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[Theresa87]

I was in a very similar situation to yours last year. You can look through my post history and see my first TLS post.

I seat deposited at Ohio State with a 4.0 and LSAT in the 150s.

I got my LSAT up and am planning to go to Harvard in the fall. Your family, friends, and even your pre-law advisor probably do not know what they are talking about if they advise going to law school this fall. Taking a year off from schools seems catastrophic to some, but looking back, I realize how stupid it was to assume that I had to go to law school immediately after undergrad. Start studying for the October LSAT now, study all throughout the summer, and pretty soon you'll be taking the test, writing a personal statement, and sending your apps off. A gap year can be scary, but just one year off actually doesn't really give you that much time.

[jnwa]

I was in a very similar situation to yours last year. You can look through my post history and see my first TLS post.

I seat deposited at Ohio State with a 4.0 and LSAT in the 150s.

I got my LSAT up and am planning to go to Harvard in the fall. Your family, friends, and even your pre-law advisor probably do not know what they are talking about if they advise going to law school this fall. Taking a year off from schools seems catastrophic to some, but looking back, I realize how stupid it was to assume that I had to go to law school immediately after undergrad. Start studying for the October LSAT now, study all throughout the summer, and pretty soon you'll be taking the test, writing a personal statement, and sending your apps off. A gap year can be scary, but just one year off actually doesn't really give you that much time.

damn...shoutout to you. You should be summoned to every retake thread on TLS from now on.

[lawlorbust]

Retake. Don't go to law school now with that GPA. And don't make bad Elle woods jokes when you scored 19 points below her on the LSAT

cunty poast

Cosign

[xael]

Retake. Don't go to law school now with that GPA. And don't make bad Elle woods jokes when you scored 19 points below her on the LSAT

cunty poast

Cosign

Yeah, I thought this was a troll (seriously--I reported the post).

OP--good luck, congrats on making a fantastic decision, and enjoy HYS/a full ride next year.

[elizaalexa]

Thanks "internet stangers"

I've spent today processing this all and have decided not to attend this fall. Kind of a lot to process, but I plan to enjoy these last 6 weeks of undergrad.

[RedWhite&Blonde]

p sure elle woods retook

She didn't--the montage in the movie/musical with all of her score changes is just all of her practice tests.

[QuentonCassidy]

Thanks "internet stangers"

I've spent today processing this all and have decided not to attend this fall. Kind of a lot to process, but I plan to enjoy these last 6 weeks of undergrad.

You're making a great choice. If it's not too much to ask, maybe you could consider coming back to update this thread with how your retake goes (whenever it happens) and what options you end up getting upon reapplication. It would really go a long way in helping future people consider retaking/waiting a cycle.

Happy for you and wish you the best of luck going forward!

[SemiReverseSplinter]

If I retake, should I do June and October, or October and December?

I'm not sure I have the time to devote to June as I'm graduating in May and things will be hectic up until graduation. Also, recommendations for a plan of study? I did TestMasters online this time last year.

I was in this exact situation (expecting around March to go to T30--50 schools for high price tag), and decided to wait a year based on advice in this forum. Best decision of my life. I had a 159 and 3.9. I decided to retake for the December LSAT, and began studying June 1. I studied hard, and LSAT went up about about 10 points.

If you have already taken a class, maybe you should take the October one, but I wouldn't rush it if you have any doubt. For me though, I needed 3 months to go through books (I used Manhattan LSAT and highly recommend their set), and then I spent 3-4 months on practice tests. Among the goals you set for yourself, going -0 on the logic games should be high on that list. It's very doable.

Again though, I don't know how that Testmasters class prepared you, so I would be careful in evaluating your starting point when you begin studying again.

Good luck! If you are serious about taking a year off, and study your butt off, you will be in a great position next year.

[elizaalexa]

Thanks "internet stangers"

I've spent today processing this all and have decided not to attend this fall. Kind of a lot to process, but I plan to enjoy these last 6 weeks of undergrad.

You're making a great choice. If it's not too much to ask, maybe you could consider coming back to update this thread with how your retake goes (whenever it happens) and what options you end up getting upon reapplication. It would really go a long way in helping future people consider retaking/waiting a cycle.

Happy for you and wish you the best of luck going forward!

Thank you and I will! Still wrapping my mind around everything.

[buckiguy_sucks]

p sure elle woods retook

She didn't--the montage in the movie/musical with all of her score changes is just all of her practice tests.

[elizaalexa]

Hi! Elle Woods here again -- So I gave this post a lot of thought. A LOT of thought. I've spent time thinking about the opportunity cost of taking a year off to take the LSAT. The year's salary I would be forgoing by matriculating in the fall, the stress and rigor of retaking the LSAT in October have me thinking I should just go now. I ultimately realized that it's not even personally important to me to have a degree from a t-14 school and if I retake and land t-14 my debt will most likely be the same as t-50. I very much value work-life balance and fear a career working 15 hr days to pay off debt.
I see myself living in a city be it DC, NYC, etc. I have a close network of friends in both the DC and Columbus areas.



