URM 2015-2016 Cycle Thread Forum

[beckett]

Placed on reserve at Cornell today
Already waitlisted at Duke

Accepted to GW with 75k

I really wish to attend a T14. My top choices are UVA and NYU. Having been watilisted at Cornell and Duke already is it safe to assume I won't being receiving acceptance from NYU or UVA. Should I begin studying for the June LSAT? Feeling a little discouraged at this point.

What are your stats? Don't get too down...this isn't the end of anything.

25% < LSAT < 50% at Cornell
Slightly below 25% GPA at Cornell

I'm slightly below the 25% for both GPA and LSAT at NYU but because there class size is so big I thought I might have a decent shot. Am I mistaken in thinking that?

I was right at 25% for GPA/LSAT for NYU and just got in, so it's definitely doable. Did you write a Why NYU essay?

[jnwa]

lol my only problem with waiting a year and reapply is my family is really on my ass they want me to hurry up graduate start working get married and have some kids....im only 22 though...

Go up to everyone in your family and ask them to give you 150k in cash if they say no then retake to high 160s and a t14 school will give you a 150k scholly.

[aicampa]

Placed on reserve at Cornell today
Already waitlisted at Duke

Accepted to GW with 75k

I really wish to attend a T14. My top choices are UVA and NYU. Having been watilisted at Cornell and Duke already is it safe to assume I won't being receiving acceptance from NYU or UVA. Should I begin studying for the June LSAT? Feeling a little discouraged at this point.

What are your stats? Don't get too down...this isn't the end of anything.

25% < LSAT < 50% at Cornell
Slightly below 25% GPA at Cornell

I'm slightly below the 25% for both GPA and LSAT at NYU but because there class size is so big I thought I might have a decent shot. Am I mistaken in thinking that?

I was right at 25% for GPA/LSAT for NYU and just got in, so it's definitely doable. Did you write a Why NYU essay?

Did not initially write one. But I sent a LOCI just last week that described why NYU is my top choice. I read on Spivey consulting that a LOCI before a decision is rendered could help. Went UR 1 at NYU on 2/5.

[uhwrestler]

lol my only problem with waiting a year and reapply is my family is really on my ass they want me to hurry up graduate start working get married and have some kids....im only 22 though...

Go up to everyone in your family and ask them to give you 150k in cash if they say no then retake to high 160s and a t14 school will give you a 150k scholly.

my whole family is super broke...everyone is relying on me to become some hot shot lawyer lol...they think graduating from any law school will guarantee a 6-figure salary.....i have to explain to them how untrue that assumption is and its better to try to get into a higher ranked school or get more scholarship money even if it means delaying 1 year....

[aicampa]

Placed on reserve at Cornell today
Already waitlisted at Duke

Accepted to GW with 75k

I really wish to attend a T14. My top choices are UVA and NYU. Having been watilisted at Cornell and Duke already is it safe to assume I won't being receiving acceptance from NYU or UVA. Should I begin studying for the June LSAT? Feeling a little discouraged at this point.

What are your stats? Don't get too down...this isn't the end of anything.

25% < LSAT < 50% at Cornell
Slightly below 25% GPA at Cornell

I'm slightly below the 25% for both GPA and LSAT at NYU but because there class size is so big I thought I might have a decent shot. Am I mistaken in thinking that?

urm with lsat between 164 and 167 and still waitlisted at cornell....thats wierd...i would have thought you would be in pretty easily

thought I would be in as well. Hence the discouragement

[jnwa]

lol my only problem with waiting a year and reapply is my family is really on my ass they want me to hurry up graduate start working get married and have some kids....im only 22 though...

Go up to everyone in your family and ask them to give you 150k in cash if they say no then retake to high 160s and a t14 school will give you a 150k scholly.

my whole family is super broke...everyone is relying on me to become some hot shot lawyer lol...they think graduating from any law school will guarantee a 6-figure salary.....i have to explain to them how untrue that assumption is and its better to try to get into a higher ranked school or get more scholarship money even if it means delaying 1 year....

