Sorry, about the double post; going to put all my advice in one post since this thread is a little old. To clarify, all my advice is just about HYS:
orokep wrote:we'rebothmenofthelaw wrote:Congrats on the lsat and general accomplishments, and I hope you find a way to continue to ignore those who can’t believe you exist.
Do you think it would be appropriate/wise to discuss the path to a 177 lsat and how it is quite similar to obtaining a high gpa during undergrad as one of the talking points to dissuade inferences typically made of low gpa applicants?
Reasoning:
While scores up to maybe the 165-171 range commonly seem possible to attain with simply a modest yet consistent work ethic and good quality preparation, scores in excess of 176 imply that you missed approximately 3-4 out of the 101 total questions with the missed questions typically a result of misreading a sentence or stimulus from going too fast. Getting to that point takes a long term consistent commitment and an extremely high quality of preparation with a focus on perfecting every aspect of the exam to the point of complete comprehension. Typically it seems scorers at this level have studied in excess of 6 months to a year at a very high intensity that is arguably more rigorous than that required to achieve a high gpa. To put it in perspective, over the last year only about 300 of 130,000 total test takers scored a 177 or higher on the LSAT. What are your thoughts on this?
As others have said, this is an extremely bad idea and I can't see a way such an essay wouldn't significantly hurt your chances. As someone who received a very similar score to what you're describing, I'm honestly having a hard time believing you're super familiar with the LSAT. The notion that you can infer anything about the commitment of an LSAT taker from a single score is absolutely absurd. I don't think there's anything valuable about me trying to argue that you don't have the score, but if you haven't taken the LSAT, you should not make any estimates about your score, or worse, get estimates about your admissions prospects based on an estimated score.
Here's the challenge your application is going to run into: you don't have a record of academic success. Do you have good reasons to explain why your GPA was low? Maybe (depending on how well you can explain why those issues weren't solved for 4 years of college but won't be as much of a problem in the future) but explaining away the bad does not make a case for why you're a good student now. That's why I bring up the question of what you've been doing since graduation since low GPA candidates often have to rely on this bump. Things that I think could help your chances:
1. Significant time in the military
2. Excelling in a PHD or an especially rigorous Master's Program
3. Starting / leading a business or nonprofit for a significant amount of time
4. Recommendations from undergraduate with your professors saying you were a fantastic student in their specific classes.
The first three things are, in my opinion, ridiculous actions to take solely to get into law school, but everyone's calculus is different. There's a tendency to think that high LSAT scores can save the day, but honestly, I can't see a 177 being any different from a 170 as far as your chances at HYS go.