169 Lsat / 3.98 GPA ED at Penn - What are my chances? Forum

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only613

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169 Lsat / 3.98 GPA ED at Penn - What are my chances?

Post by only613 » Wed Jan 02, 2019 2:02 pm

Hi,

I have a 169 Lsat (2nd try, first was 168) and a 3.98 GPA. I also have decent softs, including:

Over a year of volunteer for various non-profits helping low-income families in landlord-tenant court
I am currently employed as a Director of PR for a medium-sized ($5-10 million/year budget) non-profit organization.
I started and currently run a print media business for the past 2 years
I have also worked as a weekly columnist since 2012 for a number of small-time/local newspapers

The problem with my application is that my schooling was very atypical. I have close to 200 undergraduate college credits from 5 different institutions, including an international college. I am also graduating with an online degree from Excelsior in a few months with a Liberal Arts degree. My GPA at Excelsior is also pretty low (3.0). Will this strange academic history - combined with an online degree - hurt my chances?

I applied for round 2 early decision to Penn, and am currently preparing to apply to a bunch of other schools. I was wondering what everyone here thinks my chances of getting into Penn, Columbia, NYU, Georgetown, Northwestern, etc. are?

QContinuum

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Re: 169 Lsat / 3.98 GPA ED at Penn - What are my chances?

Post by QContinuum » Wed Jan 02, 2019 3:14 pm

What's your LSAC GPA? If your LSAC GPA is 3.98, that's what schools will use. It doesn't make sense, but law schools aren't particularly interested in such things as GPA trends or what grades were earned at which school or major GPA vs. non-major GPA. They only care about LSAC GPA, as that's what gets reported. (Though I find it difficult to believe your LSAC GPA would be as high as 3.98, given your 3.0 at Excelsior.)

That said, you may run into one of the exceptions because you graduated from an online school. Is Excelsior accredited? Even if yes, the fact that it's an online program may raise a yellow flag in adcoms' eyes. But there's really nothing else to do except apply and hope for the best. You can't go back in time and graduate from a traditional brick-and-mortar college instead of Excelsior at this point.

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cavalier1138

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Re: 169 Lsat / 3.98 GPA ED at Penn - What are my chances?

Post by cavalier1138 » Wed Jan 02, 2019 4:02 pm

And when you get the Excelsior degree, that will be your first bachelors degree, right?

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LSATWiz.com

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Re: 169 Lsat / 3.98 GPA ED at Penn - What are my chances?

Post by LSATWiz.com » Wed Jan 02, 2019 4:25 pm

If your LSAC GPA is a 3.98, I'd rescind the ED app as you'd likely get into comparable schools without ED and could get some scholarship money.

only613

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Re: 169 Lsat / 3.98 GPA ED at Penn - What are my chances?

Post by only613 » Wed Jan 02, 2019 4:39 pm

cavalier1138 wrote:And when you get the Excelsior degree, that will be your first bachelors degree, right?
Yeah, this is my first degree

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only613

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Re: 169 Lsat / 3.98 GPA ED at Penn - What are my chances?

Post by only613 » Wed Jan 02, 2019 4:43 pm

QContinuum wrote:What's your LSAC GPA? If your LSAC GPA is 3.98, that's what schools will use. It doesn't make sense, but law schools aren't particularly interested in such things as GPA trends or what grades were earned at which school or major GPA vs. non-major GPA. They only care about LSAC GPA, as that's what gets reported. (Though I find it difficult to believe your LSAC GPA would be as high as 3.98, given your 3.0 at Excelsior.)

That said, you may run into one of the exceptions because you graduated from an online school. Is Excelsior accredited? Even if yes, the fact that it's an online program may raise a yellow flag in adcoms' eyes. But there's really nothing else to do except apply and hope for the best. You can't go back in time and graduate from a traditional brick-and-mortar college instead of Excelsior at this point.

Thanks,
My LSAC GPA is 3.98. I only have a few credits in Excelsior so their low GPA didn't hurt my higher cumulative GPA too much. Excelsior is an accredited, but almost certainly not highly respected, degree-granting institution.

QContinuum

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Re: 169 Lsat / 3.98 GPA ED at Penn - What are my chances?

Post by QContinuum » Wed Jan 02, 2019 4:47 pm

only613 wrote:
QContinuum wrote:What's your LSAC GPA? If your LSAC GPA is 3.98, that's what schools will use. It doesn't make sense, but law schools aren't particularly interested in such things as GPA trends or what grades were earned at which school or major GPA vs. non-major GPA. They only care about LSAC GPA, as that's what gets reported. (Though I find it difficult to believe your LSAC GPA would be as high as 3.98, given your 3.0 at Excelsior.)

That said, you may run into one of the exceptions because you graduated from an online school. Is Excelsior accredited? Even if yes, the fact that it's an online program may raise a yellow flag in adcoms' eyes. But there's really nothing else to do except apply and hope for the best. You can't go back in time and graduate from a traditional brick-and-mortar college instead of Excelsior at this point.

Thanks,
My LSAC GPA is 3.98. I only have a few credits in Excelsior so their low GPA didn't hurt my higher cumulative GPA too much. Excelsior is an accredited, but almost certainly not highly respected, degree-granting institution.
I see. You will probably be fine, then. Apply across the T13 (excluding YSH if application fees are a concern), and - given Excelsior's status as an online program - also apply to the T20. And keep your fingers crossed!

Might also make sense to prep for a retake if your results aren't what you hope for. Getting your LSAT above 170 would be very helpful for the upper T13s (and more $ at the lower T13).

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