Chances at Boalt with low GPA but significant upward trend? Forum

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Chances at Boalt with low GPA but significant upward trend?

Post by artichoke » Wed Sep 22, 2010 9:25 pm

I would really like to go to Berkeley Law, but my UGPA is only 3.63 and my LSAT is 172. However, my grade trend during undergrad is as follows:

3.5
3.43
3.2
3.68
4.0
4.0
4.0

How much (if at all), might this upward trend help me? Is it even worth applying to Boalt? At this point I'm really trying to narrow the schools I apply to because of low funds and I'm not sure it would be worth it to apply to Berkeley, but having said that it is one of my top choice schools should I get in. Thoughts?

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Re: Chances at Boalt with low GPA but significant upward trend?

Post by The Brainalist » Wed Sep 22, 2010 9:40 pm

It is fine to have UCB as your #1 choice, but when you send out applications, it would be dumb to not blanket at least the T4-T10. It may seem expensive, but you may only get a money offer from one of them, and it won't likely be berkeley, or you may only get into one of them at all. Don't let a couple hundred dollars stand between you and admission to an elite institution. In the long run, you are going to be up to your eyeballs in debt anyway, you may as well take out a few hundred in credit now when it is something really important.

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Re: Chances at Boalt with low GPA but significant upward trend?

Post by artichoke » Wed Sep 22, 2010 9:57 pm

The Brainalist wrote:It is fine to have UCB as your #1 choice, but when you send out applications, it would be dumb to not blanket at least the T4-T10. It may seem expensive, but you may only get a money offer from one of them, and it won't likely be berkeley, or you may only get into one of them at all. Don't let a couple hundred dollars stand between you and admission to an elite institution. In the long run, you are going to be up to your eyeballs in debt anyway, you may as well take out a few hundred in credit now when it is something really important.
That makes complete sense to me, but as I don't actually HAVE a couple hundred dollars in credit available nor do I have a job/any income, I'm slightly reliant on my parents to fund my applications. Having said that, they are not too happy about my year-long work hiatus and I am thus somewhat limited in the number of schools I can apply to. Having said that, if, hypothetically, I had to choose between say Berkeley and UPenn or Berkeley and Georgetown (and I would prefer Berkeley over both of these schools) would applying to Berkeley be a wise decision?

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Re: Chances at Boalt with low GPA but significant upward trend?

Post by im_blue » Wed Sep 22, 2010 9:59 pm

artichoke88 wrote:
The Brainalist wrote:It is fine to have UCB as your #1 choice, but when you send out applications, it would be dumb to not blanket at least the T4-T10. It may seem expensive, but you may only get a money offer from one of them, and it won't likely be berkeley, or you may only get into one of them at all. Don't let a couple hundred dollars stand between you and admission to an elite institution. In the long run, you are going to be up to your eyeballs in debt anyway, you may as well take out a few hundred in credit now when it is something really important.
That makes complete sense to me, but as I don't actually HAVE a couple hundred dollars in credit available nor do I have a job/any income, I'm slightly reliant on my parents to fund my applications. Having said that, they are not too happy about my year-long work hiatus and I am thus somewhat limited in the number of schools I can apply to. Having said that, if, hypothetically, I had to choose between say Berkeley and UPenn or Berkeley and Georgetown (and I would prefer Berkeley over both of these schools) would applying to Berkeley be a wise decision?
How many apps can you afford, and what is your ranked school preference list?

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Re: Chances at Boalt with low GPA but significant upward trend?

Post by artichoke » Wed Sep 22, 2010 10:10 pm

im_blue wrote: How many apps can you afford, and what is your ranked school preference list?

Well, so far I've applied to UMich, Columbia, Cornell, UCLA, Duke, UVA, NYU and Vanderbilt all with fee waivers. I would still like to apply to GULC, Berkeley and UPenn, UC - Boulder, Fordham, Emory and Chicago without waivers. Realistically I'll probably be able to apply to maybe half of those. My ranked school list goes something like this:

1. Berkeley, Cornell, UMich
2. Columbia, GULC, Chicago
3. the rest

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Re: Chances at Boalt with low GPA but significant upward trend?