Ohio State and George Mason have both increased my scholarships. Here is now what I'm between. Thoughts?

#19 USC Gould-- COA: $193,923
#30 Ohio State-- $99,264
#42 George Mason-- $102,954
#97 West Virginia-- Full Tuition Scholarship so just cost of living

[curry1]

Hi! Elle Woods here again -- So I gave this post a lot of thought. A LOT of thought. I've spent time thinking about the opportunity cost of taking a year off to take the LSAT. The year's salary I would be forgoing by matriculating in the fall, the stress and rigor of retaking the LSAT in October have me thinking I should just go now. I ultimately realized that it's not even personally important to me to have a degree from a t-14 school and if I retake and land t-14 my debt will most likely be the same as t-50. I very much value work-life balance and fear a career working 15 hr days to pay off debt.
I see myself living in a city be it DC, NYC, etc. I have a close network of friends in both the DC and Columbus areas.



Ohio State and George Mason have both increased my scholarships. Here is now what I'm between. Thoughts?

#19 USC Gould-- COA: $193,923
#30 Ohio State-- $99,264
#42 George Mason-- $102,954
#97 West Virginia-- Full Tuition Scholarship so just cost of living

RETAKE

[ih8makingscreennames]

Hi! Elle Woods here again -- So I gave this post a lot of thought. A LOT of thought. I've spent time thinking about the opportunity cost of taking a year off to take the LSAT. The year's salary I would be forgoing by matriculating in the fall, the stress and rigor of retaking the LSAT in October have me thinking I should just go now. I ultimately realized that it's not even personally important to me to have a degree from a t-14 school and if I retake and land t-14 my debt will most likely be the same as t-50. I very much value work-life balance and fear a career working 15 hr days to pay off debt.
I see myself living in a city be it DC, NYC, etc. I have a close network of friends in both the DC and Columbus areas.



Ohio State and George Mason have both increased my scholarships. Here is now what I'm between. Thoughts?

#19 USC Gould-- COA: $193,923
#30 Ohio State-- $99,264
#42 George Mason-- $102,954
#97 West Virginia-- Full Tuition Scholarship so just cost of living

Just retake. If you get a higher LSAT that results in say a full to USC that's 10 years of not paying 2K+ per month, which will pale in comparison to one year's salary.

[cron1834]

Hi! Elle Woods here again -- So I gave this post a lot of thought. A LOT of thought. I've spent time thinking about the opportunity cost of taking a year off to take the LSAT. The year's salary I would be forgoing by matriculating in the fall, the stress and rigor of retaking the LSAT in October have me thinking I should just go now. I ultimately realized that it's not even personally important to me to have a degree from a t-14 school and if I retake and land t-14 my debt will most likely be the same as t-50. I very much value work-life balance and fear a career working 15 hr days to pay off debt.
I see myself living in a city be it DC, NYC, etc. I have a close network of friends in both the DC and Columbus areas.



Ohio State and George Mason have both increased my scholarships. Here is now what I'm between. Thoughts?

#19 USC Gould-- COA: $193,923
#30 Ohio State-- $99,264
#42 George Mason-- $102,954
#97 West Virginia-- Full Tuition Scholarship so just cost of living

RETAKE

Yeah, listen OP - your opportunities just aren't good enough right now to provide any kind of reasonable chance of satisfying your ambitions. West Virginia is the only affordable option, and it's not getting you a job in a real city, in all likelihood. Change your structure of opportunities, or change your goals. They don't match right now.

[20170322]

Hi! Elle Woods here again -- So I gave this post a lot of thought. A LOT of thought. I've spent time thinking about the opportunity cost of taking a year off to take the LSAT. The year's salary I would be forgoing by matriculating in the fall, the stress and rigor of retaking the LSAT in October have me thinking I should just go now. I ultimately realized that it's not even personally important to me to have a degree from a t-14 school and if I retake and land t-14 my debt will most likely be the same as t-50. I very much value work-life balance and fear a career working 15 hr days to pay off debt.
I see myself living in a city be it DC, NYC, etc. I have a close network of friends in both the DC and Columbus areas.



Ohio State and George Mason have both increased my scholarships. Here is now what I'm between. Thoughts?

#19 USC Gould-- COA: $193,923
#30 Ohio State-- $99,264
#42 George Mason-- $102,954
#97 West Virginia-- Full Tuition Scholarship so just cost of living

Lowly 0L here, but it may help to visualize the data.