Thats understandable but like you said, youre 22. Even if you cant convince them, realize you know more about law school than they do and make your decision based on your knowledge not theirs. My mom was convinced that i was making a huge mistake choosing a Darrow at Michigan over Columbia, then today she had a revelation about how much 200,000 dollars is. Theyll come around when youre an actual big shot lawyer and you can use the money you save on loan payments to buy their affections.

[jnwa]

Okay, here is a stats doc like the one from last year. I take no credit on this, I just found it and made some super minor edits. If anyone knows who made the original one, we should give them a shoutout.

Hope this helps everyone! Good luck!

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

Also is there any way someone can put this on the fist page like the spreadsheets of the c/o 2019 classes. This info would have been really helpful when i was freaking out in October, itd be a shame if it got buried.

[ert2sk]

Placed on reserve at Cornell today
Already waitlisted at Duke

Accepted to GW with 75k

I really wish to attend a T14. My top choices are UVA and NYU. Having been watilisted at Cornell and Duke already is it safe to assume I won't being receiving acceptance from NYU or UVA. Should I begin studying for the June LSAT? Feeling a little discouraged at this point.

Hi! Don't get too discouraged just yet. A rejection/waitlist at one school doesn't mean you'll get the same result at a similarly ranked school. For example, UVA, Duke, and Berkeley are all tied according to the US News rankings. I was admitted to the first, waitlisted to the second, and rejected from the third. I'm under both medians for all three schools. Don't lose hope! URM cycles are sooo unpredictable!

[aicampa]

Placed on reserve at Cornell today
Already waitlisted at Duke

Accepted to GW with 75k

I really wish to attend a T14. My top choices are UVA and NYU. Having been watilisted at Cornell and Duke already is it safe to assume I won't being receiving acceptance from NYU or UVA. Should I begin studying for the June LSAT? Feeling a little discouraged at this point.

Hi! Don't get too discouraged just yet. A rejection/waitlist at one school doesn't mean you'll get the same result at a similarly ranked school. For example, UVA, Duke, and Berkeley are all tied according to the US News rankings. I was admitted to the first, waitlisted to the second, and rejected from the third. I'm under both medians for all three schools. Don't lose hope! URM cycles are sooo unpredictable!

Thanks for sharing! Hoping for a similar outcome!

[180kickflip]

so far im waitlisted at cornell(applied ed) and notre dame
rejected at George washington and UVA
accepted at SMU (45k)
interviewed at WUSTL 2 weeks ago and still waiting
pending everywhere else

my stats are 3.7/156, aa male, good softs, all apps were sent in early january

im really contemplating taking the lsat again and reapplying next cycle I was averaging 162-163 on my practice tests and i think i can realistically score between 158-160. Im going to wait if i can get in at UT, Georgetown, or off of cornells waitlist before i decide if i will retake the exam although its not looking good with my low lsat. Does anyone know if a 158-160 will make a significant difference from a 156 at the lower t-15 schools or will it still be to low and there is no point for me to retake?

***please dont quote****

With a 3.7 GPA, there's really no reason for an AA applicant to accept anything under HYS (or full t14 scholarship) IMO. Seriously...I would kill for that GPA lol. Sit out the year, move your job down to part time if necessary, and spend a full year studying LSAT. Then retake when you're an LSAT guru, apply before Thanksgiving, and profit. Anything less is probably shortsighted at best and just dumb at worst.

My first LSAT was literally a 156. I thought I studied for that, but I was really lying to myself. I buckled down, used this forum as a resource, and got a 163. Then, I kept reading this forum, looked at some of the stats in the black by the numbers thread, got motivated, studied another 4 months or so, retook and got a 168. I probably saved myself 170k+

Don't listen to anyone but yourself on this (and maybe me cuz I'm telling you what you should do lol). If you think you have it in you to squeeze out a few more LSAT points, sit the cycle out, maximize your LSAT and reapply. With your GPA, you're one standardized test away from having your pick of any school (and subsequently, just about any job) you want.

[uhwrestler]

^^^^^man thats pretty inspirational...do you have any recommendations for lsat preparation and study?

