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with a 170 you can ED to Virginia (in september) and have good chances. If you have work experience, you'd also look pretty good at Northwestern.

with a 171-173, you can ED to Penn and Michigan and have reasonable chances, though not as much of a lock as Virginia or Northwestern.

Anything higher and you could apply to any T14 save for YHS and have a slim shot.

edit: also, the weird thing for splitters is that although you'd have a shot at some T14's with a 170+, USC, UCLA, and Texas are still out of the question cause they're GPA whores. They really don't care even if you get a 180. Vanderbilt is the only school between 14 and 19 that you might have a shot at with a 170.

sanetruth wrote:with a 170 you can ED to Virginia (in september) and have good chances. If you have work experience, you'd also look pretty good at Northwestern.

with a 171-173, you can ED to Penn and Michigan and have reasonable chances, though not as much of a lock as Virginia or Northwestern.

Anything higher and you could apply to any T14 save for YHS and have a slim shot.

edit: also, the weird thing for splitters is that although you'd have a shot at some T14's with a 170+, USC, UCLA, and Texas are still out of the question cause they're GPA whores. They really don't care even if you get a 180. Vanderbilt is the only school between 14 and 19 that you might have a shot at with a 170.

I agree with the comment about Penn, Michigan, Virginia, and NU, but I'm not sure about every other school save YHS, if OP scores higher. I kind of got the impression that Columbia had a hard floor of 3.5 in the GPA department.

jrose5 wrote:

sanetruth wrote:with a 170 you can ED to Virginia (in september) and have good chances. If you have work experience, you'd also look pretty good at Northwestern.

with a 171-173, you can ED to Penn and Michigan and have reasonable chances, though not as much of a lock as Virginia or Northwestern.

Anything higher and you could apply to any T14 save for YHS and have a slim shot.

edit: also, the weird thing for splitters is that although you'd have a shot at some T14's with a 170+, USC, UCLA, and Texas are still out of the question cause they're GPA whores. They really don't care even if you get a 180. Vanderbilt is the only school between 14 and 19 that you might have a shot at with a 170.

I agree with the comment about Penn, Michigan, Virginia, and NU, but I'm not sure about every other school save YHS, if OP scores higher. I kind of got the impression that Columbia had a hard floor of 3.5 in the GPA department.

Ya, even with a 180 OP will not have much of a shot at CC. But, for t14, 170 is a possibility, higher makes it more likely with an ED to UVA or NW (with WE).

Patriot1208 wrote:

jrose5 wrote:

sanetruth wrote:with a 170 you can ED to Virginia (in september) and have good chances. If you have work experience, you'd also look pretty good at Northwestern.

with a 171-173, you can ED to Penn and Michigan and have reasonable chances, though not as much of a lock as Virginia or Northwestern.

Anything higher and you could apply to any T14 save for YHS and have a slim shot.

edit: also, the weird thing for splitters is that although you'd have a shot at some T14's with a 170+, USC, UCLA, and Texas are still out of the question cause they're GPA whores. They really don't care even if you get a 180. Vanderbilt is the only school between 14 and 19 that you might have a shot at with a 170.

I agree with the comment about Penn, Michigan, Virginia, and NU, but I'm not sure about every other school save YHS, if OP scores higher. I kind of got the impression that Columbia had a hard floor of 3.5 in the GPA department.

Ya, even with a 180 OP will not have much of a shot at CC. But, for t14, 170 is a possibility, higher makes it more likely with an ED to UVA or NW (with WE).

you're right, but i did say SLIM shot. I think that with a 180 (i mean we're stretching here, obviously) he would be considered at Columbia, whereas he still wouldn't at YHS.

And while Berkeley also has a pretty firm GPA floor, they do throw out some lines very occasionally to unexpected people (most likely to try and convince people they are, indeed, holistic in their admission process)

I think the main problem with a splitter of this sort is deciding between if its worth leaping for Penn or Michigan, which are by no means locks, over Virgina and Northwestern, which are. They definitely let some splitters in (Michigan accepted a non-URM 3.03/169 applicant this cycle), but you can only ED to one place and if you don't get (arbitrarily) selected at one of those, you're out of T10 and down to 19/20.

Columbia's floor is between 3.4 and 3.5, but 3.24 is simply too low, no chance.
Chicago is more feasible with a 174+ but still not likely, especially without an ED. Same goes with NYU.

A 170+ gives you a fighting chance at Cornell, GULC, UVA, Michigan, NW, and Penn though, with Duke and Berkeley as auto declines.

2014 wrote:Columbia's floor is between 3.4 and 3.5, but 3.24 is simply too low, no chance.
Chicago is more feasible with a 174+ but still not likely, especially without an ED. Same goes with NYU.

A 170+ gives you a fighting chance at Cornell, GULC, UVA, Michigan, NW, and Penn though, with Duke and Berkeley as auto declines.

Not always true.

But the rest is credited. 170 minimum for T14, and use your ED wisely depending on how far above the 170 you score/what your work experience is. I would not recommend shooting that ED to Chicago/NYU unless you pass 175 though.

Just to play devil's advocate, I know of at least one 170/3.4 who ED'd to Virginia in September and got waitlisted this cycle. Also, It's not like Michigan is more of a lock with a higher LSAT (say, ED to UVA with a 170, ED to Michigan/Penn with a 171-173.) Michigan is a lot more holistic, so if they like something else about your app and you got a 170 they might let you in ED, but if you're missing this "it factor" that they look for with a 171+, they might not let you in ED. it's more of a toss up for them, but yeah you really only have a shot at EDing one of these places in the fall, because if you ED to Michigan or Penn you'll have to wait until December to find out if you got in and UVA fills up its splitter ED's early on in the cycle so it wouldn't be so much of a lock if you ED'd UVA with these numbers in january or later.