Post by im_blue » Wed Sep 22, 2010 10:16 pm

artichoke88 wrote:
im_blue wrote: How many apps can you afford, and what is your ranked school preference list?

Well, so far I've applied to UMich, Columbia, Cornell, UCLA, Duke, UVA, NYU and Vanderbilt all with fee waivers. I would still like to apply to GULC, Berkeley and UPenn, UC - Boulder, Fordham, Emory and Chicago without waivers. Realistically I'll probably be able to apply to maybe half of those. My ranked school list goes something like this:

1. Berkeley, Cornell, UMich
2. Columbia, GULC, Chicago
3. the rest
I'd cut out Penn and 1-2 of Colorado, Fordham, and Emory. Your chances are low at Penn unless you ED, and you only need one of the non-T14s as a safety since you're already applying to a reasonable number of T14s.

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Re: Chances at Boalt with low GPA but significant upward trend?

Post by kalvano » Wed Sep 22, 2010 10:21 pm

artichoke88 wrote:That makes complete sense to me, but as I don't actually HAVE a couple hundred dollars in credit available nor do I have a job/any income, I'm slightly reliant on my parents to fund my applications. Having said that, they are not too happy about my year-long work hiatus and I am thus somewhat limited in the number of schools I can apply to. Having said that, if, hypothetically, I had to choose between say Berkeley and UPenn or Berkeley and Georgetown (and I would prefer Berkeley over both of these schools) would applying to Berkeley be a wise decision?

Ask for fee waivers. You'd be surprised at how many will happily give them out.

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Re: Chances at Boalt with low GPA but significant upward trend?

Post by artichoke » Wed Sep 22, 2010 10:28 pm

im_blue wrote: I'd cut out Penn and 1-2 of Colorado, Fordham, and Emory. Your chances are low at Penn unless you ED, and you only need one of the non-T14s as a safety since you're already applying to a reasonable number of T14s.
Why do you say my chances are low at Penn? (I'm not offended, just genuinely curious)

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Re: Chances at Boalt with low GPA but significant upward trend?

Post by artichoke » Wed Sep 22, 2010 10:30 pm

kalvano wrote:
artichoke88 wrote:That makes complete sense to me, but as I don't actually HAVE a couple hundred dollars in credit available nor do I have a job/any income, I'm slightly reliant on my parents to fund my applications. Having said that, they are not too happy about my year-long work hiatus and I am thus somewhat limited in the number of schools I can apply to. Having said that, if, hypothetically, I had to choose between say Berkeley and UPenn or Berkeley and Georgetown (and I would prefer Berkeley over both of these schools) would applying to Berkeley be a wise decision?

Ask for fee waivers. You'd be surprised at how many will happily give them out.

I just send a waiver request to Georgetown, UC Boulder and Emory today, and apparently Fordham doesn't grant merit-based waivers. As for the rest, I'm not sure I have the nerve to ask.

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Re: Chances at Boalt with low GPA but significant upward trend?

Post by im_blue » Wed Sep 22, 2010 10:31 pm

artichoke88 wrote:
im_blue wrote: I'd cut out Penn and 1-2 of Colorado, Fordham, and Emory. Your chances are low at Penn unless you ED, and you only need one of the non-T14s as a safety since you're already applying to a reasonable number of T14s.
Why do you say my chances are low at Penn? (I'm not offended, just genuinely curious)
Penn took only 3/11 LSN applicants with a 3.6x/172 last year. Penn doesn't like weak splitters in that numbers range for RD because they often choose CCN instead.
http://penn.lawschoolnumbers.com/applic ... ,8&type=jd

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Re: Chances at Boalt with low GPA but significant upward trend?

Post by speedyj88 » Wed Sep 22, 2010 10:32 pm

artichoke88 wrote:
im_blue wrote: How many apps can you afford, and what is your ranked school preference list?

