Law School Admission questions Forum

[prospective1988]

I have a 176 LSAT and 3.2 gpa:

I have graduated, and will apply to law school this Fall. Aiming for Top 14. My question is:


If you are 34 years old and not 22-24, like most applicants, do top schools hold your age against you when compared to younger applicants?

[antiworldly]

Not in the least. Some meaningful experience will in fact give you a leg up. Congrats on the spectacular LSAT, good luck with the applications!

[hearsay77]

Nope.

[Abraham Lincoln Uni.]

Law school admissions committees are looking at the totality of the circumstances when evaluating a student’s application, including strong ability to perform and strong commitment to complete law school and doing something good with the law degree. As long as you are presenting that you are seriously committed and making the case that what you did between college and law school helped you to be even more seriously committed to really doing law school than your average law school, I don't see how your age alone as a drawback. The only way it could be a drawback would be if in combination with other parts of the application, an overall impression of ambivalence was given, rather than of enthusiasm and commitment for choosing law school as the next step....and that seems unlikely!

[Sideshow Raheem]

No, and some schools like Northwestern actually pride themselves on assembling a class of olds. With your numbers and presumable work experience you'd actually be a pretty great candidate for their $150k ED scholarship.

[rnoodles]

With that LSAT and that much time off, I don't think you should ED Northwestern (unless you really want to). You should be in line to get great offers from some higher ranked schools.

[Sideshow Raheem]

The LSAT is killer but I dunno if he gets $$$ from better schools than NU with that GPA. I'm not even sure he gets the $150k from NU tbh but it's worth a shot.

[Clearly]

The LSAT is killer but I dunno if he gets $$$ from better schools than NU with that GPA. I'm not even sure he gets the $150k from NU tbh but it's worth a shot.

He likely wouldn't get the NU 150. Just because they admit splitters, and they give full rides, doesn't mean they give full rides to splitters...

[Sideshow Raheem]

I've seen them give the 150k to below-median GPA applicants before, usually if they have a 172+ and substantial work experience. But, yeah, you generally have to be above both medians.

[Clearly]

like a 3.5/6 occasionally, but I'd be shocked if they went to 3.2. The WE does help, but I certainly wouldn't bank on it. He'll get RD though for sure.