Incredible softs, mediocre scores. Chances? Forum

[AnonJohn]

dfagdsafds

[jbagelboy]

Hey,

Your intense political involvement and consulting experience could work in your favor (lol at the RNC though.) What does "worked in parliament" mean? Or "cancer legislation?" These are boilerplate softs that could range from significant to entirely meaningless depending on the rigor and degree

No one really cares about UG grants & leadership in clubs.

Lol "Public ivy"? So Mich, UVA, or Cal: Probably UVA given your apparent conservative activism. First Id stop trying to call it an Ivy, although I know you're trying to be descriptive.

Why don't you retake the LSAT? You're out at HYS due to GPA, but everything else is in play with a 172+. With your years of experience, it would be a shame to settle for sticker at UCLA or Cornell/GULC, which is the best place you'd be headed now.

[hichvichwoh]

why do you want to go to law school? just go get a kickass jerb

[AnonJohn]

XXXXXXX

[ArtistOfManliness]

as a side note, I'm not totally sure that these qualify as "incredibly softs." Most of these are things that other people were doing that you jumped onboard with... or don't matter

[jbagelboy]

I work 90 hours a week. No time to retake the LSAT. Wanted Stanford, but I think i wil kneed to aim for penn Michigan berkeley.

Yo dude, with a 3.5, Cal aint happenin, and neither are Mich and Penn with a 167. If Mich did come thru off the waitlist it would be at sticker.

If you really want to be an attorney, cut out the other crap down to 30 hrs/wk and start studying for december. No campaign or job will help you as much at this point with getting into those schools as 1 pt on the LSAT

[Mavraides87]

Chances are next to nil without retake.

What is so appealing about law school if you are already doing "incredible" things without the debt?

[AnonJohn]

as a side note, I'm not totally sure that these qualify as "incredibly softs." Most of these are things that other people were doing that you jumped onboard with... or don't matter

I was the first employee in the firm. Every election we worked on I oversaw the research for that entire race

[jbagelboy]

as a side note, I'm not totally sure that these qualify as "incredibly softs." Most of these are things that other people were doing that you jumped onboard with... or don't matter

I was the first employee in the firm. Every election we worked on I oversaw the research for that entire race

Lol no wonder the right got dominated last year when they put one guy with a BA in charge of 20 congressional campaigns. Staff issues much?

Seriously, even if you were Nate Silver and David Plouffe in one we'd tell you to retake

[Clearly]

as a side note, I'm not totally sure that these qualify as "incredibly softs." Most of these are things that other people were doing that you jumped onboard with... or don't matter

I was the first employee in the firm. Every election we worked on I oversaw the research for that entire race

yeah yeah, just retake.

[hephaestus]

Chances are next to nil without retake.

What is so appealing about law school if you are already doing "incredible" things without the debt?

Good point. 1. What are you trying to do with your law degree? 2. Retake.

[Void]

But guys, he's a special conservative snowflake. Surely the normal rules for law school admissions don't apply to him, with those amazing softs. Someone should just give him the key to the secret good ole boys' back door into the T-14.

[ManoftheHour]

LSAT 167
Gpa 3.5, not counting freshman year 3.7
Public ivy
-student government leader
-Worked in parliament in the UK
-interned at the RNC
-Received a research grant
-Won a presidential fellowship with a published paper
-worked at the highest levels on three presidential campaigns, over a dozen congressional campaigns, 8 senate campains, most of which I was responsible for the entire research division.
-ran a successful campaign to pass major cancer legislation.
-political cosultant for Facebook and Walmart
Rec letters from a partner, a member of congress, and the dean

This is all ad coms see. If you want a top school:

Retake.

If you want a T1 with $$$, I'd say your chances are pretty good.

You need to realize that softs don't matter unless you have the stats first. These schools will always take a guy with superior hard numbers and shiTTTy softs over you. That's why they call them softs. They're less important. They're important if you are tied with someone with identical numbers. But if you weren't in the league of someone with those numbers, softs hardly matter.

[Ti Malice]

Those are not incredible softs. And adcomms seriously do not care about the titles of your recommenders at all.

[dr123]

Might have a shot at cornell

[ManoftheHour]

Those are not incredible softs. And adcomms seriously do not care about the titles of your recommenders at all.

LORs are TTT (unless you're competitive for and gunning for HYS). Seriously. My friend got LORs from reTTTTail and he performed as expected). No one gives a shit about a bunch of fluff.

[jbagelboy]

Those are not incredible softs. And adcomms seriously do not care about the titles of your recommenders at all.

Lol they do care a little in the academy about well known/prolific faculty in top programs, but not about random happen-to-be-acquaintences in the public arena

[twenty]

-Won a presidential fellowship with a published paper

Yeah, there's no way -- this is where I call troll.

Otherwise, gtfo of law school forums and go try out for the SES.

[Redfactor]

.

[PDaddy]

LSAT 167
Gpa 3.5, not counting freshman year 3.7
Public ivy
-student government leader
-Worked in parliament in the UK
-interned at the RNC
-Received a research grant
-Won a presidential fellowship with a published paper
-worked at the highest levels on three presidential campaigns, over a dozen congressional campaigns, 8 senate campains, most of which I was responsible for the entire research division.
-ran a successful campaign to pass major cancer legislation.
-political cosultant for Facebook and Walmart
Rec letters from a partner, a member of congress, and the dean

"...mediocre scores"? Although a retake wouldn't be a bad idea (depending on your goals), you could do pretty well without one.

HYS might be off the table, but if you package yourself correctly you could score a T14. Moreover, admissions is even more unpredictable these days than any, because applications are down after record numbers in recent years.

