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I'm an African American female with a really low GPA (2.75). I'm expecting a decent lsat score, all of my practice tests under timed conditions were above or equal to 168. I took the lsats today so I won't have an official score for a couple of weeks. In addition I'll have great letters of recommendation and at the very least two will be deans from my undergrad.

Finally I have am amazingly compelling life story. Drug addicted mother, absentee father, lived my entire life in poverty until I went to college. Lived in the midst of violence and drugs. This is the short version. I literally made a therapist cry after having two sessions. I don't want to mention everything but you get the point.

Will my low gpa keep me from a top 14 no matter what? I went to some of the worse schools in the country before college so I was unprepared for the drastic changes that came with going to a top 25. Would taking classes at a community college help?

meemz wrote:I'm an African American female with a really low GPA (2.75). I'm expecting a decent lsat score, all of my practice tests under timed conditions were above or equal to 168. I took the lsats today so I won't have an official score for a couple of weeks. Well, if you want to get specific about your chances, you should make a thread when you have an actual score. In addition I'll have great letters of recommendation and at the very least two will be deans from my undergrad. ok...

Finally I have am amazingly compelling life story.Join the club Drug addicted mother, absentee father, lived my entire life in poverty until I went to college. Lived in the midst of violence and drugs. This is the short version. I literally made a therapist cry after having two sessions. I don't want to mention everything but you get the point.

Will my low gpa keep me from a top 14 no matter what? No. I went to some of the worse schools in the country before college so I was unprepared for the drastic changes that came with going to a top 25. Where you went to college has very little, if anything, to do with admission Would taking classes at a community college help?If you already have a BA/BS, then your LSAC GPA is locked. If you dont have your BA/BS yet, then you technically could take some CC credits, though with your extremely low GPA, its probably not worth it

If you actually score 168+, you will get some bites from the T14. Play around with the search function on Lawschoolnumbers.com and search for URM splitters. FWIW, Im a 3.0/167/URM(MA) who got $$$ at a T20. You will get a bigger bump than I did.

meemz wrote:
Finally I have am amazingly compelling life story. Drug addicted mother, absentee father, lived my entire life in poverty until I went to college. Lived in the midst of violence and drugs. This is the short version. I literally made a therapist cry after having two sessions. I don't want to mention everything but you get the point.

OMG you're so amazingly special! Get over yourself. I work with tons of kids in you're situation. It's not that unique. Maybe for law school, but you sound pretentious as hell. Hundreds of thousands of people have gone through the same things and come from broken and poverty stricken backgrounds. Plenty of people went to awful hs and managed to do well in college. If you had the sat score to get in to your undergrad, you were as prepared as other students with similar scores. You obviously had good enough reading comprehension and math scores to get in to college, which everyone else at your school had. No reason to not take responsibility fo your grades.

Yes I'm sure you lived in a crack house, I'm sure in eighth grade your wardrobe consisted of exactly one pair of pants and two shirts which you had to wear five days a week. I'm completely positve you been repeatedly molested and raped. you probably had a different address every three to fourmonths. I bet your father tried to strangle you in your sleep. I bet you, just like me, had to spend every day in may and the first few days in June (when you really should have been studying) on the phone with police offcials because your 14 year old niece was sold into sex slavery. How many peole have you watched die?

I knew that by posting a message like this I would get a response like the one you wrote. I knew it would fall along the lines of "I know people who have it worse than you, so you are just making excuses." In reality my life and yours were vastly different and I had to and still have to struggle in ways that you will never understand.

But I guess you think that if I get a high enough test score it even the playing field between us.

meemz wrote:Yes I'm sure you lived in a crack house, I'm sure in eighth grade your wardrobe consisted of exactly one pair of pants and two shirts which you had to wear five days a week. I'm completely positve you been repeatedly molested and raped. you probably had a different address every three to fourmonths. I bet your father tried to strangle you in your sleep. I bet you, just like me, had to spend every day in may and the first few days in June (when you really should have been studying) on the phone with police offcials because your 14 year old niece was sold into sex slavery. How many peole have you watched die?

I knew that by posting a message like this I would get a response like the one you wrote. I knew it would fall along the lines of "I know people who have it worse than you, so you are just making excuses." In reality my life and yours were vastly different and I had to and still have to struggle in ways that you will never understand.

But I guess you think that if I get a high enough test score it even the playing field between us.

Post a thread after you have a score. It is just pretty much a waste of time until then. Your GPA is really low but it doesn't mean you are out of the T14. There is a ton of advice on applying on this forum that might be helpful, like getting all your stuff together and being ready to apply early, etc. After you write your PS, you can post it to get feedback or ask people to exchange with you. Good luck.

sunynp wrote:

meemz wrote: Post a thread after you have a score. It is just pretty much a waste of time until then. Your GPA is really low but it doesn't mean you are out of the T14. There is a ton of advice on applying on this forum that might be helpful, like getting all your stuff together and being ready to apply early, etc. After you write your PS, you can post it to get feedback or ask people to exchange with you. Good luck.

Thanks for the advice I realized after I posted that the rules say you should have a score. In two weeks I'll have more concrete information. Since I can only take the LSAT twice (fee waiver stipulation) I need my first score to be relatively high.

Don't get so mad OP. Qualifying your life story as amazingly compelling is going to net you a few

meemz wrote:Yes I'm sure you lived in a crack house, I'm sure in eighth grade your wardrobe consisted of exactly one pair of pants and two shirts which you had to wear five days a week. I'm completely positve you been repeatedly molested and raped. you probably had a different address every three to fourmonths. I bet your father tried to strangle you in your sleep. I bet you, just like me, had to spend every day in may and the first few days in June (when you really should have been studying) on the phone with police offcials because your 14 year old niece was sold into sex slavery. How many peole have you watched die?