USC Gould-- 193k for a 79.3% chance of becoming a lawyer. http://www.lstscorereports.com/schools/usc/2014/
Ohio-- 100k for a 73.3% chance of becoming a lawyer. http://www.lstscorereports.com/schools/osu/2014/
George Mason-- 102k for a 55.4% chance of becoming a lawyer. http://www.lstscorereports.com/schools/gmu/2014/
West Virginia-- 0k for a 57.4% chance of becoming a lawyer. http://www.lstscorereports.com/schools/wvu/2014/

This is completely absent from considerations like salary, QOL, prestige, etc. This is literally just whether or not you will utilize your costly, 3 year degree AT ALL.

I encourage you to at least look at the links I posted, and to think about what would happen if you ended up median at these schools (which you should assume you will at any school).

[Mullens]

What kind of job do you want and what do you mean when you say you want to practice business law?

[curry1]

Hi! Elle Woods here again -- So I gave this post a lot of thought. A LOT of thought. I've spent time thinking about the opportunity cost of taking a year off to take the LSAT. The year's salary I would be forgoing by matriculating in the fall, the stress and rigor of retaking the LSAT in October have me thinking I should just go now. I ultimately realized that it's not even personally important to me to have a degree from a t-14 school and if I retake and land t-14 my debt will most likely be the same as t-50. I very much value work-life balance and fear a career working 15 hr days to pay off debt.
I see myself living in a city be it DC, NYC, etc. I have a close network of friends in both the DC and Columbus areas.



Ohio State and George Mason have both increased my scholarships. Here is now what I'm between. Thoughts?

#19 USC Gould-- COA: $193,923
#30 Ohio State-- $99,264
#42 George Mason-- $102,954
#97 West Virginia-- Full Tuition Scholarship so just cost of living

Lowly 0L here, but it may help to visualize the data.

USC Gould-- 193k for a 79.3% chance of becoming a lawyer. http://www.lstscorereports.com/schools/usc/2014/
Ohio-- 100k for a 73.3% chance of becoming a lawyer. http://www.lstscorereports.com/schools/osu/2014/
George Mason-- 102k for a 55.4% chance of becoming a lawyer. http://www.lstscorereports.com/schools/gmu/2014/
West Virginia-- 0k for a 57.4% chance of becoming a lawyer. http://www.lstscorereports.com/schools/wvu/2014/

This is completely absent from considerations like salary, QOL, prestige, etc. This is literally just whether or not you will utilize your costly, 3 year degree AT ALL.

I encourage you to at least look at the links I posted, and to think about what would happen if you ended up median at these schools (which you should assume you will at any school).

She's also completely ignoring COL, which bumps USC to like ~300k. I'm pretty sure she would be net better off taking a minimum wage than paying COL to attend a school like West Virginia.

[Theresa87]

Hi! Elle Woods here again -- So I gave this post a lot of thought. A LOT of thought. I've spent time thinking about the opportunity cost of taking a year off to take the LSAT. The year's salary I would be forgoing by matriculating in the fall, the stress and rigor of retaking the LSAT in October have me thinking I should just go now. I ultimately realized that it's not even personally important to me to have a degree from a t-14 school and if I retake and land t-14 my debt will most likely be the same as t-50. I very much value work-life balance and fear a career working 15 hr days to pay off debt.
I see myself living in a city be it DC, NYC, etc. I have a close network of friends in both the DC and Columbus areas.



Ohio State and George Mason have both increased my scholarships. Here is now what I'm between. Thoughts?

#19 USC Gould-- COA: $193,923
#30 Ohio State-- $99,264
#42 George Mason-- $102,954
#97 West Virginia-- Full Tuition Scholarship so just cost of living

retake. retake. retake.

You're thinking in the short-term. Something like "the stress and vigors of retaking the LSAT" should not be a factor. With a 3.98 GPA, you obviously are capable of putting in the work and excelling. 3 months of intense LSAT study is nothing. Trust me, if you put in the work and raise your score, you will soon forget how bad those months were. Once you are making your decision next year, you will say to yourself "why did I think I needed to go to law school right away?" The year passes very quickly.

If you value work life balance and fear the work associated with paying off debt, why not place yourself in the best possible position to pay off the debt? If you don't want to go to a t-14 school, why not retake for maximum scholarship at a lower ranked school? Some schools even give cost of living stipends. And most people (in my opinion) don't go to a t-14 for the prestige (although I'm sure plenty do). Most of them go for the added career opportunities and to earn a higher salary. But they also weigh that with total COA.

[emkay625]

OP, given these options, I would pick USC at sticker. Edited: Did not realize OP had not factored in cost of living.

HOWEVER, your best option is to retake. Seriously though. Even with those scholarship increases, you are looking at upwards of a $1000+ student loan payment every month, and for those particular schools, it is just not worth it.