Word is, the most competitive applicants - those who might have applied with stellar numbers a few years back - are now doing other things because of the shaky legal market and our recovering economy. They are instead accountants, med school students, B-School students, etc.

Who knows where that leaves you? I would encourage a retake, but if you are determined to push on, apply wherever. Maybe those softs will convince your dream schools that you are worthy. Make sure you package yourself as well as possible...no mistakes, top-notch essays (edit 30 times!!), concise, well worded addenda, carefully chosen LOR's, and a well formatted resume with no fat!

[PDaddy]

LSAT 167
Gpa 3.5, not counting freshman year 3.7
Public ivy
-student government leader
-Worked in parliament in the UK
-interned at the RNC
-Received a research grant
-Won a presidential fellowship with a published paper
-worked at the highest levels on three presidential campaigns, over a dozen congressional campaigns, 8 senate campains, most of which I was responsible for the entire research division.
-ran a successful campaign to pass major cancer legislation.
-political cosultant for Facebook and Walmart
Rec letters from a partner, a member of congress, and the dean

This is all ad coms see. If you want a top school:

Retake.

If you want a T1 with $$$, I'd say your chances are pretty good.

You need to realize that softs don't matter unless you have the stats first. These schools will always take a guy with superior hard numbers and shiTTTy softs over you.. That's why they call them softs.

I disagree, and my disagreement is based on significant observational experience. They are called "softs" because, unlike GPA's and LSAT's, they are not measurable by numbers. They are intangible's, but that makes them no less valuable. Secondly, one need not have the stats in order for softs to be game-changers.

The typical Harvard reject has the numbers but shiTTTy softs, and winds up at Duke or Virginia, or maybe even BU - aka the "Harvard Reject School of Law".

As long as an applicant is within range (say 25th percentile), exceptional softs should encourage him to apply. Strong likelihood of being rejected does not mean that OP has absolutely no chance. Adcoms give more weight to soft factors than most people here believe. Of course this is more true for URM's than mon-URM's, but it still remains true.

OP is like a Dennis Rodman. He could score well enough to play in the NBA, but he was never relied upon for that purpose. Most admitted students bolster a school's numbers as well as add to classroom discussions, etc. OP wont be relied upon to boost Harvard's numbers, but the adcom might nevertheless love his experiences. Maybe adcoms will see something special in OP that warrants admission. Clearly he can do the work!

[NYstate]

Not sure why you want law school. But you should retake. Medians are dropping but not enough at the schools you want. You also don't want to pay sticker at these schools.

Law admissions is a numbers game for the most part. If you want to get accepted, get better numbers.

[Ramius]

LSAT 167
Gpa 3.5, not counting freshman year 3.7
Public ivy
-student government leader
-Worked in parliament in the UK
-interned at the RNC
-Received a research grant
-Won a presidential fellowship with a published paper
-worked at the highest levels on three presidential campaigns, over a dozen congressional campaigns, 8 senate campains, most of which I was responsible for the entire research division.
-ran a successful campaign to pass major cancer legislation.
-political cosultant for Facebook and Walmart
Rec letters from a partner, a member of congress, and the dean

This is all ad coms see. If you want a top school:

Retake.

If you want a T1 with $$$, I'd say your chances are pretty good.

You need to realize that softs don't matter unless you have the stats first. These schools will always take a guy with superior hard numbers and shiTTTy softs over you.. That's why they call them softs.

I disagree, and my disagreement is based on significant observational experience. They are called "softs" because, unlike GPA's and LSAT's, they are not measurable by numbers. They are intangible's, but that makes them no less valuable. Secondly, one need not have the stats in order for softs to be game-changers.

The typical Harvard reject has the numbers but shiTTTy softs, and winds up at Duke or Virginia, or maybe even BU - aka the "Harvard Reject School of Law".

As long as an applicant is within range (say 25th percentile), exceptional softs should encourage him to apply. Strong likelihood of being rejected does not mean that OP has absolutely no chance. Adcoms give more weight to soft factors than most people here believe. Of course this is more true for URM's than mon-URM's, but it still remains true.

OP is like a Dennis Rodman. He could score well enough to play in the NBA, but he was never relied upon for that purpose. Most admitted students bolster a school's numbers as well as add to classroom discussions, etc. OP wont be relied upon to boost Harvard's numbers, but the adcom might nevertheless love his experiences. Maybe adcoms will see something special in OP that warrants admission. Clearly he can do the work!

There are obviously people who admissions will accept despite less than stellar numbers, and the only harm in applying with substandard numbers is the price of the application fee, but they also need that dose of reality. Reality is that for most people, their softs will not be a game changer. So the OP can believe he is a special snowflake if he wants, and maybe he is, but the point is to temper your expectations. It's not too dissimilar from those who think they will be able to outperform all their peers and get into the top 10% of their class at a lower ranked school, allowing them to transfer to a better school. It's certainly possible, but you can't bank on it either. What most people here are getting at is that the OP needs to temper their expectations wrt his softs. If a retake is possible and he can improve his score, it would do him a much greater service than believing in the ability of his soft factors to overcome below median numbers.

To OP, a retake would be in your best interest, but if you truly believe in the strength of your softs, just apply and let the admissions committee decide how special they are. Maybe you'll be surprised, but also be prepared for a healthy dose of harsh reality.

[TheSpanishMain]

I'd hesitate to say these softs don't matter at all. They're legitimate lines on the resume and should help a bit. They just won't help nearly as much as OP seems to think. They're fine, but they're not "incredible".

[kwais]

Lol, no one actually read the OP. OP seems to understand that Stanford is out of reach. These softs are not insignificant and will possibly allow OP to snag some non-HYS schools. As someone at a CCN, I can tell you that no, these are not normal softs. The TLS echo chamber is getting a little silly.