[BillClinton Jr]

so far im waitlisted at cornell(applied ed) and notre dame
rejected at George washington and UVA
accepted at SMU (45k)
interviewed at WUSTL 2 weeks ago and still waiting
pending everywhere else

my stats are 3.7/156, aa male, good softs, all apps were sent in early january

im really contemplating taking the lsat again and reapplying next cycle I was averaging 162-163 on my practice tests and i think i can realistically score between 158-160. Im going to wait if i can get in at UT, Georgetown, or off of cornells waitlist before i decide if i will retake the exam although its not looking good with my low lsat. Does anyone know if a 158-160 will make a significant difference from a 156 at the lower t-15 schools or will it still be to low and there is no point for me to retake?

I'm 157/3.6. Work experience ~2years (1yr AmeriCorps). Strong softs from school. Strong letters of rec. Applied early (sent apps by early October) and been admitted to Texas, Vandy, Duke and Cornell. Keep hope alive!Best of luck.

[180kickflip]

^^^^^man thats pretty inspirational...do you have any recommendations for lsat preparation and study?

Yes!

It depends a lot on what you're scoring now on each section, but I think the manhattan books and the LSAT trainer are both great resources.

For LG, I think brute force (read: drilling til eyes bleed) works well. My first take, I got 14 wrong on LG, then -8, then -4. I did every single game 5+ times and watched the 7sage video after each attempt where I had any mistakes. You'll be amazed at how much you can improve with speed and technique just by redoing the same games over and over. Lucky for us, the games really dont vary that much in general structures over the years.

For LR, I used the techniques in the manhattan books and trainer and then looked up the questions on the manhattan website to see people's explanations. I started doing sections untimed with blind review after each section, then timed with BR, then I shot for completing sections in 32 mins or less (simultaneously moving from shooting from getting the first 10 LR Qs done in 10 mins to getting the first 15 done in 15 mins). Same as LG, constant drilling and redoing sections (after I hadn't seen them for awhile) worked for me.

RC is tough to improve quickly, but if you do enough sections, you'll get a feel for what questions they typically ask, and you'll get better at identifying their trick answers. When I stopped trying to underline or annotate passages, I started scoring a lot higher. For me, that stuff was just a waste of time (YMMV).

Really though, I think the LSAT is something where things just click and you find what works for you once you put the time in. A class might make it go quicker, but for me, that meant hours. When I was going hard, I'd study 4-6 hours a day 4 days a week for months straight. Some people do more. Some are ok with less.

Just look at it like a job that pays per question correct. If a 156 is 65 right and gets you t14 at sticker and a 168 is 85 right and gets you t14 plus 150k, then each added Q right is worth $7500 =)

[jnwa]

^what he said. Also as someone who tutors the LSAT, my experiences have taught me that classes are wack for the most part. Especially Princeton Review. Your time and money are best spent drilling on your own and focusing on your weaknesses or finding a tutor with good reviews. Sitting in a class with 10 other people isn't good value for your time or money. Some people do LG much differently than I do and still get perfect. I saw an online class that advised students not to make inferences and brute force all the games, I would die if I tried that but some people can do it.

I also found annotating reading comp to be a waste of time. Actually diagramming formal logic questions and parallel reasoning was a waste of time for me too. Find out what works for you, get your fire score and profit.

[fliptrip]

lol my only problem with waiting a year and reapply is my family is really on my ass they want me to hurry up graduate start working get married and have some kids....im only 22 though...

Go up to everyone in your family and ask them to give you 150k in cash if they say no then retake to high 160s and a t14 school will give you a 150k scholly.

my whole family is super broke...everyone is relying on me to become some hot shot lawyer lol...they think graduating from any law school will guarantee a 6-figure salary.....i have to explain to them how untrue that assumption is and its better to try to get into a higher ranked school or get more scholarship money even if it means delaying 1 year....

