Taking A Year Off and Writing An Addendum Forum

[slewis06]

I plan on taking the LSATs in June as well as October if need be. Taking the LSAT's practice test through Kaplan cold turkey without even knowing what exactly was going to be on the test I scored a 149 (I had a runny nose and terrible cold so I couldn't concentrate and just circled answers), which I feel like I can at least bring up to 161 (ideally 165). However, I am worried about my overall undergraduate GPA. I projected that I should graduate with a 3.04 which is pretty terrible in my opinion. I struggled the first two years trying to figure out what I wanted to major in, starting off with majoring in biology trying to pursue my parents dreams of me becoming a doctor. Although I got poor grades my second semester freshman year and into my sophomore year I was determined not to give up seeing I was the first in my family to go to college. I feel like this story could make a good addendum explaining my low GPA?? After switching my major to political science I started getting good grades (3.34, 3.48, 3.52) and they continually started to go up, which i feel might be beneficial for law schools to see. Seeing that I want my senior year grades to be included in my GPA, I am taking a year off. I landed an internship with a mayor for my last semester as an undegrad and if I do well could be offered a full time position. How beneficial would this look to law schools? (The addendum, and being a legislative intern with a full/part time position in state/local government??

The schools I really want to apply to are the following:

-Fordham Law School
-Boston University Law School
-Boston College Law School
-Cardozo Law School
-Brooklyn Law School
-St Johns Law School
-Northeastern Law School
-Hofstra Law School
-Villanova Law School

[bp shinners]

Although I got poor grades my second semester freshman year and into my sophomore year I was determined not to give up seeing I was the first in my family to go to college.

Write a diversity statement about being the first in your family to go to college, and sneak a GPA explanation in there.

[2014]

Schools aren't going to particularly care what you did in your year off. Try and make meaningful connections and get paid, you can sell whatever job you get to schools pretty easily.

Set your LSAT goals higher too. It might seem unattainable but the test is learnable and you should go into it planning to work until you are at 170. Chances are you have it in you to do that well, you just need to work at it.

[abcde12345]

Set your LSAT goals higher too. It might seem unattainable but the test is learnable and you should go into it planning to work until you are at 170. Chances are you have it in you to do that well, you just need to work at it.

I see you only have one post OP, so I don't know if you've heard what ^he's saying before. So I'm just going to repeat what he's saying to really hammer it home: the test is learnable. Put in 20+ hours a week for a few months, and you can and likely will get a 170+. It doesn't matter if you think you are "bad" at standardized tests--the LSAT isn't the SAT/GRE. 170 means MONEY and MORE JOBS.