As far as the opportunity cost of a year's salary, you are more likely to get a higher-paying job (like, tens of thousands of dollars higher, probably even more than 100K higher) from a higher-ranked school. so that math/argument doesn't really add up. Your potential earnings overtime are significantly increased if you attend the higher-ranked school, even if you have 35 working years from the degree from the well-ranked school and 34 working years from the degree from the lower-ranked school.

[emkay625]

Also, OP, what are your political leanings? If you are not conservative, or, really, very conservative, I would steer clear of George Mason given the rename and the Koch brothers donation.

[Barack O'Drama]

I can't tell if this is serious or not...

Absolutely do not go to these schools. Do not make a seat deposit. Go to the LSAT forum here, learn all of the strategies, and make it your life goal to maximize your LSAT score. The sky is the limit with your GPA- you can go to Yale, or to a T-14 on a full ride scholarship, all for getting more questions correct on a multiple choice test.

I think you're making a great choice if you retake!

Don't cheat yourself out of hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. Don't cheat yourself out of bettering your career trajectory.

YES! Reading it put like that, it just makes all the sense you retake. With that GPA you're crazy to be paying $100K...Getting 7-10 more question right could net you a free ride to a much better school, hell 5 more points might do that and would certainly open so many more doors.

[curry1]

Also, OP, what are your political leanings? If you are not conservative, or, really, very conservative, I would steer clear of George Mason given the rename and the Koch brothers donation.

.

[curry1]

Hi! Elle Woods here again -- So I gave this post a lot of thought. A LOT of thought. I've spent time thinking about the opportunity cost of taking a year off to take the LSAT. The year's salary I would be forgoing by matriculating in the fall, the stress and rigor of retaking the LSAT in October have me thinking I should just go now. I ultimately realized that it's not even personally important to me to have a degree from a t-14 school and if I retake and land t-14 my debt will most likely be the same as t-50. I very much value work-life balance and fear a career working 15 hr days to pay off debt.
I see myself living in a city be it DC, NYC, etc. I have a close network of friends in both the DC and Columbus areas.



Ohio State and George Mason have both increased my scholarships. Here is now what I'm between. Thoughts?

#19 USC Gould-- COA: $193,923
#30 Ohio State-- $99,264
#42 George Mason-- $102,954
#97 West Virginia-- Full Tuition Scholarship so just cost of living

So, you would prefer to have debt and no career at all to pay off said debt?

[WaitersIsland]

It is unlikely you will make much (if any) more money as a law graduate from one of those schools than you would in an entry-level business job. As far as the rigors of studying for the LSAT again: if you can't handle studying for a learnable test for another three months, you likely won't be able to handle the rigors of law school or life as a practicing attorney (which is no better than a 50-50 shot at several of those schools).

You would be making a colossal mistake to attend any of those schools at that price point.

[QuentonCassidy]

Hey there, it's very good that you are thinking so seriously about your law school decision, but I just wanted to point out a couple things to think further about. I have seen other posters make some very good arguments on these topics as well but I can't recall them right now so hopefully they will come in and give their opinion as well.

I've spent time thinking about the opportunity cost of taking a year off to take the LSAT. The year's salary I would be forgoing by matriculating in the fall

The "opportunity cost" argument for going to law school sooner has been debunked pretty thoroughly in these fora. First, you need to consider that the salary that you are missing out on by the extra year you will be in school three years from now needs to be discounted by three years to get it into present-value terms. Second, the salary that you are missing three years from now is offset by the salary that you would make over this next year by working instead of being in law school, and while that year's salary would (probably) not be as large as the missed salary in three years, it does not need to be discounted at all. with ball-park estimates: if your salary three years from now was 130,000, we use a discount rate of 8%, and your salary that you could get this year is 50,000 (conservative estimates). This would render an actual opportunity cost of about 53k. Now when we consider that the only one of the schools that gives you a serious shot of getting that large of a "missed" salary number is USC, with a COA of almost 200k, and consider that improving 10 points on your LSAT (very doable with hard work and TLS guides) puts you solidly in range for Darrow consideration, which would wipe out that 200k COA, the 50k opportunity cost is already vastly outweighed, and this doesn't even take into consideration the increased job prospects that a school like Michigan provides over USC.

if I retake and land t-14 my debt will most likely be the same as t-50

Not sure why you believe this, but with a 4.0/170+ you will certainly be looking at big money from the T14.

Furthermore, if it is truly the case that it is not important for you to go to a T14, getting 170+ will land you USC for free, and given that the opportunity cost is (at most) ~50k, taking a year off to work and study for the LSAT is an enormously value-adding investment.

There are many more reasons to stick with your plan of taking a year off and retaking the LSAT beyond just financial, but finance is really the only area that I am qualified to speak of, so I will leave the rest to others. Hope this helps