with the data we have available, it would be justifiable for OP not to do so.