Thats understandable but like you said, youre 22. Even if you cant convince them, realize you know more about law school than they do and make your decision based on your knowledge not theirs. My mom was convinced that i was making a huge mistake choosing a Darrow at Michigan over Columbia, then today she had a revelation about how much 200,000 dollars is. Theyll come around when youre an actual big shot lawyer and you can use the money you save on loan payments to buy their affections.

While you're at it, try to manage their expectations. The best outcome you can reasonably hope for is to go to a great school, snag BigLaw, put in 2-4 years there and then go in-house. That's going to land you at a solidly low end of the upper middle class of $175-$225k/year. Your hours will be manageable and you'll actually be practicing law. That's a great living and better than 99% of the population.

Now, maybe you are one of the small percentage of folks who just kills at Big Law and has the skills and talent to go from a job where technical proficiency is at a premium (associate) to one where relationship/sales and just general management skills are at a premium (partner). As a partner, you're gonna be making serious bank $1m probably. But this is a very unlikely outcome even if you are a kick ass lawyer.

Folks are saying this, but let me try to put it in starker terms. #1 thank the good lord that Cornell didn't take you ED. You could have ended up paying sticker and no law school in the country besides maybe Y and S is worth it at sticker.

This $45k total (I'm assuming) to SMU is a formula for unmitigated disaster. Only 24% of their grads get biglaw or a federal clerkship, which means that if you end up at median in your class, you're basically screwed. If you're lucky, and I say lucky because 30% of their class doesn't end up in a job practicing law at all, you'll be stuck in a career path that will guarantee that you DON'T make six figures. Then you'll be servicing $250k in debt on a $60k salary and you can forget buying a house for this wife and kids. Also, the women you're probably going to be trying to snag probably have very good jobs and clear financial goals and they will not want to hitch their wagon to your debt-ridden butt. Don't do it!

You know where it would be great to go to school? Harvard or Cornell for damn near free. Cornell will basically guarantee you NYC biglaw and with a 165 LSAT you're basically assured a more than 75% discount. Since you have limited family resources, Harvard will be a bargain for you! You're going to be looking at Harvard at a more than $100k discount. You know what % of Harvard grads get biglaw or a Fed Clerkship? 72! and the 28% who don't are pretty much PI-dedicated folks who are going to go work for the ACLU or Southern Poverty Law Center. Imagine, use your Harvard education to get an associate job at Vinson and Elkins in Houston. Do your BigLaw purgatory stint and then go in-house at some oil company and be set for life. You'll have a big-assed house that your family can visit you at and your wife will be a baaaaaad chick who you can form a true power couple with. All that stands between you and this paradise is a four hour exam. I promise you you can do it.

ETA: More data on SMU's employment figures and fixed the math fail on non BL/Clerkship HLS grads.

[jnwa]

lol my only problem with waiting a year and reapply is my family is really on my ass they want me to hurry up graduate start working get married and have some kids....im only 22 though...

Go up to everyone in your family and ask them to give you 150k in cash if they say no then retake to high 160s and a t14 school will give you a 150k scholly.

my whole family is super broke...everyone is relying on me to become some hot shot lawyer lol...they think graduating from any law school will guarantee a 6-figure salary.....i have to explain to them how untrue that assumption is and its better to try to get into a higher ranked school or get more scholarship money even if it means delaying 1 year....

Thats understandable but like you said, youre 22. Even if you cant convince them, realize you know more about law school than they do and make your decision based on your knowledge not theirs. My mom was convinced that i was making a huge mistake choosing a Darrow at Michigan over Columbia, then today she had a revelation about how much 200,000 dollars is. Theyll come around when youre an actual big shot lawyer and you can use the money you save on loan payments to buy their affections.

While you're at it, try to manage their expectations. The best outcome you can reasonably hope for is to go to a great school, snag BigLaw, put in 2-4 years there and then go in-house. That's going to land you at a solidly low end of the upper middle class of $175-$225k/year. Your hours will be manageable and you'll actually be practicing law. That's a great living and better than 99% of the population.

Now, maybe you are one of the small percentage of folks who just kills at Big Law and has the skills and talent to go from a job where technical proficiency is at a premium (associate) to one where relationship/sales and just general management skills are at a premium (partner). As a partner, you're gonna be making serious bank $1m probably. But this is a very unlikely outcome even if you are a kick ass lawyer.

