AA-male w/177 July LSAT HYS/T14 Chances?? Forum

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orokep

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AA-male w/177 July LSAT HYS/T14 Chances??

Post by orokep » Tue Aug 14, 2018 9:38 am

Hey everyone,

I received my July 2018 LSAT score this past Friday. I scored a 177 officially. Now I'm caught in a bit of an open ended situation and I'm interested in hearing some input from everyone on the forum about what my chances are at HYS and other schools in the T14 in terms of admittance and aide.

For the sake of this discussion assume my recalculated gpa will sit around 2.5-2.6. This makes me a splitter with an lsat over the 75th percentile everywhere and a gpa under the 25th.

My situation encounters a bit more grey area because of my background:

African American male
Played collegiate Division 1 football
Dual Major (Mechanical Engineering and Sociology) w/math minor

I was often working while playing football which is like a full time job in and of itself. Also,one of my majors, mechanical Engineering, is a hard science. I hear this lessen's the blow from gpa and schools like applicants with a hard science degree since they are rare and needed?


Taking the above into account, I'd like to hear individual thoughts on my situation and where you all think I stand with my current gpa and lsat (2.5/177) in terms of HYS and the rest of the T14.

hoos89

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Re: AA-male w/177 July LSAT HYS/T14 Chances??

Post by hoos89 » Tue Aug 14, 2018 12:39 pm

Congrats on that LSAT score. There really isn't data for us to compare against...there wasn't a single URM with similar numbers to you the last 5 cycles who put their info up on mylsn. All we can do is offer an educated guess, but ultimately I don't think anyone can definitively tell you where you'll get in or not.

Lowest GPA in Yale's c/o 2020 was 3.43. LSN doesn't have a single applicant in at HYS below 3.0 the last 9 cycles (not counting a couple of obviously fake accounts). Which is to say: I probably wouldn't get your hopes up on HYS. Go ahead and apply though...LSN only records 3 AA applicants with a 177 or higher the last 9 cycles so it's worth a shot (LSN is self-reported though so it's not exhaustive...but in any case you are definitely an extremely rare applicant).

My advice is to apply to every T14 school plus a handful of schools in the next tier (UT, UCLA, WUSTL, Vandy) primarily for scholarship negotiation purposes. You WILL get into some T14 schools though; I have no doubt about that.

orokep

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Re: AA-male w/177 July LSAT HYS/T14 Chances??

Post by orokep » Tue Aug 14, 2018 1:14 pm

hoos89 wrote:Congrats on that LSAT score. There really isn't data for us to compare against...there wasn't a single URM with similar numbers to you the last 5 cycles who put their info up on mylsn. All we can do is offer an educated guess, but ultimately I don't think anyone can definitively tell you where you'll get in or not.

Lowest GPA in Yale's c/o 2020 was 3.43. LSN doesn't have a single applicant in at HYS below 3.0 the last 9 cycles (not counting a couple of obviously fake accounts). Which is to say: I probably wouldn't get your hopes up on HYS. Go ahead and apply though...LSN only records 3 AA applicants with a 177 or higher the last 9 cycles so it's worth a shot (LSN is self-reported though so it's not exhaustive...but in any case you are definitely an extremely rare applicant).

My advice is to apply to every T14 school plus a handful of schools in the next tier (UT, UCLA, WUSTL, Vandy) primarily for scholarship negotiation purposes. You WILL get into some T14 schools though; I have no doubt about that.
I probably spent 5-6 hours scouring the internet for statistical data related to AA's (male or female) who scored above the 75% on the LSAT for all schools including HYS. Found next to nothing though. It seems as if the incidence of a gpa approaching or exceeding the median or 75% and a sub 168 LSAT score is the norm among AA's that gain acceptance into HYS. Seems like Yale has even accepted LSAT scores as low as 156, which is far below the 25%. Theoretically, the reason could be that there are less than 1 or two AA's who score a 176 or higher each year on average?? If this were the case then perhaps a gpa hovering between 2.6-2.7 could slip by given the AA male boost and the current law school climate?

mmac

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Re: AA-male w/177 July LSAT HYS/T14 Chances??

Post by mmac » Tue Aug 14, 2018 1:22 pm

I think you will have a very interesting cycle. (I don't see any URMs with your numbers at LSN.) I would apply to the top 20 or so and see how you do. Definitely write an addendum regarding the GPA since it seems you have some legitimate reasons. Good luck!

hoos89

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Re: AA-male w/177 July LSAT HYS/T14 Chances??