Well, so far I've applied to UMich, Columbia, Cornell, UCLA, Duke, UVA, NYU and Vanderbilt all with fee waivers. I would still like to apply to GULC, Berkeley and UPenn, UC - Boulder, Fordham, Emory and Chicago without waivers. Realistically I'll probably be able to apply to maybe half of those. My ranked school list goes something like this:

1. Berkeley, Cornell, UMich
2. Columbia, GULC, Chicago
3. the rest
You should absolutely apply to Berkeley with it being one of your top choices. I think you should be able to get fee waivers from Boulder, Fordham, and Emory if you email them to ask. Apparently GULC is reluctant to give them out via email request and Berkeley is even worse, only reserving them for TFA or applicants with equivalent softs. Regardless, you should be getting into Cornell and Michigan with a fighting chance for CCN.

Edit: I should have refreshed my browser before responding.

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Re: Chances at Boalt with low GPA but significant upward trend?

Post by artichoke » Wed Sep 22, 2010 10:38 pm

im_blue wrote: Penn took only 3/11 LSN applicants with a 3.6x/172 last year. Penn doesn't like weak splitters in that numbers range for RD because they often choose CCN instead.
http://penn.lawschoolnumbers.com/applic ... ,8&type=jd
Ah, I see. Good to know. I'll definitely consider scratching Penn off my list then. Thanks!
speedyj88 wrote: You should absolutely apply to Berkeley with it being one of your top choices. I think you should be able to get fee waivers from Boulder, Fordham, and Emory if you email them to ask. Apparently GULC is reluctant to give them out via email request and Berkeley is even worse, only reserving them for TFA or applicants with equivalent softs. Regardless, you should be getting into Cornell and Michigan with a fighting chance for CCN.

Edit: I should have refreshed my browser before responding.
Yeah, I've seen the waiver talk about Georgetown on the boards, though I was checking out some old threads and it seemed like they sent out fee waivers via e-mail really late in the game before. Definitely don't want to wait around that long for a waiver though.

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Re: Chances at Boalt with low GPA but significant upward trend?

Post by whymeohgodno » Wed Sep 22, 2010 10:40 pm

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Re: Chances at Boalt with low GPA but significant upward trend?

Post by kalvano » Wed Sep 22, 2010 10:41 pm

artichoke88 wrote:
kalvano wrote:
artichoke88 wrote:That makes complete sense to me, but as I don't actually HAVE a couple hundred dollars in credit available nor do I have a job/any income, I'm slightly reliant on my parents to fund my applications. Having said that, they are not too happy about my year-long work hiatus and I am thus somewhat limited in the number of schools I can apply to. Having said that, if, hypothetically, I had to choose between say Berkeley and UPenn or Berkeley and Georgetown (and I would prefer Berkeley over both of these schools) would applying to Berkeley be a wise decision?

Ask for fee waivers. You'd be surprised at how many will happily give them out.

I just send a waiver request to Georgetown, UC Boulder and Emory today, and apparently Fordham doesn't grant merit-based waivers. As for the rest, I'm not sure I have the nerve to ask.

Ask anyway.

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Re: Chances at Boalt with low GPA but significant upward trend?

Post by artichoke » Wed Sep 22, 2010 10:48 pm

kalvano wrote: Ask anyway.
Yes, actually, I probably should. Thanks :)
whymeohgodno wrote:In at Cornell.
I hope so (fingers crossed)

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Re: Chances at Boalt with low GPA but significant upward trend?

Post by Mike12188 » Wed Sep 22, 2010 11:00 pm

If I had your numbers I wouldn't bother applying to anything lower than GTown. So even with fee waivers, I'd save the 24-36 bucks.

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Re: Chances at Boalt with low GPA but significant upward trend?

Post by artichoke » Wed Sep 22, 2010 11:06 pm

Mike12188 wrote:If I had your numbers I wouldn't bother applying to anything lower than GTown. So even with fee waivers, I'd save the 24-36 bucks.
Well, while I am somewhat of a rankings snob, I am also interested in seeing what kind of scholly offers I can get from sub-T14. I could be persuaded to go somewhere with a lower rank if the offer was juicy enough.

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Re: Chances at Boalt with low GPA but significant upward trend?

Post by artichoke » Wed Sep 22, 2010 11:10 pm

amyLAchemist wrote:
Mike12188 wrote:If I had your numbers I wouldn't bother applying to anything lower than GTown. So even with fee waivers, I'd save the 24-36 bucks.
Why not get a menial job to pay for it? And earn money for other things as well?

