Top Law Schools

The title says it all. My job sucks. I'm stuck in a cubicle all day getting crap money for work I could train a gorrilla to do.

So one day I looked around my cubicle and realised that my cubicle was not a happy place to be. I then stood up and looked over my office. As I scanned the bored, depressed faces of my fellow lifers I came to the stunning conclusion that my office was not a happy place to be. I cried "Oh Lord why have you forsaken me!"

And then the light went on. The wisdom fell to the earth to shower me the heavenly light of inspiration. I heard the thunder clap. I saw the lightning in the sky. I knew the answer to my prayers. Law School. Somebody has to go. Why the hell not me?

And now, 7 months later here I am, dodgy transcript, palttry LSAT and all.

There was only one real problem with my grand plan. My Transcript. It sucked. And I don't mean it was mildly dissapointing, I mean it bit the weanie in a major way. The first two years were an absolute and unmitigated shambles which, to this day, I am still ashamed of.

However there was a light at the end of my dark and gloomy transcript tunnel. The light of a lovely angel that could lift my shambolic transcript out of the depths of despair. That angel was the JD Credential Evaluation Service.

Thats the service the LSDAS uses for evaluating foreign transcripts and it gave my Law School aspirations the sweet kiss of life. It did this because when my evaluation was complete I diddn't have a GPA.

What that really meant was that my transcript wouldn't be held against me. This (as I would later discover) is because without a GPA my grades would not be included by a school when reporting it's median GPA. So my transcript could have no affect on any schools ranking.

So that meant I could, in theory anyway, completely overcome it with my work experience and LSAT score.

Basically I broke my schools down into 4 criteria:

Lottery Tickets: These were schools I had vitually no chance of getting into. They got applications because I had left over money in application fees budget after getting some waivers.

Reaches: This is where my LSAT was at or near the 25th percentile for the school.

Possibles: This is where my LSAT was between the 25th and 75th percentiles for the school.

Probables: This is where my LSAT was at or above the 75th percentile for the school.

Admittidly I applied to a lot of them. I had assumed that with my dodgy foreign transcript and total lack of a GPA my application would be thrown in the rubbish bin by almost all of them and that I would get one (or two at the most) acceptances.

Most were picked on the basis of location (in the south or the miswest) and potential cost (factoring the possibility of scholarship). I had determined that with 20 less years of working time to pay off loans racking up a big debt wasn't going to be worth it. So I set a maximum debt load as whatever I could get off the federal loans.

I went to a Law Fair and found four more that looked interesting. A fifth was recomended to me by a colleague at work. Virtualy none of them was picked based on rankings.

Well I haven't blogged in a while so I'll play catchup. I applied to a lot of schools. With no GPA I had originally assumed I would be rejected in about 10 seconds flat by nearly every school I applied to. To my surprise this was not the case.

None of my lottery tickets panned out, I got PFO's from all of them. No surprises there really - thats why they were labeled as lottery tickets.

As for my reaches, two waitlisted me and another two took me (one with $). I will probably wind up going to the one without the $ though since I think in the long run I will do better going there.

All of my possibles took me except one I still haven't heard from yet (despite applying in October).

Of the probables I got into all except one (which waitlisted me). So there you have it.

My next task is to sell my house (no small feat in this housing market). If I can't do that I'll have to reasess the situation. Going to LS is dependent on selling it so if it doesn't move by mid July I may be forced to apply for a deferment. I am not sure how receptive the school will be to my circumstances, but I simply can't afford to rack up the kind of debt I would need to if I didn't sell it.

The reality is I have 14 less years to pay off that debt than most everyone else and my job prospects are not as good due to my age (just because age discrimination is illegal doesn't meant it won't happen).

I really don't want to be in my current job another year but I may not have a choice.