I'm not sure if I have a chance at Cornell and Georgetown or not Forum

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booknerd

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I'm not sure if I have a chance at Cornell and Georgetown or not

Post by booknerd » Mon Jan 14, 2019 11:50 pm

I'm a black male and I'll probably be applying with a GPA that's between 3.4 and 3.5. I'm not really sure of law schools would take it into consideration, but my grades have gotten better over the course of undergrad. I got two C-'s my freshman year, but since then I haven't gotten any grade below B+. Of course, the two C-'s pull my GPA down. The LSAT score I have right now is 163. I'm only a junior right now and plan to apply senior year, so I can retake it if it's necessary. I'm planning right now to apply early decision to either Georgetown or Cornell and I'm wondering if I have a chance at getting into either or what I can do to increase my chances.

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Dcc617

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Re: I'm not sure if I have a chance at Cornell and Georgetown or not

Post by Dcc617 » Tue Jan 15, 2019 12:16 am

booknerd wrote:I'm a black male and I'll probably be applying with a GPA that's between 3.4 and 3.5. I'm not really sure of law schools would take it into consideration, but my grades have gotten better over the course of undergrad. I got two C-'s my freshman year, but since then I haven't gotten any grade below B+. Of course, the two C-'s pull my GPA down. The LSAT score I have right now is 163. I'm only a junior right now and plan to apply senior year, so I can retake it if it's necessary. I'm planning right now to apply early decision to either Georgetown or Cornell and I'm wondering if I have a chance at getting into either or what I can do to increase my chances.
What’s the rush? You have unlimited retakes and your whole life. Why not take some time before you go to law school?

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UVA2B

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Re: I'm not sure if I have a chance at Cornell and Georgetown or not

Post by UVA2B » Tue Jan 15, 2019 12:23 am

Do you have a 163 LSAT officially, or are you PTing there?

You're an AA URM, which gets generally the biggest boost in admissions. If you are a 163/3.45 (splitting the difference), you'll have a good shot at both schools RD, much less ED. And you'd have a good shot higher than Cornell and Georgetown with those numbers.

But that isn't the end of the calculus. You are young (I assume, considering you're a junior in college), you have time to improve on your LSAT, and you have the ability to go to Cornell or Georgetown for cheap, or you can go to a much higher ranked school for a similar price. If you manage a 170+, barring the USNWR rankings no longer factoring LSAT or equally factoring GRE (or some other recalculation), you could be looking at Chicago, or NYU, or Duke, or [insert stronger placing T13] with a similar or better scholarship.

What is the rush?

Edit: Thanks dcc, scooped on what matters most

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