Syracuse Forum

[bmathers]

Hey all,

Ok, here's the deal: I went from never seeing a logic game or lsat question to sitting for my LSAT in a 1-month period. I crammed like crazy, was scoring in the 160s on the preps, and then had a rough day for the actual LSAT and dropped thirty-percentiles (to a 153). I have made the decision to join a Kaplan course starting in 2 weeks and take the June LSAT, for law school starting 2017.

My goal is to get into a top 30-50 range school. However, my numbers (GPA and LSAT) match nicely for a school like Syracuse, with what I would imagine is some scholarship money (I had a major upward trend in my GPA, and my first 3 semesters are well explained in my addendum, some stuff happened during those months. Had a 2.7 after those months, ended my undergrad with a 4.0 semester and a 3.33 GPA).

I have already talked myself (and my father) out of the idea of going to a ~100 school with numbers that I know do not represent my capabilities, but does anyone think it is worth applying to just to see what, if any, money they offer?? Or, save my money (I have already wasted $400 on apps this cycle, which will go to waste).

[transferror]

In order to receive the best feedback in this forum, please provide as much of the following information in your original post as possible:

-The schools you are considering
-The total Cost of Attendance (COA) of each. COA = cost of tuition + fees + books + cost of living (COL) + accumulated interest - scholarships. Here is a helpful calculator.
-How you will be financing your COA, i.e. loans, family, or savings
-Where you are from and where you want to work, and other places where you have significant ties (if any)
-Your general career goals
-Your LSAT/GPA numbers
-How many times you have taken the LSAT

[eagle2a]

Your goal should be to get into the best school you can, why limit that to t30-50? Definitely study and retake, twice if you have to. There's no point in applying this cycle.

[bmathers]

- Syracuse
- Tuition is a God-awful $47/year, with a $22k/yr median ship and 90% of students receive a ship
- Financing will be loans/savings, and I have a MLM biz that can generate $30k-$40k/yr profit with minimal effort to maintain
- From PA, currently live in RI, have ties in Atlanta, want to practice in PA (father owns a firm in central PA)
- Looking at civil law, focus in either disability, animal, or sports law. Probably don't have aspirations of moving to Philly for BigLaw
- 153/3.33 - going to retake in June, preptests were in the 160s. Huge upward trend for my GPA, GPA addendum to explain my first 3 underperforming semesters
- Taken LSAT once (Feb 2016), will be taking it again June 2016

Looking at that staggering tuition cost, I think this is looking like an easy decision...

[bmathers]

Your goal should be to get into the best school you can, why limit that to t30-50? Definitely study and retake, twice if you have to. There's no point in applying this cycle.

Thank you, I appreciate the input. I figured my 3.33 GPA may limit me a bit for T14, and I do not envision scoring above mid 160s on a great day for my LSATs/

[Troianii]

- Syracuse
- Tuition is a God-awful $47/year, with a $22k/yr median ship and 90% of students receive a ship
- Financing will be loans/savings, and I have a MLM biz that can generate $30k-$40k/yr profit with minimal effort to maintain
- From PA, currently live in RI, have ties in Atlanta, want to practice in PA (father owns a firm in central PA)
- Looking at civil law, focus in either disability, animal, or sports law. Probably don't have aspirations of moving to Philly for BigLaw
- 153/3.33 - going to retake in June, preptests were in the 160s. Huge upward trend for my GPA, GPA addendum to explain my first 3 underperforming semesters
- Taken LSAT once (Feb 2016), will be taking it again June 2016

Looking at that staggering tuition cost, I think this is looking like an easy decision...

I would definitely say no. I was, at one point, considering Syracuse. I got a scholarship offer at 35k/yr, but it had a gpa requirement. I offered to bring in tens of thousands in outside funding *beyond* what I would be on the hook for if I attended with just the scholarship, and they said no.

I'd be very wary of attending a lower tier 2 school. I'd be far more worried if it was 50k/yr and your scholarship was conditional.

[cron1834]

- Syracuse
- Tuition is a God-awful $47/year, with a $22k/yr median ship and 90% of students receive a ship
- Financing will be loans/savings, and I have a MLM biz that can generate $30k-$40k/yr profit with minimal effort to maintain
- From PA, currently live in RI, have ties in Atlanta, want to practice in PA (father owns a firm in central PA)
- Looking at civil law, focus in either disability, animal, or sports law. Probably don't have aspirations of moving to Philly for BigLaw
- 153/3.33 - going to retake in June, preptests were in the 160s. Huge upward trend for my GPA, GPA addendum to explain my first 3 underperforming semesters
- Taken LSAT once (Feb 2016), will be taking it again June 2016

Looking at that staggering tuition cost, I think this is looking like an easy decision...

I would definitely say no. I was, at one point, considering Syracuse. I got a scholarship offer at 35k/yr, but it had a gpa requirement.
I offered to bring in tens of thousands in outside funding *beyond* what I would be on the hook for if I attended with just the scholarship, and they said no.

I'd be very wary of attending a lower tier 2 school. I'd be far more worried if it was 50k/yr and your scholarship was conditional.

WTF does this shit mean?

Anyway, OP, don't make any decisions until you study really hard for the LSAT and retake to the best of your ability. Come back then. Law school is a terrible decision until you get a score much better than 153.

[Troianii]

- Syracuse
- Tuition is a God-awful $47/year, with a $22k/yr median ship and 90% of students receive a ship
- Financing will be loans/savings, and I have a MLM biz that can generate $30k-$40k/yr profit with minimal effort to maintain
- From PA, currently live in RI, have ties in Atlanta, want to practice in PA (father owns a firm in central PA)
- Looking at civil law, focus in either disability, animal, or sports law. Probably don't have aspirations of moving to Philly for BigLaw
- 153/3.33 - going to retake in June, preptests were in the 160s. Huge upward trend for my GPA, GPA addendum to explain my first 3 underperforming semesters
- Taken LSAT once (Feb 2016), will be taking it again June 2016

Looking at that staggering tuition cost, I think this is looking like an easy decision...

I would definitely say no. I was, at one point, considering Syracuse. I got a scholarship offer at 35k/yr, but it had a gpa requirement.
I offered to bring in tens of thousands in outside funding *beyond* what I would be on the hook for if I attended with just the scholarship, and they said no.

I'd be very wary of attending a lower tier 2 school. I'd be far more worried if it was 50k/yr and your scholarship was conditional.

WTF does this shit mean?

Anyway, OP, don't make any decisions until you study really hard for the LSAT and retake to the best of your ability. Come back then. Law school is a terrible decision until you get a score much better than 153.

WTF does that shit mean? In short, it means I asked to pay more and they said no.

So they're 47k/yr, and I got a 35k initial scholarship. That means I'd end up paying them some 36k to go on scholarship, assuming I kept it. But, I had outside funding which would bring in 77.5k, but over 5 semesters. I asked them to take the outside funding and fill any gaps (namely, last semester) without gpa/rank stipulation. They said no.

Just hammering home the point that Syracuse does conditional scholarships and they're pretty set on that, and that I wouldn't suggest going to a lower 2nd tier school on a conditional scholarship. That was, at the time, my hang up with them, but fortunately I ended up getting much better offers elsewhere.

[cron1834]

We agree that stips are terrible.

[transferror]

Will your dad hire you at his firm in central PA if you can't find a job?

If yes, and based on your statement that you want to practice in PA, you should be aiming for full ride or substantial scholarship at Penn State/Nova/Drexel after you get a retake at 165+. If your June retake isn't high enough, keep PT'ing and use the resources on this site until you're consistently testing above 165 or 170, which should be easy if you were in the 160s after one crammed month of self prep.