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jh

MiamiUG wrote:One of my friends from school sent me a long email today asking about law school. He said he wants to go and asked some questions about admissions and the LSAT. We are both going into senior year and he knew that I had already taken the LSAT and researched law schools admissions.
My problem is that I don't want to tell him he shouldn't apply, but I also don't want to give him bad advice. He has a low GPA and almost no motivation. Even if he got into a decent law school, which would be difficult with his low GPA and insistence that he doesn't need to study for the LSAT, he wouldn't put forth the effort to succeed there. I want to be supportive but I think that I would be doing him a serious injustice if I didn't tell him how bad of a decision law school would be for him. Any advice?

Be honest. This is the guy's future we're talking about, plus a non-trivial financial investment, given that if your information is accurate, he has a very poor shot at receiving significant financial assistance.

I don't know of what would be *better* than law school, but setting him up to fail when there is no reasonable expectation to succeed, at the potential cost of over $100k plus the opportunity cost of three years of his life, would not be the way to go.

Unless your support would turn him into a magical being with godlike test-taking powers, thus making all the difference. If your support is the crucial variable, or he does have that chance, by all means, support him. On the other hand, if he truly is a lost cause for law school, feeding his self-delusions wouldn't be the best thing for his career, and possibly friendship, depending on how he sees the role of close personal companionship

If he's your friend, he'll understand when you tell him he's being a dolt.