ery low lsat score Forum

[akili]

I think the advice went: Retake or don't go.

That's good advice in my mind. I think people are in agreement with this, correlations/math/whatever aside.

[ClayDavis]

Retake, get 172+, ED to UVA or Northwestern, kill 1L, be a URM, BOOM: Biglaw by 41.

[TLSanders]

So many different factors in play here....

-how were you doing during your prep for October? Where were you scoring on practice tests at that point?

-do you have a specific career goal that's motivating you to attend law school? ("be a lawyer" is not a specific career goal)

-do you have time to really devote 150% to law school once you begin? Some low LSAT scorers do in fact excel in law school, but it typically requires a much more significant time investment than it does for high scorers.

-is this "can't wait out a year" thing real, or just a sense of urgency created by the fact that 40 is staring you in the face? I've seen a lot of people talking about how they "can't" wait out a year because of their ages in this forum and it always strikes me as silly. By your age, you should know that years are short and that investing one extra one to get where you really want to go makes a lot more sense than throwing away three trying to scramble to save time.

[packmomma]

why is everyone calling me an op and a flame wtf is that???

[packmomma]

@ tlsanders Thank you, you hit the nail on the head. Ill be 39 in 3 days and Im a single unemployed mother of a 16 year old son.(although tuition would be close to covered) The thing that motivates me to want to go to law school is the education primarily. I do not want to be a lawyer but I want to go to law school. This is all fairly new to me. I never in my wildest dreams thought I would apply to law school. I have almost completed my paralegal certification and bla bla bla. Anyway thank you sooo much for your comment.

[packmomma]

Retake, get 172+, ED to UVA or Northwestern, kill 1L, be a URM, BOOM: Biglaw by 41.

NO COMPRENDE WEY

[mbusch22]

why is everyone calling me an op and a flame wtf is that???

flame= A fake profile, persona, or hypothetical situation designed to mislead, antagonize, or annoy.

op= original poster of this thread.

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... =2&t=18478

[JazzOne]

Retake, get 172+, ED to UVA or Northwestern, kill 1L, be a URM, BOOM: Biglaw by 41.

lol

BOOM!

[dreakol]

major lulz.

the last post by the op gives this flame away

[kapital98]

The thing that motivates me to want to go to law school is the education primarily. I do not want to be a lawyer but I want to go to law school. This is all fairly new to me. I never in my wildest dreams thought I would apply to law school. I have almost completed my paralegal certification and bla bla bla.

You mean this? Free money for Phoenix Online!

[packmomma]

So if I decide to wait until next year to apply how long do my letters of recomendation stay valid?

and by the way Im not a fake profile person or whatever geeze some of yall are like the law school forum mafia wtf

[esq]

NO COMPRENDE WEY

You espeka the espanol = urm boost into Cooley Law FTW!

[TheTallOne0602]

.

[kapital98]

Your LoR's stay valid forever after you file them with LSAC. However, the longer you're out of school the less useful they become. If you've got a professor saying your a good student from 10 years ago you may want to leave it out and get a new LoR. If, on the other hand, they say you're an AMAZING student you will probably want to keep it.

In your situation you're probably going to have most, if not all, of your LoR's come from employers. At the very least have your most recent employer write you an overflowing letter of recommendation. If you can't find that then get creative.

If a law school sees you don't have even one decent letter of recommendation that is a VERY BAD sign. Couple that with your abysmal LSAT and mediocre GPA and you will probably not even get into a Non-ABA approved school.

(sorry to be critical. I think If you want to be a lawyer more power to you. Being a lawyer is not all about money or prestige.)

[Adjudicator]

Do you live anywhere near LA by any chance? It sounds like the Peoples' College of Law is right up your alley.

The school was created for the purpose of allowing regular people to empower themselves to aid the community, and they have virtually no standards for admission.

It is also much cheaper than other schools, from what I recall. However, the downside is that the school is not ABA-accredited.

[3ThrowAway99]

http://www.judiciaryreport.com/images/u ... fire-6.jpg much?

[sreichel]

NO COMPRENDE WEY

You espeka the espanol = urm boost into Cooley Law FTW!

