In need of safety schools.
Posted: Fri Sep 02, 2011 2:10 am
Hey all,
I am an AA male. I have a 3.5 in Politics from HYP and got a 169 on the June LSAT. I graduated in the last 2 years. I have good international internship experience with NGOs. Some leadership experience from college but nothing too impressive. Want to pursue human rights/ international law opportunities in law school and potentially afterwards. May even end up applying to a joint degree program in IR after 1L year...
I have no idea what to do about safety schools. Seriously. I got into a big argument with some family members about it (I've learned it might be best to keep my family out of my application process from now on). They think I should just apply to like the top 10 schools and call it a day. That obviously worries me. I was going to apply to almost the entire T14 and add in a few top 30 schools in regions where I'd like to practice (UCLA, USC, Fordham, GWU, etc.), just to be safe. I've heard about the AA male boost on this site, and I'm sure it does work out well for some people. I just wouldn't want to be the odd person out, so I'm trying to hedge my bets and be a bit on the conservative side. I know that I've delved into this issue in a more casual manner, but now that it's September, I feel like I need to actually get a concrete list of schools together and start applying.
As of now my list looks something like this: Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, NYU, Chicago, Penn, UVA, Berkeley, Michigan, Duke, Cornell, Northwestern, Georgetown, UCLA, USC, GWU, Fordham. Do people who have experience with URM cycles think this makes sense? I don't want to waste money applying to schools I really don't need to consider, but I much prefer over-applying to the alternative of not getting in anywhere I want to go and being screwed.
Thoughts???
I am an AA male. I have a 3.5 in Politics from HYP and got a 169 on the June LSAT. I graduated in the last 2 years. I have good international internship experience with NGOs. Some leadership experience from college but nothing too impressive. Want to pursue human rights/ international law opportunities in law school and potentially afterwards. May even end up applying to a joint degree program in IR after 1L year...
I have no idea what to do about safety schools. Seriously. I got into a big argument with some family members about it (I've learned it might be best to keep my family out of my application process from now on). They think I should just apply to like the top 10 schools and call it a day. That obviously worries me. I was going to apply to almost the entire T14 and add in a few top 30 schools in regions where I'd like to practice (UCLA, USC, Fordham, GWU, etc.), just to be safe. I've heard about the AA male boost on this site, and I'm sure it does work out well for some people. I just wouldn't want to be the odd person out, so I'm trying to hedge my bets and be a bit on the conservative side. I know that I've delved into this issue in a more casual manner, but now that it's September, I feel like I need to actually get a concrete list of schools together and start applying.
As of now my list looks something like this: Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, NYU, Chicago, Penn, UVA, Berkeley, Michigan, Duke, Cornell, Northwestern, Georgetown, UCLA, USC, GWU, Fordham. Do people who have experience with URM cycles think this makes sense? I don't want to waste money applying to schools I really don't need to consider, but I much prefer over-applying to the alternative of not getting in anywhere I want to go and being screwed.
Thoughts???