Folks are saying this, but let me try to put it in starker terms. #1 thank the good lord that Cornell didn't take you ED. You could have ended up paying sticker and no law school in the country besides maybe Y and S is worth it at sticker.

This $45k total (I'm assuming) to SMU is a formula for unmitigated disaster. Only 24% of their grads get biglaw or a federal clerkship, which means that if you end up at median in your class, you're basically screwed. You'll be stuck in a career path that will guarantee that you DON'T make six figures. Then you'll be servicing $250k in debt on a $60k salary and you can forget buying a house for this wife and kids. Also, the women you're probably going to be trying to snag probably have very good jobs and clear financial goals and they will not want to hitch their wagon to your debt-ridden butt. Don't do it!

You know where it would be great to go to school? Harvard or Cornell for damn near free. Cornell will basically guarantee you NYC biglaw and with a 165 LSAT you're basically assured a more than 75% discount. Since you have limited family resources, Harvard will be a bargain for you! You're going to be looking at Harvard at a more than $100k discount. You know what % of Harvard grads get biglaw or a Fed Clerkship? 72! and the 18% who don't are pretty much PI-dedicated folks who are going to go work for the ACLU or Southern Poverty Law Center. Imagine, use your Harvard education to get an associate job at Vinson and Elkins in Houston. Do your BigLaw purgatory stint and then go in-house at some oil company and be set for life. You'll have a big-assed house that your family can visit you at and your wife will be a baaaaaad chick who you can form a true power couple with. All that stands between you and this paradise is a four hour exam. I promise you you can do it.

This is the most inspirational thing I've ever read.

[fliptrip]

^what he said. Also as someone who tutors the LSAT, my experiences have taught me that classes are wack for the most part. Especially Princeton Review. Your time and money are best spent drilling on your own and focusing on your weaknesses or finding a tutor with good reviews. Sitting in a class with 10 other people isn't good value for your time or money. Some people do LG much differently than I do and still get perfect. I saw an online class that advised students not to make inferences and brute force all the games, I would die if I tried that but some people can do it.

I also found annotating reading comp to be a waste of time. Actually diagramming formal logic questions and parallel reasoning was a waste of time for me too. Find out what works for you, get your fire score and profit.

The URM forum is an orgy of wonderful topics to discuss today. I too tutor the LSAT and I completely agree that any kind of Kaplan or Princeton Review class basically sucks and will do more harm than good. I'd say 75% of my students are refugees from a horrible PR or Kaplan experience.

As you can see there are different effective approaches to the test. I'll throw some of my insights in here. The first is that arguments (LR) is the spine of the test. It's half the scored questions, so you should not take the test until you have your arguments game as tight as possible. Success in arguments requires having a strategy that you can apply systematically to each question type you encounter. If you find that you don't know why questions you get right are right, it's a sign that you do not have strong mastery of the various argument question types. Also, if you are solid on your analyze the argument (role, point at issue), main conclusion, inference, and paradox argument questions, you've pretty much covered the types of questions you encounter in RC.

Now, I am a brute force LG advocate, but I'd define brute force as producing example valid solutions to games to answer could be true or must be true games. I teach a couple of "reflexive inferences" that people should make automatically, like in a sequencing game if you're told that X comes before Y, you always know that X can't be last and Y can't be first. But beyond that, I tell me students they should never be spending time on the games section thinking...they should always be working.

[uhwrestler]

lol my only problem with waiting a year and reapply is my family is really on my ass they want me to hurry up graduate start working get married and have some kids....im only 22 though...

Go up to everyone in your family and ask them to give you 150k in cash if they say no then retake to high 160s and a t14 school will give you a 150k scholly.

my whole family is super broke...everyone is relying on me to become some hot shot lawyer lol...they think graduating from any law school will guarantee a 6-figure salary.....i have to explain to them how untrue that assumption is and its better to try to get into a higher ranked school or get more scholarship money even if it means delaying 1 year....