Hahaha

Ok assuming no flame, here's what's up: 3.0 is so so but you're well out of college i'm assuming (being 38) and that matters less the further out you are. It STILL MATTERS, just not like it would if you were 22. Work experience is going to matter more and more, and with that would be LORs from a manager/boss.

There's no point in stressing about your past LSAT, the question is how set are you on applying this cycle. If you just don't want to wait another year, I would say it's well worth it if you can make any kind of significant improvement on your LSAT. What were your practice test scores like? (if you took any). Do you really (be honest) think you can improve? You can write an addendum to help explain the dyslexia, it would help if you could get it diagnosed.

To be quite blunt, here's what you're looking at: GPA is alright for a low tier school, LSAT is not going to be your friend in any way at almost any school. My advice would be find a school where LSAT is not required, or retake to get a better score. If you have the time to set aside and devote to a rigorous study schedule it isn't too late to get in at a low tier school, but if you're not then you're looking at a bottom of the barrel school.

Why do you want to go to law school? I mean, just from the numbers, you're going to go into a lot of debt but don't want to be a lawyer, are you just trying to be a more competitive paralegal? I don't think it's worth it, unless you have some kind of awesome job opportunity waiting for you, or someone else is footing the bill. That's a decision you have to make though, this is just my opinion.

[packmomma]

Thank you for your advice! I just decided on law school over the summer and just didnt realize how much really goes into the process of applying to law school. I was trying to rush everything because of my age . I have not spoken to any advisors or counselers or anybody whatsoever about law school, I just went forth and took the test on a wing and a prayer like an idiot. I just happened to stumble on LSAC and figured out I needed to do the applying through them. Im just an old film school kidd : ) and thought anybody could get into law school.
I have decided to wait untill 2012 to apply to law school and spend the next year doing alot more research and lsat practice and prep. It would actually be better that way anyway because my son has only1 year left of high school, which means if I attend law school the fall of 2012 I can choose schools anywhere in the country. Otherwise I have to apply to schools in the Chicago land area only and og they got all the hardest schools to get in, lol

Anyway thanks again.
p.s. whats with all this this forum, do people actually hang out here all day waiting to tear new holes in the asses of us low lsat scorers. Its kind of interesting and amusing.

NO COMPRENDE WEY

You espeka the espanol = urm boost into Cooley Law FTW!

Hahaha

Ok assuming no flame, here's what's up: 3.0 is so so but you're well out of college i'm assuming (being 38) and that matters less the further out you are. It STILL MATTERS, just not like it would if you were 22. Work experience is going to matter more and more, and with that would be LORs from a manager/boss.

There's no point in stressing about your past LSAT, the question is how set are you on applying this cycle. If you just don't want to wait another year, I would say it's well worth it if you can make any kind of significant improvement on your LSAT. What were your practice test scores like? (if you took any). Do you really (be honest) think you can improve? You can write an addendum to help explain the dyslexia, it would help if you could get it diagnosed.

To be quite blunt, here's what you're looking at: GPA is alright for a low tier school, LSAT is not going to be your friend in any way at almost any school. My advice would be find a school where LSAT is not required, or retake to get a better score. If you have the time to set aside and devote to a rigorous study schedule it isn't too late to get in at a low tier school, but if you're not then you're looking at a bottom of the barrel school.

Why do you want to go to law school? I mean, just from the numbers, you're going to go into a lot of debt but don't want to be a lawyer, are you just trying to be a more competitive paralegal? I don't think it's worth it, unless you have some kind of awesome job opportunity waiting for you, or someone else is footing the bill. That's a decision you have to make though, this is just my opinion.