Post by hoos89 » Tue Aug 14, 2018 1:24 pm

I'm not saying you're definitely out at HYS. Like I said, there really isn't info to compare against so there's no way for anyone to predict your cycle, but all info we do have points to you not getting admitted. Apply broadly and hope for the best, but don't get your heart set on HYS.

orokep

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Re: AA-male w/177 July LSAT HYS/T14 Chances??

Post by orokep » Tue Aug 14, 2018 1:57 pm

mmac wrote:I think you will have a very interesting cycle. (I don't see any URMs with your numbers at LSN.) I would apply to the top 20 or so and see how you do. Definitely write an addendum regarding the GPA since it seems you have some legitimate reasons. Good luck!

I do have legitimate medical reasons for the low gpa and its mainly to do with concussions while playing collegiate football, the effects of which were finally diminished about a year following graduation. I'm not sure if they care though? I was leaning towards leaving it out to avoid coming off as if I want to shirk responsibility by making excuses.

Do you happen to know the reason why they typically don't dip below the 25% for low gpa high lsat splitters but they will dip below 25% for low LSAT high gpa splitters?

hoos89

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Re: AA-male w/177 July LSAT HYS/T14 Chances??

Post by hoos89 » Tue Aug 14, 2018 2:13 pm

Some schools have a hard GPA floor they won't go below and that's just the way it is. Not sure why that's not always the case for the LSAT, but it is what it is. If HYS was ever going to dip below 3.0 for a candidate...you'd be the one though. So I guess we'll see what happens. I do think it's worth writing a GPA addendum in this case...not sure it will help, but I certainly wouldn't expect it to hurt. If you can really say that (a) I was affected by a diagnosed medical issue and (b) that issue is now greatly diminished and shouldn't hinder my ability to handle law school coursework, then I think it's worthwhile and not just making excuses.

mmac

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Re: AA-male w/177 July LSAT HYS/T14 Chances??

Post by mmac » Tue Aug 14, 2018 2:22 pm

Definitely do write an addendum. Besides the medical issues (which are probably most important) between working a lot and playing football, it is not surprising that your grades would not be the best. The schools offer the ability to write an addendum so that you can explain extenuating circumstances. You should not think of it as making excuses--just present the facts.

Some schools are more splitter friendly than other so be sure to check that out. As for your question regarding why schools will take lower LSATs with higher GPAs and not vice versa, I'm not sure we know that that is true. It seems that to get better representation of URMs, schools are typically presented with candidates with higher GPAs but lower LSATs. There aren't too many URMs who are such extreme splitters as you; that's why I think your cycle will be very interesting. Please let us know how it goes, and good luck.

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Re: AA-male w/177 July LSAT HYS/T14 Chances??

Post by mmac » Tue Aug 14, 2018 2:46 pm

Actually I don't see anyone (non-URM or not) on LSN who has similar stats.

orokep

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Re: AA-male w/177 July LSAT HYS/T14 Chances??

Post by orokep » Tue Aug 14, 2018 3:16 pm

mmac wrote:Definitely do write an addendum. Besides the medical issues (which are probably most important) between working a lot and playing football, it is not surprising that your grades would not be the best. The schools offer the ability to write an addendum so that you can explain extenuating circumstances. You should not think of it as making excuses--just present the facts.

Some schools are more splitter friendly than other so be sure to check that out. As for your question regarding why schools will take lower LSATs with higher GPAs and not vice versa, I'm not sure we know that that is true. It seems that to get better representation of URMs, schools are typically presented with candidates with higher GPAs but lower LSATs. There aren't too many URMs who are such extreme splitters as you; that's why I think your cycle will be very interesting. Please let us know how it goes, and good luck.
I will definitely keep everyone posted. We 100% need more data on applicants that fit this profile. The more I look for data even remotely similar, the more I'm beginning to wonder how many URM's (especially AA males) have hit a 177+? The data released by LSAC for the lsats administered from 2017-2018 show that the raw number of total test takers with a score of 177+ was only 333 to begin with and AA's are under represented in that total.

According to the score distributions, the average lsat for AA's was about 142 with a SD of 9.4 which equates to only 8-9 AA test takers scoring above a 170 given that only 8440 AA's took the lsat over the 2017-2018 interval. Could be possible that only 1 or 2 AA's in general surpass a 177 over a given cycle, if any at all? Which would explain the dearth of information.

