Top Law Schools

I have seen a few threads where it is suggested that some of our members applied to all T14.

I was counseled to pick 5 schools and the app process for just those seems like a ton of work.

So....how many?

24.

21. But in hindsight that was way too many.

12, but you should make a poll.

If you've got fee waivers, adding schools won't add much time or trouble since you can reuse your PS/addendums and lsac will auto fill most of the application (though you should definitely double check to make sure that all the questions have been filled). The benefit of doing this is that you will have more options and more chances at scholarships (sometimes you'll be surprised by a school). Even if you don't end up going there, these offers will give you leverage in scholarship negotiation against your top choice. Worked for me.

15

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I've seen as few as one and as many as 30. Based on LSN trolling, I would estimate the median to be somewhere around 12-15. I applied to 12: 3 reaches, 3 targets, and 6 safeties.

I do have an lsac fee waiver and as a McNair Scholar, I have been offered waivers as well.

Thanks for the input everyone.

I blanketed most of the lower T14 and some T20s.

No offense, but if applying to 5 schools sounds like a lot of work, I don't see a positive law school experience in your future.

rickgrimes69 wrote:I blanketed most of the lower T14 and some T20s.

No offense, but if applying to 5 schools sounds like a lot of work, I don't see a positive law school experience in your future.

No offense taken.

Our situation is considerably different than most. I have a wife who won't drive, a high-school age stepson (his father fled the country to avoid child support) who can't drive, two households with about a half-dozen dependents (not children of ours - just refugees my wife took in), full-time work, full-time school, and an aging mother with severe dementia that we take of.

Geno67 wrote:

rickgrimes69 wrote:I blanketed most of the lower T14 and some T20s.

No offense, but if applying to 5 schools sounds like a lot of work, I don't see a positive law school experience in your future.

No offense taken.

Our situation is considerably different than most. I have a wife who won't drive, a high-school age stepson (his father fled the country to avoid child support) who can't drive, two households with about a half-dozen dependents (not children of ours - just refugees my wife took in), full-time work, full-time school, and an aging mother with severe dementia that we take of.

And you want to put law school on top of that?!? Ch......

7

I did 6, in hindsight wish I would have added 5-7 more.

It says on one of your older posts that you got a 145 on your first LSAT. Please don't take out any significant amount of loans or go to a lower ranked school with the kind of responsibility that you currently have. That's a lot to juggle with going to law school.

Well - my first choice was marine archaeology but the employment prospects are exponentially worse than law. My second and third choices were geophysics and astrophysics but both departments want me to do a year of prereqs that I am not interested in.

Planning on applying to two - I have geographical constraints on where I'm willing to attend.

goldbh7 wrote:It says on one of your older posts that you got a 145 on your first LSAT. Please don't take out any significant amount of loans or go to a lower ranked school with the kind of responsibility that you currently have. That's a lot to juggle with going to law school.

I will not attend law unless I have a full ride. I may eat those words if HYS gives me enough money to ALMOST live on.

My 145 came from taking it cold with no preparation at all and the mistaken belief that every wrong answer would count against me. I have completed two timed practice tests since (after reading LSAT superprep - free from lsac) and placed in the 160s both times. Just reading the one prep book opened my eyes an immense amount and I realize how much of a mistake taking it cold was. I have also scored several of the PS bibles and am looking forward to a few hours here and there with them.

I honestly think I can get into the low 170s by October. I know....no one does that. But no one works 60 hours and still makes the presidents list every semester either.

Edit: October, not November.

Geno67 wrote:

rickgrimes69 wrote:I blanketed most of the lower T14 and some T20s.

No offense, but if applying to 5 schools sounds like a lot of work, I don't see a positive law school experience in your future.

No offense taken.

Our situation is considerably different than most. I have a wife who won't drive, a high-school age stepson (his father fled the country to avoid child support) who can't drive, two households with about a half-dozen dependents (not children of ours - just refugees my wife took in), full-time work, full-time school, and an aging mother with severe dementia that we take of.

The bolded gets all of my wut.

My point was that if the application process seems like a lot of work, you straight up will not be able to handle the time commitment and workload of law school. Especially considering all of the personal obligations you have, you should give serious thought to whether you will be able to devote the necessary amount of attention to your studies. Employers aren't going to care about your personal life when you're trying to explain away your sub-par GPA.

16

rickgrimes69 wrote: My point was that if the application process seems like a lot of work, you straight up will not be able to handle the time commitment and workload of law school. Especially considering all of the personal obligations you have, you should give serious thought to whether you will be able to devote the necessary amount of attention to your studies. Employers aren't going to care about your personal life when you're trying to explain away your sub-par GPA.

My current GPA is 3.94. I worked more than 50 hours for most of my undergrad career (currently 40-45) and attended school full-time. I will not be working full-time during graduate school. If I do law - I will probably not be working at all.

The stepson will be driving age by the time I start (fall 2014). The refugees will have to find some way to take care of themselves as we will be renting the house out to offset the mortgage if we have to move for school.

22

15

3

And 2 more a few weeks later when I had a panic attack, but I honestly wouldn't have attended either of those

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I think I applied to close to 20, but a decent chunk of those were for scholarship negotiation purposes.

+1 on the refugee wut