Which safety schools should I apply to? Forum

[prospectivelawyer]

I scored a 167 on the December LSAT and my GPA is a 3.75. I'm applying straight out of undergrad. What schools do you guys think I should apply to as safety schools? (I'm looking for schools in California or on the East Coast - NY, PA, Washington D.C., etc.).

Any help with this would be much appreciated! Thanks!

[BEng,MBA,FRM,JD(?)]

I have the same LSAT. With your numbers, I would say you can apply to the following safety shcools - BU, BC, GWU, Emory, USC, UCI, UC Davis. I applied to Washington and Lee too. Sharing your ambitions/objectives might get you more meaningful responses.

Hope it helps! All the best.

[prospectivelawyer]

I'm interested primarily in corporate law and I know Big Law is really hard to get into without attending a T14, but I would appreciate any information on which "safety" schools I should apply to that would help me break into corporate/business law!

[hangingtree]

If you look at LSN, you'll see that Cornell is as much as a safety school as the schools mentioned by the previous poster. Seems each of your GPA and LSAT are just good enough to be an auto-admit there. Congrats. Great spot to be. Carefully put your Cornell app together--maybe even write a Why Cornell--then enjoy the quick admit and likely some scholarship money. You can use that to negotiate with Berkeley, Georgetown, or UVA if you get in.

Besides Cornell, the best safeties for you appear to be GWU, USC, Fordham, BU, and BC. Carefully put those apps together as well. From your numbers it seems they'll give you a whole lot of money there. You also will be able to get some full rides. Take a look at lower-ranked schools at cities you're interested in. You'll likely see very, very healthy scholarships at all of those places.

However, you'll probably want to attend Cornell with its ~$25K/year scholarship if you have biglaw ambitions. $40K/year at one of those schools above would be great, but you sort of want to go into that being OK with small/mid-law and/or hustling for a job as a 3L. Any of those schools, and any of the lower-ranked schools that may give you a full-ride, can give you "business law" too. But I think you'll probably find that Cornell with some money is the best route, even if you're a little risk-averse (but maybe not if you're very risk-averse).

[cavalier1138]

You should not be applying to safety schools at all.

If your goal is biglaw, you need to go to a T14 school. Any other applications should be to T20 schools for scholarship negotiations at lower T14 schools. But there is no such thing as a "safety school" in law school admissions. You go to the school that will get you the career you want at the lowest cost. So by all means, get a full ride at BU, but it's not a safety school, and you cannot count on a biglaw job after graduation.

[BEng,MBA,FRM,JD(?)]

Would like to add that a full ride at bu is very tough. More than 105k there is very rare. I agree that Cornell would be a very good choice. Especially for business law. Btw Cornell app itself has a requirement for "why Cornell". 1000 characters.