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Re: AA-male w/177 July LSAT HYS/T14 Chances??

Post by orokep » Tue Aug 14, 2018 3:31 pm

mmac wrote:Actually I don't see anyone (non-URM or not) on LSN who has similar stats.
I think you're right, I'm checking it right now and I don't see many splitters in general even relatively in the same ball park. Sorting by URM makes other applicants even less similar and thats without taking into account specific AA status or gender which presumably carry the largest boosts during the application cycle when combined.

hoos89

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Re: AA-male w/177 July LSAT HYS/T14 Chances??

Post by hoos89 » Tue Aug 14, 2018 3:35 pm

It's entirely possible that you'll have the highest LSAT of any AA applicant in the country next cycle.

orokep

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Re: AA-male w/177 July LSAT HYS/T14 Chances??

Post by orokep » Tue Aug 14, 2018 4:23 pm

hoos89 wrote:It's entirely possible that you'll have the highest LSAT of any AA applicant in the country next cycle.
I sincerely hope this is the case. May actually have at least a 10% chance of YLS if that’s the cases. And I assume all of the others will be a similar story at that point.

mmac

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Re: AA-male w/177 July LSAT HYS/T14 Chances??

Post by mmac » Tue Aug 14, 2018 5:56 pm

orokep wrote:
mmac wrote:Actually I don't see anyone (non-URM or not) on LSN who has similar stats.
I think you're right, I'm checking it right now and I don't see many splitters in general even relatively in the same ball park. Sorting by URM makes other applicants even less similar and thats without taking into account specific AA status or gender which presumably carry the largest boosts during the application cycle when combined.
Yes, the person who was the closest I could find had a 2.9 and 177 and ended up at WUSTL. He was not an URM though.

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Re: AA-male w/177 July LSAT HYS/T14 Chances??

Post by orokep » Tue Aug 14, 2018 7:44 pm

mmac wrote:
orokep wrote:
mmac wrote:Actually I don't see anyone (non-URM or not) on LSN who has similar stats.
I think you're right, I'm checking it right now and I don't see many splitters in general even relatively in the same ball park. Sorting by URM makes other applicants even less similar and thats without taking into account specific AA status or gender which presumably carry the largest boosts during the application cycle when combined.
Yes, the person who was the closest I could find had a 2.9 and 177 and ended up at WUSTL. He was not an URM though.
I'd assume even a non URM must have raked in quite a bit of money falling to #18 with a 177 LSAT if the rest of the application was of high quality? Either way, unfortunately, I'd imagine that his application cycle will likely differ greatly from my own since he isn't even a URM whereas I am in the URM group receiving the heftiest boost.

I spoke to a buddy of mine that went to U. Chicago Law earlier today to try and decipher what a realistic outlook may be for me during the upcoming cycle. He suggested that a 177 is very likely to be the highest AA lsat score turned in during this upcoming cycle based on what he knows of AA friends from the t-14 and the data.

I really wish there were some definitive data points that were similar in the numbers and AA status at the very least to go off of. In the worst case scenario it would appear that my score is in the top 3-4 for AA lsats this cycle at the very least, unless the number of AA test takers is significantly greater than 8440 for the cycle.

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Re: AA-male w/177 July LSAT HYS/T14 Chances??

Post by 4LTsPointingNorth » Tue Aug 14, 2018 8:38 pm

Congrats on that phenomenal LSAT score. Since you're such an extreme splitter, I would assume that most law schools won't have any easy way to categorize you. I suspect that, for you, your personal statement, addenda, and letters of recommendation will be scrutinized much more closely than a typical applicant's would be.

Really button those up to tip the scales in your favor (seek second, third, fourth opinions on content and also enlist careful friends for proofreading, line-editing, etc.). If you submit very strong written products, you are likely to have a very successful cycle despite your GPA.

orokep

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Re: AA-male w/177 July LSAT HYS/T14 Chances??

Post by orokep » Tue Aug 14, 2018 9:05 pm

4LTsPointingNorth wrote:Really button those up to tip the scales in your favor (seek second, third, fourth opinions on content and also enlist careful friends for proofreading, line-editing, etc.). If you submit very strong written products, you are likely to have a very successful cycle despite your GPA.

