AA Male, 3.2 LSDAS GPA - Really Needs Advice Forum

[Hi-So - ArshavinFan]

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[lymenheimer]

Hey Everybody,

I've been a long time lurker on this thread and it's what initially motivated me to go to law school, so its quite weird ( but quite nice) that I'm actually posting in this forum for my first time.

my average PT was 164-170


1) Being that I have aspirations of the T14, what do you think is the minimum GPA i would need to just GET IN to a school like Cornell or NW. I've checked on law school numbers - and I see a AA Male who was able to get into Cornell with a 3.14, 165 - So I'm confused about the weighting tbh. I attended Arizona State U btw, Econ Major (the guy was a Math major).

2) Concerning my personal/diversity statement - does the scope of topics they expect from a candidate change when its an AA Male? I'm planning to write on how being in the foster care and juvenile detention system throughout my teenage years formed the backbone of my wanting to become a professor of law - But i dont know if that topic would be too risque?

3) LOR - I've been out of school for two years - But I have 3 great professors in mind who would gladly write letters for me. With my lower-tail stats, is their anything particular I need to emphasize, or should I place these worries on my addendum? Also, I interned in the office of the Mayor is one of the US's top 5 cities in population - and the office said they would love to give me a letter of recommendation If I gave them a format (the mayor himself went to a T14 -But im starting to question whether this letter would be useful? It seems that everybody is harping on professor-written LOR being the best.

If you've been staying in the URM topic, you should branch out a bit. There's lots of information addressing your other concerns elsewhere on this site.
That is your PT range, not average
You answered your question 1. Looks like a 3.14 is a lower GPA for Cornell. It really depends though. URMs, AA specifically get a huge boost based on their LSAT score. If you score a 175+, you are among a few AA Males who do that (each testing?). Even 165+ would put you at a competitive advantage at most T14, even with say a 3.4 or so (that is excluding the GPA heavy schools like Berkeley, but even there would likely be competitive with a strong LSAT). Play around with MyLSN a bit more with your GPA and LSAT numbers and that's about as good an answer as you'll get on chances.
Your question 2 is better answered by someone other than me, but whatever you choose, you want it to be tasteful and put you in a positive light although it may have some negative inferences in it. I think a foster care/juvie story would be better in a diversity statement than a personal statement, but that's because I think you have more to be said about you than "I was shaped by my upbringing". You have skills and qualities that you can share with the committee through the PS where the DS can separate you from the rest of the applicants, by describing your background.
Some schools only accept a certain number of LORs and Spivey has written a blog post describing how the LORs almost do nothing (unless it's written by a benefactor to the school you are applying). Your educational ones should be fine unless you just want to diversify your portfolio. They don't need to emphasize anything in particular. As long as they don't express you as a horrible student, you should be fine.

tl;dr - Rock the LSAT and you'll be fine.

[PoopNpants]

The LSAT will most likely determine where you will get into and with what money. The best thing you can do is get as high of an LSAT as possible. I wouldn't settle for any score if you think you could do better. I'm also an AA male with a slightly lower GPA and a 167/168 LSAT and I'm taking next February just cuz I know a 170 plus would get me a good scholarship in the T14. Mylsn isn't that helpful of a tool due to the small sample size but you can see some results other URMs had on there.

[180kickflip]

best thing you can do is look through the URM forums and find the "cycle results" and IN/OUT threads for the past few cycles. Those are actual data points that will give you a good idea of what to expect. My numbers are essentially the same as poop's and after going through last cycle, I'd say just about anything outside of HYS is open if you get a 167+, H is in play with 170+, and Y/S will do whatever the hell they damn well please lol