Instead of a menial job, you could probably even tutor the LSAT or other subjects privately, making your own schedule as well as $$$.

And I agree with the above mostly. However, if you have an interest in being in the area for any of the 15-20 schools, I would shoot an app.

Edit - As for Berkeley, def worth applying. I know ppl who I go to school with with similar numbers - Boalt seems to be willing to be a bit forgiving of numbers for those with interesting softs.
I actually just recently got a job, but I still have a couple weeks before I get my first paycheck, and I would like to have applied to all my schools by that time. Kaplan actually asked me to teach for them after LSAT scores came in, but the interview process just seemed too daunting/degrading.

As far as Berkeley, my softs are definitely not going to help me there, though I did work pretty extensive hours while in UG.

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Re: Chances at Boalt with low GPA but significant upward trend?

Post by Grizz » Wed Sep 22, 2010 11:10 pm

artichoke88 wrote: Well, while I am somewhat of a rankings snob,
Generally, this attitude is moronic.

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Re: Chances at Boalt with low GPA but significant upward trend?

Post by artichoke » Wed Sep 22, 2010 11:14 pm

rad law wrote:
artichoke88 wrote: Well, while I am somewhat of a rankings snob,
Generally, this attitude is moronic.
I thought I should probably qualify that statement while I was typing it, and now I see my inclination was correct. The reason I would prefer to attend a top-ranked school is to be among top-ranked students and top-ranked faculty. This is what the rankings mean to me, and this is what makes me a ranking snob - I'm not sure I would classify that as moronic, but to each her/his own.

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Re: Chances at Boalt with low GPA but significant upward trend?

Post by kalvano » Wed Sep 22, 2010 11:18 pm

For the most part, faculty at the T50 schools will all be pretty brilliant.

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Re: Chances at Boalt with low GPA but significant upward trend?

Post by artichoke » Wed Sep 22, 2010 11:20 pm

kalvano wrote:For the most part, faculty at the T50 schools will all be pretty brilliant.
The same however, cannot be said of the students (IMHO).

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Re: Chances at Boalt with low GPA but significant upward trend?

Post by kalvano » Wed Sep 22, 2010 11:22 pm

artichoke88 wrote:
kalvano wrote:For the most part, faculty at the T50 schools will all be pretty brilliant.
The same however, cannot be said of the students (IMHO).
What's your point? Most people in a T50 program are going to be fairly smart. Just because someone is going to Berkley doesn't make them intelligent, interesting to be around, or anyone you'd want to be around.
Last edited by kalvano on Wed Sep 22, 2010 11:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Chances at Boalt with low GPA but significant upward trend?

Post by Mike12188 » Wed Sep 22, 2010 11:22 pm

artichoke88 wrote:
rad law wrote:
artichoke88 wrote: Well, while I am somewhat of a rankings snob,
Generally, this attitude is moronic.
I thought I should probably qualify that statement while I was typing it, and now I see my inclination was correct. The reason I would prefer to attend a top-ranked school is to be among top-ranked students and top-ranked faculty. This is what the rankings mean to me, and this is what makes me a ranking snob - I'm not sure I would classify that as moronic, but to each her/his own.
If by ranking snob, you mean someone he just wants to let people know how high their school is ranked and brag, than yes I agree it is moronic. But from my understanding the higher the rank the better off you are ITE, and I'm not talking about P being better than M or V. But from what I read in these OCI threads, median at CCN is faring better than median and DNCG.

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Re: Chances at Boalt with low GPA but significant upward trend?

Post by artichoke » Wed Sep 22, 2010 11:25 pm

amyLAchemist wrote:
artichoke88 wrote:Kaplan actually asked me to teach for them after LSAT scores came in, but the interview process just seemed too daunting/degrading.
Wait till OCI.

Also, another good reason to go to a top school are the job prospects, in addition to the environment.

Why is Boalt your #1 choice?
The excellent academic reputation, most obviously, but mainly the reputation of the student body being supportive, the faculty being friendly, open and accessible, the location, the job prospects, and of course, the grading system.

Seriously? What are you waiting for?

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