Top Law Schools

I just finished my undergrad. My first 2 years were spent at a large, public university. I was heavily involved in a volunteer position with the community during those 2 years (20 hours/week), and only took 9-12 credits per semester there. I also coached JV basketball during my second year of undergrad. My grades weren't great after 2 years (2.77), but I was able to transfer to small liberal arts college. The transfer forced me to quit the volunteer position, and my grades took off with the free time and in the new environment. I spent 3 years there, finishing with a 3.4 GPA (excluding 2 C's in a pair of Math and Statistics courses my GPA there is up to 3.52). Additionally I spent a semester in DC interning for a Congressman (Major in Business, minor in PoliSci), and was the Editor-in-Chief of our student newspaper my senior year.
When you factor in all 5 years I spent as an undergrad, my GPA is only 3.14. I'm currently PT'ing at 163. I was wondering what advice I could get on if adcomm's will look past my first 2 years as unrepresentative of my ability, and see me in the 3.5 gpa range with a history of contributing to my environment, or just a 3.14/163 applicant. I'd really like to go Top 30 or 40, but am afraid my first 2 years closed all of those windows for me. Was hoping some of the posters on here could pass down some wisdom on the whole process.

Fucking search, Christ.

But to save you the trouble-

You're a 3.14 with no LSAT. When you have an actual LSAT, it will be a bit more relevant, but law schools don't report your softs, they report that 3.14.

...

to summarize the search you didn't do: not much.

.

lawschoolstudent85 wrote:

kalvano wrote:Fucking search, Christ.

But to save you the trouble-

You're a 3.14 with no LSAT. When you have an actual LSAT, it will be a bit more relevant, but law schools don't report your softs, they report that 3.14.

You do realize some people haven't been reading this forum for over a year, right? Give the guy a break, he's new here.

That's why they have a big blue link that says "Advanced Search".

See? Right here -












But, that aside, even if he has been looking at the forum for 32 seconds, there are at least 5 different threads about this. It's not some esoteric question that's never been asked before.

Enjoy your nice TTT.

iboughtyouaVCR wrote:Enjoy your nice TTT.

You're an idiot.

OP's lack of search ability aside, with a 3.1 and a 163-164, he'll make T1.

kalvano wrote:

iboughtyouaVCR wrote:Enjoy your nice TTT.

You're an idiot.

OP's lack of search ability aside, with a 3.1 and a 163-164, he'll make T1.

I'm not sure about this... I was 3.5 / 164 and only made upper T1 (schools in the high 30s, low 40s). I also had better softs, etc. I think the best he'll do with less than a 165 is low tier 2.

icydash wrote:

kalvano wrote:

iboughtyouaVCR wrote:Enjoy your nice TTT.

You're an idiot.

OP's lack of search ability aside, with a 3.1 and a 163-164, he'll make T1.

I'm not sure about this... I was 3.5 / 164 and only made upper T1 (schools in the high 30s, low 40s). I also had better softs, etc. I think the best he'll do with less than a 165 is low tier 2.

Top 30's and 40's is still T1. Regardless, suggesting that he is consigned to a TTT is ridiculous.

kalvano wrote: Top 30's and 40's is still T1. Regardless, suggesting that he is consigned to a TTT is ridiculous.

I know it is. I was saying since I had better scores than him, and I barely squeaked into the T1 (top 50), he'll most likely end up in T2. But yes he is not relegated to TTTs.

It doesn't matter, because your softs are middling. I mean ok, being EIC of your u-grad newspaper (assuming you're talking about the main campus paper, esp if daily) is better than middling. The other two you could leave off and you'd probably see no difference in your admits.

My experience in a nutshell - softs did not matter much in terms of admittance. That seemed to go pretty much by the numbers. Harsh as it may sound, I would expect your numbers to be your 3.14/163 cumulative scores. If you want to improve your chances of admittance, improve your LSAT score, since there's nothing you can do about your GPA at this point.

Softs mattered a lot in terms of getting into the public interest program where I went to school and when I started applying for summer internships. I am positive I would not have had any of the interviews I had if I did not have the experience and extra education that constituted my "softs" in the law school admittance process on my resume.

This forum is by its nature very focused on getting admitted to school, but your personal characteristics and qualifications have a lot of applicability down the road. And trust me, people interviewing you WILL ask about that volunteer gig you did in college (coaching basketball, in your case). They certainly asked me about it, and I graduated undergrad in 1998.

think of softs as pure tie breakers

if there are a group of applicants, with extremely similar numbers, all on the admit/waitlist, or waitlist/reject line, your softs will separate you from the statistical crowd

but don't expect softs to get you in over someone with better numbers

icydash wrote:

kalvano wrote: Top 30's and 40's is still T1. Regardless, suggesting that he is consigned to a TTT is ridiculous.

I know it is. I was saying since I had better scores than him, and I barely squeaked into the T1 (top 50), he'll most likely end up in T2. But yes he is not relegated to TTTs.

It all depends on where he applies. I feel as if I could have cracked the T30 with a 3.2 / 164, but I wasn't willing to go to some of the schools that might have accepted me. If you're more open, then I think it's possible.

kalvano wrote:

icydash wrote:

kalvano wrote: Top 30's and 40's is still T1. Regardless, suggesting that he is consigned to a TTT is ridiculous.

I know it is. I was saying since I had better scores than him, and I barely squeaked into the T1 (top 50), he'll most likely end up in T2. But yes he is not relegated to TTTs.

It all depends on where he applies. I feel as if I could have cracked the T30 with a 3.2 / 164, but I wasn't willing to go to some of the schools that might have accepted me. If you're more open, then I think it's possible.

True I guess...






... but who would really go to Iowa, Indiana or Wisconsin?

icydash wrote:

kalvano wrote:

icydash wrote:

kalvano wrote: Top 30's and 40's is still T1. Regardless, suggesting that he is consigned to a TTT is ridiculous.

I know it is. I was saying since I had better scores than him, and I barely squeaked into the T1 (top 50), he'll most likely end up in T2. But yes he is not relegated to TTTs.

It all depends on where he applies. I feel as if I could have cracked the T30 with a 3.2 / 164, but I wasn't willing to go to some of the schools that might have accepted me. If you're more open, then I think it's possible.

True I guess...






... but who would really go to Iowa, Indiana or Wisconsin?

Exactly.









I joke, but my wife looked at me like I had lost my mind when I said something about Iowa.