Thats understandable but like you said, youre 22. Even if you cant convince them, realize you know more about law school than they do and make your decision based on your knowledge not theirs. My mom was convinced that i was making a huge mistake choosing a Darrow at Michigan over Columbia, then today she had a revelation about how much 200,000 dollars is. Theyll come around when youre an actual big shot lawyer and you can use the money you save on loan payments to buy their affections.

While you're at it, try to manage their expectations. The best outcome you can reasonably hope for is to go to a great school, snag BigLaw, put in 2-4 years there and then go in-house. That's going to land you at a solidly low end of the upper middle class of $175-$225k/year. Your hours will be manageable and you'll actually be practicing law. That's a great living and better than 99% of the population.

Now, maybe you are one of the small percentage of folks who just kills at Big Law and has the skills and talent to go from a job where technical proficiency is at a premium (associate) to one where relationship/sales and just general management skills are at a premium (partner). As a partner, you're gonna be making serious bank $1m probably. But this is a very unlikely outcome even if you are a kick ass lawyer.

Folks are saying this, but let me try to put it in starker terms. #1 thank the good lord that Cornell didn't take you ED. You could have ended up paying sticker and no law school in the country besides maybe Y and S is worth it at sticker.

This $45k total (I'm assuming) to SMU is a formula for unmitigated disaster. Only 24% of their grads get biglaw or a federal clerkship, which means that if you end up at median in your class, you're basically screwed. If you're lucky, and I say lucky because 30% of their class doesn't end up in a job practicing law at all, you'll be stuck in a career path that will guarantee that you DON'T make six figures. Then you'll be servicing $250k in debt on a $60k salary and you can forget buying a house for this wife and kids. Also, the women you're probably going to be trying to snag probably have very good jobs and clear financial goals and they will not want to hitch their wagon to your debt-ridden butt. Don't do it!

You know where it would be great to go to school? Harvard or Cornell for damn near free. Cornell will basically guarantee you NYC biglaw and with a 165 LSAT you're basically assured a more than 75% discount. Since you have limited family resources, Harvard will be a bargain for you! You're going to be looking at Harvard at a more than $100k discount. You know what % of Harvard grads get biglaw or a Fed Clerkship? 72! and the 28% who don't are pretty much PI-dedicated folks who are going to go work for the ACLU or Southern Poverty Law Center. Imagine, use your Harvard education to get an associate job at Vinson and Elkins in Houston. Do your BigLaw purgatory stint and then go in-house at some oil company and be set for life. You'll have a big-assed house that your family can visit you at and your wife will be a baaaaaad chick who you can form a true power couple with. All that stands between you and this paradise is a four hour exam. I promise you you can do it.

ETA: More data on SMU's employment figures and fixed the math fail on non BL/Clerkship HLS grads.

This is probably the best post i have read on this forum. Im almost certainly going to take this exam again and reapply. It would be almost insane not to at least try to break 160 (and if im really lucky hit 165) at the cost of a one year delay till law school. Im going to start forming a study strategy and really start focusing on this exam because i know i didnt study to my potential the first time.

[Iam3hunna]

.

[jmj2254]

.

[JazzyMac]

Great activity today. I've only skimmed the posts (taking short break from studying), but first takeaways are:

1) I've accepted that I may have to sit out this year,
2) I should have applied to Cornell,
3) There's a tracker that someone did that could be great!

PS, if any one wants me to review their PS, send a PM.

[aicampa]

Waitlisted at Michigan today. Looks like I'll forever be subjected to waitlist oasis

[fliptrip]

Waitlisted at Michigan today. Alas...

[texcellence]

Waitlisted at Michigan today. Alas...

dang, must be a YP thing with your #s, I'm surprised. sorry man. did you write a Why Mich?

[fliptrip]

Waitlisted at Michigan today. Alas...

dang, must be a YP thing with your #s, I'm surprised. sorry man. did you write a Why Mich?

Did I write a why mich?! YES! I spent hours writing about my affection for that place. I did everything but attach a recording of me singing Hail to the Victors.