DePaul or Kent? Forum

[landerson10]

Hi everyone, my wife has recently decided to further her education by going to law school. She took the LSAT and received a 152 and has a GPA of around 3.8/3.9. She applied to all of the tier 2 schools in the Chicago area, since this is where I currently work. She was accepted to JM, DePaul, Kent, and also Marquette. We are trying to make a decision on what school to go to and I would really appreciate any advice you can give.

She received a full-ride scholarship from JM for 110,000 but because of the weakness of the program we are writing them off. We have also written off Marquette since I'll be working full-time in Chicago to support us while she is in school. She is interested in doing IP law which Kent ranks better in, and has a slightly better legal writing program than DePaul as well, but she only received a 30,000 scholarship to Kent. She likes this school better and had decided to attend Kent until we received a 75,000 scholarship from DePaul. I know that none of these schools are as highly ranked as Northwestern or U-Chicago. Any advice would be helpful because we are having a tough time turning down 45,000 dollars more in scholarships to a near even school even though she likes Kent better.

[cavalier1138]

What does your wife want to do with her degree?

[landerson10]

Currently she is wanting to do something with IP law, however she doesn't have a BS only a BA meaning she couldn't sit for the Patent Bar. She is however open to other areas of law once she begins to learn more about them while in her 1L classes. But right now she is set on IP law.

[jrf12886]

How many times has she taken the LSAT? How did she study? With her GPA, and a much improved LSAT, she could be looking at NW and UChi.

[dbalkaran]

With her GPA it would be wise to retake. University of Illinois is much better than all of those options. I wish I had a GPA like that...would have made things much easier for me.

[cavalier1138]

Currently she is wanting to do something with IP law, however she doesn't have a BS only a BA meaning she couldn't sit for the Patent Bar. She is however open to other areas of law once she begins to learn more about them while in her 1L classes. But right now she is set on IP law.

That confirms what I originally thought.

Your wife should retake the LSAT and reapply next cycle. None of these schools are worth paying any money for, and they will not get her a job in a highly competitive legal field.

On a separate note, I don't know much about IP law, but it doesn't sound like your wife is in a position to do it at this point. You need a strong background in science/engineering before law school to really be in the running for those jobs.

[dbalkaran]

How many times has she taken the LSAT? How did she study? With her GPA, and a much improved LSAT, she could be looking at NW and UChi.

+1

If she doesn't mind being a few hours away from Chicago WUSTL is not an unrealistic choice either if she can raise her score on the LSAT into the 160s.

[landerson10]

Currently she has taken the LSAT only once and studied some of the practice tests for 2-3 months while working full-time as a waitress.

[ILoveYou]

Currently she is wanting to do something with IP law, however she doesn't have a BS only a BA meaning she couldn't sit for the Patent Bar. She is however open to other areas of law once she begins to learn more about them while in her 1L classes. But right now she is set on IP law.

It'll be difficult to land a good IP gig out of either of these schools, especially without a science background. It's not impossible, but a lot of (maybe most) firms will prefer someone with a science background even for the types of positions (patent lit, "soft" IP) that don't strictly require it, and in the Chicago market she'll be competing against a lot more people with backgrounds more suited to IP than there are jobs.

E: after your last post, I think the best advice is to buckle down, study hard (and depending on how she did it the first time, maybe smarter--there are some really good resources on this site you might look at that can help, especially if she just used like Kaplan books or something the first time) and retake to try to get that LSAT up. Best of luck.

[snowball2]

Currently she has taken the LSAT only once and studied some of the practice tests for 2-3 months while working full-time as a waitress.

Invest some money in a prep course. Some sections on the LSAT are very coachable and having the structure of a paid course will help. And having a year of work in a non-waitress capacity will also help (legal do-gooder work or just a general legal assistant role).

[waldorf]

Currently she has taken the LSAT only once and studied some of the practice tests for 2-3 months while working full-time as a waitress.

So.. she only studied practice tests? If she didn't work on sections individually, especially LG, to learn the techniques, then she should definitely retake.

Do you know what sections she did the best/worst on? LG is easy to improve on with enough studying and LR isn't too difficult either (it takes work, but it's not impossible at all).

Also, the problem with a school like Kent is that it could be a "regional" but it really isn't because it's in Chicago. Schools like DePaul and Kent will only place in their region, and in their cases, they are competing with UChicago, NU, Michigan, Notre Dame, WUSTL, UIUC. DePaul and Kent graduates struggle to find jobs because they are competing with so many good schools that are also sending students into the Chicago market (specifically, two T13s, three if you count Michigan).

[guynourmin]

That's kind of the "problem" with Chicago - there's a huge gulf in between C/NU and the rest of the schools on the city. UIUC, ND, and, probably to a lesser extent, WUSTL fill the void, but there's not any good middle options that are local.

Anyway, with your wife's gpa, and the fact that you all were willing to go to Kent with a 10k/yr scholarship, she should study more or less full time for the lsat for the next 6 months. With her gpa, a 165 probably gets her into NU with the same scholarship, or, at least, gets her a full ride at kent next year. There's no reason to rush into law school.

This board will provide a ton of LSAT help btw.

[guynourmin]

Currently she has taken the LSAT only once and studied some of the practice tests for 2-3 months while working full-time as a waitress.

Invest some money in a prep course. Some sections on the LSAT are very coachable and having the structure of a paid course will help. And having a year of work in a non-waitress capacity will also help (legal do-gooder work or just a general legal assistant role).