Thanks! Any recommendations for resources that would be valuable in helping piece together an air tight application? Until now I have been mainly referencing sources directly from the law schools that I'll be applying to and reading through successful personal statements. So far I have a skeleton for the personal statement and an amalgamation of general features from successful statements that may help influence mine for the better.

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Re: AA-male w/177 July LSAT HYS/T14 Chances??

Post by 4LTsPointingNorth » Tue Aug 14, 2018 10:00 pm

orokep wrote:
4LTsPointingNorth wrote:Really button those up to tip the scales in your favor (seek second, third, fourth opinions on content and also enlist careful friends for proofreading, line-editing, etc.). If you submit very strong written products, you are likely to have a very successful cycle despite your GPA.

Thanks! Any recommendations for resources that would be valuable in helping piece together an air tight application? Until now I have been mainly referencing sources directly from the law schools that I'll be applying to and reading through successful personal statements. So far I have a skeleton for the personal statement and an amalgamation of general features from successful statements that may help influence mine for the better.
Definitely continue to mine this site and the broader internet for inspiration/content advice.

But, with your numbers as they are, I think the more important thing is to submit flawless work product. Don't allow any typos, any awkwardly phrased sentences, or any weirdly inauthentic word choices to slip into whatever you submit. Just tell whatever story you have in a genuine and straightforward way and ensure that it is presented without error. Make sure your resume is similarly error-free and that all the tenses make sense (use past-tense for past jobs, present tense for current job responsibilities, etc.)

My thinking here is that the LSAT is perhaps useful as an imperfect proxy for intellect and logical thinking, while GPA is an imperfect proxy that more broadly covers quality of work product and consistency of effort/production. These are obviously broad generalizations. As a strategy matter, though, your high LSAT score speaks for itself. So you want to ensure that nothing in your application casts any potential doubt (and perhaps ameliorates any potential doubts) about the care you put into your work product. In your case, the eventual content is likely less important than the presentation, so long as the content is on topic and inoffensive.

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Re: AA-male w/177 July LSAT HYS/T14 Chances??

Post by jgloster » Wed Aug 15, 2018 2:18 pm

I'm pretty this guy is just making up his numbers/background. Probably white. :mrgreen:

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Re: AA-male w/177 July LSAT HYS/T14 Chances??

Post by goingnutslawschool » Thu Aug 16, 2018 1:32 am

What makes you think that the guy is white?

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Re: AA-male w/177 July LSAT HYS/T14 Chances??

Post by nixy » Thu Aug 16, 2018 7:57 am

jgloster wrote:I'm pretty this guy is just making up his numbers/background. Probably white. :mrgreen:
This is a really stupid post.

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Re: AA-male w/177 July LSAT HYS/T14 Chances??

Post by jgloster » Thu Aug 16, 2018 11:09 am

goingnutslawschool wrote:What makes you think that the guy is white?
Extreme splitter numbers that almost never occur (even among whites), vague background info, which only mentions he majored in engineering while playing Division I football (again extremely rare), seems more interested in gathering data than actually knowing his chances. So probably white/troll.

The jig is up!

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Re: AA-male w/177 July LSAT HYS/T14 Chances??

Post by nixy » Thu Aug 16, 2018 11:10 am

jgloster wrote:
goingnutslawschool wrote:What makes you think that the guy is white?
Extreme splitter numbers that almost never occur (even among whites), vague background info, which only mentions he majored in engineering while playing Division I football (again extremely rare), seems more interested in gathering data than actually knowing his chances. So probably white/troll.

The jig is up!
This is also a really stupid post.

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Re: AA-male w/177 July LSAT HYS/T14 Chances??

Post by Person1111 » Thu Aug 16, 2018 1:00 pm

There are nearly 350 D1 schools. At 105 players per roster, that's over 36k people in any given year. It's really that hard to believe that one of them majored in engineering and got a 177 on the LSAT?

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Re: AA-male w/177 July LSAT HYS/T14 Chances??

Post by orokep » Fri Aug 17, 2018 6:26 pm

jgloster wrote:I'm pretty this guy is just making up his numbers/background. Probably white. :mrgreen:
LMFAO If it sounds that crazy I'm happy af... perhaps I may actually have a shot at HYS. My scores have come in already though and it is what it is.

177 lsat, AA male, D1 football, engineering and sociology double major w/math minor. If you guys have any serious input I welcome it. Either way, I'll keep you guys updated on how things go. All of the help and the jokes are much appreciated haha

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