[packmomma]

I dont want money or prestige or even to be a lawyer, i was most interested in the education and possibilites and the experience and the people I would be surrounded by and a bunch of other shizzle that has nothing to do with money, prestige, or being an attorney. But why is it that people always want to say things like "its not like how it is on tv" and other warnings like that. It is so over done and almost cliche at this point to advise someone of what something is or is not like. Such people seem to think that they are experts in the "what things are really like" category and that those who they are giving this worthless advice to, would have never known "what things are really like" without said persons genius and wisdom.

hallelujah Im so glad I found out law and order aint the real thing before I spent $150K on a non-aba gutter trash law school in the hood.

golly gee thank u so much

Your LoR's stay valid forever after you file them with LSAC. However, the longer you're out of school the less useful they become. If you've got a professor saying your a good student from 10 years ago you may want to leave it out and get a new LoR. If, on the other hand, they say you're an AMAZING student you will probably want to keep it.

In your situation you're probably going to have most, if not all, of your LoR's come from employers. At the very least have your most recent employer write you an overflowing letter of recommendation. If you can't find that then get creative.

If a law school sees you don't have even one decent letter of recommendation that is a VERY BAD sign. Couple that with your abysmal LSAT and mediocre GPA and you will probably not even get into a Non-ABA approved school.

(sorry to be critical. I think If you want to be a lawyer more power to you. Being a lawyer is not all about money or prestige.)

[bmore]

"although tuition would be close to covered" "I attend law school the fall of 2012 I can choose schools anywhere in the country"

Can I have some of that $$$$$

[czelede]

Which happens to be the single highest correlating factor. Add GPA to that equation and the correlation increases even higher. Look, I'm awful at math, I can't calculate myself out of a wet paper bag. Does that mean I shouldn't become an engineer? Absolutely not, even if its my dream. Sometimes it really is time to face reality...

The 1L grade correlation is minuscule at 0.16, and in OP's case (38 years old) GPA's additional value is nil. That the LSAT is the highest measurable correlating factor does not say very much btw...it's like commending a person for being the tallest among midgets (no offense to midgets)

And really..if you're bad at math, you can be a damn good engineer - many many friends & close relations of mine would prove my point here.

As an engineer, I highly doubt your judgment that your friends and close relations are
a) bad at math or
b) a damn good engineer

That being said, OP (if you aren't a flame) I think applying in 2012 is the best move for you - good luck studying and retaking.

[romothesavior]

Folks, have a bit more sympathy. My son studied for the LSAT like mad. He took the powerscore virtual course. He studied all of the PowerScore bibles. He took 15 or more live LSAT tests and got a 144 and 146 respectively. It happens. Not everyone is going to test well regardless of the amount of studying that they do for the test.

Then he probably shouldn't go to law school. We're not being particularly unsympathetic...

If this is crushing someone's dreams after a ton of $ and time investment, then yes, such a view is not sympathetic.

If someone bombed the MCAT, are med schools being unsympathetic when they reject them? No one would say a premed student should get into med school and become a doctor if they miss half the questions on the test. It is unfortunate that unlike med school, the ABA allows students who get below the 50th %ile on the Law School Admissions Test to go to law school and blow 6 figures for a worthless degree, but that is why people on TLS should be vocal in shouting "Retake or don't go!"

Telling someone not to go to law school or to reassess their goals is not a judgment about them as a person. Its just a reflection of the reality of law school admissions and the job market.

[thegreatk]

OP--

Retake. But, don't let the haters get you down. If you were that stressed during the test, call it a flop in your own head and move on. I bet you'll do much better the second time. I had a near panic attack during my first attempt, and was cool as a cucumber round two. Went from the 60th percentile to the 92nd. You have even more room for improvement than I do. Especially considering you are on not real application deadline, so you can retake in June (five months of prep) and apply for 2012.

[well-hello-there]

This flame thread is getting so much attention that I just had to chime in.

It is not possible that OP scored a 139.

While yes, those people do exist, they do not in fact know how to use a computer keyboard, much less know how to log onto the internet or register for an online forum.

Nice try OP!

[well-hello-there]

Also,

It is so over done and almost cliche at this point to advise someone of what something is or is not like. Such people seem to think that they are experts in the "what things are really like" category and that those who they are giving this worthless advice to, would have never known "what things are really like" without said persons genius and wisdom.

no 139 scorer knows what the word cliche means nor are they able to look it up in a dictionary and find out what it means.
In addition, the second sentence quoted above is much too complex for someone with the mind of an 8 year old to be able to write. FLAME!