I knew that by posting a message like this I would get a response like the one you wrote. I knew it would fall along the lines of "I know people who have it worse than you, so you are just making excuses." In reality my life and yours were vastly different and I had to and still have to struggle in ways that you will never understand.

But I guess you think that if I get a high enough test score it even the playing field between us.

YOU'RE SO INCREDIBLY SPECIAL. I bet no one else has such a unique past. I'm sure you know so much about the world through your hardships that you can accurately judge my life story from my response to you. That's so open minded of you.

You are incredibly pretentious. Usually people like you are humbled by their pasts, not throwing it around trying to look more special. Maybe they through it around to help others, but they aren't doing it for their own gain.

You got this response because you wrote a very arrogant post. Have a piece of humble pie before judging people you never met.

/rant

meemz wrote:Yes I'm sure you lived in a crack house, I'm sure in eighth grade your wardrobe consisted of exactly one pair of pants and two shirts which you had to wear five days a week. I'm completely positve you been repeatedly molested and raped. you probably had a different address every three to fourmonths. I bet your father tried to strangle you in your sleep. I bet you, just like me, had to spend every day in may and the first few days in June (when you really should have been studying) on the phone with police offcials because your 14 year old niece was sold into sex slavery. How many peole have you watched die?

I knew that by posting a message like this I would get a response like the one you wrote. I knew it would fall along the lines of "I know people who have it worse than you, so you are just making excuses." In reality my life and yours were vastly different and I had to and still have to struggle in ways that you will never understand.

But I guess you think that if I get a high enough test score it even the playing field between us.

Don't listen to the hate. I'm sorry you had to go through what you did, but I am sure it has made you a much stronger person. Don't let other people get to you, I don't think your post came off as arrogant at all.

As far as your T14 chances, if you do get a 168+, I think you'll get some bites.

Best of luck, and update once you do have a score!

This isnt a contest about whose life sucks the most. OP, all you had to say was that you grew up poor and in a bad neighborhood. We understand the implications. Instead, you flip shit when someone says you are not that special.

meemz wrote:I'm an African American female with a really low GPA (2.75). I'm expecting a decent lsat score, all of my practice tests under timed conditions were above or equal to 168. I took the lsats today so I won't have an official score for a couple of weeks. In addition I'll have great letters of recommendation and at the very least two will be deans from my undergrad.

Finally I have am amazingly compelling life story. Drug addicted mother, absentee father, lived my entire life in poverty until I went to college. Lived in the midst of violence and drugs. This is the short version. I literally made a therapist cry after having two sessions. I don't want to mention everything but you get the point.

Will my low gpa keep me from a top 14 no matter what? I went to some of the worse schools in the country before college so I was unprepared for the drastic changes that came with going to a top 25. Would taking classes at a community college help?

Ignore the guy hating on you. But, just know that if you went to a top 25 undergrad, nearly nothing (at least when logic and reasoning is exercised) can make your story "amazingly compelling." You went to a top 25 school. If you could pull of going to a top 25, then your life wasn't as difficult as you painted it. It would be more compelling if you went to a lower ranked school in order to better deal with the problems you mentioned, because it seems like that's what is required if you had all those problems.

Also, there's another point I think is important. There is a difference between previous struggles and current struggles. If someone is currently struggling (going through drugs, homelessness, and all that) and doing ok, that applicant is seen in a better light than the one that struggled before but is not directly struggling now. I'm sure a lot of people can name a struggle they had years ago, but it doesn't really matter now. So if you HAD those struggles, they can be compelling but not as compelling as if you HAVE them now.

RodionRaskolnikov wrote:

meemz wrote:I'm an African American female with a really low GPA (2.75). I'm expecting a decent lsat score, all of my practice tests under timed conditions were above or equal to 168. I took the lsats today so I won't have an official score for a couple of weeks. In addition I'll have great letters of recommendation and at the very least two will be deans from my undergrad.

Finally I have am amazingly compelling life story. Drug addicted mother, absentee father, lived my entire life in poverty until I went to college. Lived in the midst of violence and drugs. This is the short version. I literally made a therapist cry after having two sessions. I don't want to mention everything but you get the point.

Will my low gpa keep me from a top 14 no matter what? I went to some of the worse schools in the country before college so I was unprepared for the drastic changes that came with going to a top 25. Would taking classes at a community college help?

Ignore the guy hating on you. But, just know that if you went to a top 25 undergrad, nearly nothing (at least when logic and reasoning is exercised) can make your story "amazingly compelling." You went to a top 25 school. If you could pull of going to a top 25, then your life wasn't as difficult as you painted it. It would be more compelling if you went to a lower ranked school in order to better deal with the problems you mentioned, because it seems like that's what is required if you had all those problems.

Also, there's another point I think is important. There is a difference between previous struggles and current struggles. If someone is currently struggling (going through drugs, homelessness, and all that) and doing ok, that applicant is seen in a better light than the one that struggled before but is not directly struggling now. I'm sure a lot of people can name a struggle they had years ago, but it doesn't really matter now. So if you HAD those struggles, they can be compelling but not as compelling as if you HAVE them now.

...super weird trolling.

aekea wrote: ...super weird trolling.

I can never tell when hes serious. I will forever associate him with blank space.