I disagree with this entirely.

first, it doesn't sound like she studied that well to begin with, so jumping straight into a prep course seems dumb when there are so many good free resources. Second, she needs to improve her lsat score. forget about work experience! a 3.8/167 waitress is going to do better than a 3.8/166 low-level legal assistant 100% of the time.

[waldorf]

Currently she has taken the LSAT only once and studied some of the practice tests for 2-3 months while working full-time as a waitress.

Invest some money in a prep course. Some sections on the LSAT are very coachable and having the structure of a paid course will help. And having a year of work in a non-waitress capacity will also help (legal do-gooder work or just a general legal assistant role).

I disagree with this entirely.

first, it doesn't sound like she studied that well to begin with, so jumping straight into a prep course seems dumb when there are so many good free resources. Second, she needs to improve her lsat score. forget about work experience! a 3.8/167 waitress is going to do better than a 3.8/166 low-level legal assistant 100% of the time.

+1. Plus, prep courses can run in the thousands, whereas you can self-study pretty cheaply (relative, of course).

[snowball2]

Getting her score in 160's will likely get her a full scholarship at Kent. So that's $120K in value right there. More significantly it will likely also get her into Northwestern which will get her a job right out of law school, which has significant $$ value.

[ILoveYou]

Currently she has taken the LSAT only once and studied some of the practice tests for 2-3 months while working full-time as a waitress.

Invest some money in a prep course. Some sections on the LSAT are very coachable and having the structure of a paid course will help. And having a year of work in a non-waitress capacity will also help (legal do-gooder work or just a general legal assistant role).

I disagree with this entirely.

first, it doesn't sound like she studied that well to begin with, so jumping straight into a prep course seems dumb when there are so many good free resources. Second, she needs to improve her lsat score. forget about work experience! a 3.8/167 waitress is going to do better than a 3.8/166 low-level legal assistant 100% of the time.

To pile on here, +1. I see no reason to "invest" in a prep course until you know that she isn't improving with smart and disciplined self-study. If she busts ass for 4 months and is PTing in the 160s, that's probably a good indication that she can buckle down for a few more months and really improve her options; on the other hand, if she's not seeing any improvement on her own, you may need to think about whether the cost of a prep course is worth the structure and guidance it provides.

[guynourmin]

Getting her score in 160's will likely get her a full scholarship at Kent. So that's $120K in value right there. More significantly it will likely also get her into Northwestern which will get her a job right out of law school, which has significant $$ value.

RIght, but there's so much work she can do before turning to a prep course.

[trebekismyhero]

That's kind of the "problem" with Chicago - there's a huge gulf in between C/NU and the rest of the schools on the city. UIUC, ND, and, probably to a lesser extent, WUSTL fill the void, but there's not any good middle options that are local.

Anyway, with your wife's gpa, and the fact that you all were willing to go to Kent with a 10k/yr scholarship, she should study more or less full time for the lsat for the next 6 months. With her gpa, a 165 probably gets her into NU with the same scholarship, or, at least, gets her a full ride at kent next year. There's no reason to rush into law school.

This board will provide a ton of LSAT help btw.

This pretty much exactly. With that GPA, probably a 160 or close to it gets a full ride to Loyola/Kent/DePaul, which is really the only way that the local schools are worthwhile.

As far as prep courses go, I am actually not anti-all of them. I think Kaplan is a huge waste, but way back when, I took an independent course for like $500 and it helped me raise my score 12 points. I think following the guides on TLS can probably do the same. But if there is a highly rated and reasonably priced prep course, I wouldn't automatically say that's a bad idea

[albanach]

I used a prep course to get started with the LSAT studying. It was good for me to have the structure. After that, self study brought me into the 170s. The $1,000 or so cost is trivial when compared to the cost of law school.

Like the poster above says, your wife shouldn't be looking at Kaplan - look for the recommendations on here for the prep courses that will get her into the higher reaches. Her GPA is fantastic and committing to raising her GPA should make almost any school an option.

[snowball2]

Getting her score in 160's will likely get her a full scholarship at Kent. So that's $120K in value right there. More significantly it will likely also get her into Northwestern which will get her a job right out of law school, which has significant $$ value.

RIght, but there's so much work she can do before turning to a prep course.

Everybody's different. Some people can simply get enough practice tests and coach themselves to a better grade. Have a friend who bought a bunch of practice tests on Amazon, prepped on those for about a month and got a 168. Parlayed that into a full scholarship at a T1. I don't have that ability to focus without some guidance, so I find a class useful.

[carasrook]

That's kind of the "problem" with Chicago - there's a huge gulf in between C/NU and the rest of the schools on the city. UIUC, ND, and, probably to a lesser extent, WUSTL fill the void, but there's not any good middle options that are local.

Anyway, with your wife's gpa, and the fact that you all were willing to go to Kent with a 10k/yr scholarship, she should study more or less full time for the lsat for the next 6 months. With her gpa, a 165 probably gets her into NU with the same scholarship, or, at least, gets her a full ride at kent next year. There's no reason to rush into law school.

This board will provide a ton of LSAT help btw.

This pretty much exactly. With that GPA, probably a 160 or close to it gets a full ride to Loyola/Kent/DePaul, which is really the only way that the local schools are worthwhile.

As far as prep courses go, I am actually not anti-all of them. I think Kaplan is a huge waste, but way back when, I took an independent course for like $500 and it helped me raise my score 12 points. I think following the guides on TLS can probably do the same. But if there is a highly rated and reasonably priced prep course, I wouldn't automatically say that's a bad idea

FWIW, I was told Loyola does not give full scholarships. 3/4 tuition is the highest they go so that they can afford to give more students scholarships. Idk about Kent and DePaul