HERE IS WHAT I HAVE SO FAR:
PLEASE ADD WHAT YOU THINK IS RELEVENT OR AT THE VERY LEAST, TELL ME WHAT I SHOULD ADD/EDIT.
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The reason why I am writing this is because a large number of you have either already decided you want to attend law school, have it as an option at the back of your head or will later on decide you want to attend law school upon graduating and realizing that you have no other options. I am writing this because there is a lot of pertinent information that can make a great deal of difference in your lives. The first is that this can help you decide if you actually want to attend law school. The second is if you are still in school, it can help put you in the best position to having a financially successful career as an attorney.
The crux of this message is this: in order for one to become a successful lawyer, they have to do two things. 1) attend a high ranked law school and 2) excel academically in their first year of law school.
Most people only learn this valuable information after too late which is why I am relaying this message to those who can still change their future regarding law school. I am going to explain why one should only seek to attend certain law schools and how they can gain admission to those schools.
Most likely, everything you know about law school is wrong. Law school is not a guaranteed path to becoming a wealthy member of upperclass; in fact, it is one of the easiest paths to getting yourself $200 000 dollars in debt with limited employment prospects. The legal market right now is very poor, and unless you have connections, are extremely lucky or follow this path, you will likely end up graduating with a significant amount of debt and a future career as something other than a lawyer.
Law schools are classified into three distinct categories; top 14, tier 1 and everything else. Barring certain circumstances, one should never matriculate into any school that isn't at least a tier 1 law school. Similarly, in most circumstances, one should also not attend any school outside of the top 14.
The top 14 law schools are classified as such as ever since the first set of law school rankings, these same schools have been ranked the top 14. With that said, the positions of these schools within the top 14 have varied over the time. These 14 schools are the ones that give their students the best chance at becoming a successful lawyer. With that said, admission into one of these schools is still no guarantee that one will become a successful lawyer. Furthermore, within these top 14 there are three distinct groups. There is the top 3 (Yale, Harvard, Stanford), the top 6 (+ Columbia, Chicago and NYU) and the rest (Berkeley, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Michigan, Duke, Northwestern, Georgetown and Cornell).
For the most part, law schools all use the same basic formula for their admissions process (49% undergraduate GPA, 49% LSAT, 2% everything else). You heard that correct, the only thing that matters when applying to law schools are your undergraduate grades and your LSAT score. The good thing about this is that due to the fact that you are still in school, you are in a position to pull your GPA to a sufficient level allowing you to attend a worthwhile law school. The LSAT will be spoken about later but it is important to state one thing; if one dedicates enough time to it, almost anyone can achieve almost any score.
Here were the admissions index for the top law schools in 2013:
Yale 3.91 / 173
Harvard ~3.89 / 173
Columbia 3.72 / 172
NYU 3.71 / 172
Chicago 3.78 / 171
Stanford 3.88 / 170
Penn 3.85 / 170
UVA 3.85 / 170
Duke 3.80 / 170
Northwestern 3.80 / 170
Georgetown 3.67 / 170
Michigan 3.73 / 169
Vandy 3.72 / 169
Toronto: 3.85 / 168
UCLA 3.77 / 168
Cornell 3.70 / 168
Berkeley 3.80 / 167
Illinois 3.80 / 167
GW 3.79 / 167
UT 3.71 / 167
Minnesota 3.71 / 167
WUSTL 3.70 / 167
USC 3.64 / 167
Notre Dame 3.57 / 167
BU 3.72 / 166
Fordham 3.62 / 166
BC 3.61 / 166
W&L 3.43 / 166
Alabama 3.78 / 165
W&M 3.70 / 165
Indiana 3.78 / 164
BYU 3.75 / 164
SMU 3.75 / 164
George Mason 3.72 / 164
Georgia 3.70 / 164
Cardozo: 3.62 / 164
Colorado 3.61 / 164
UC Hastings 3.60 / 164
Ohio State 3.66 / 163
Washington 3.65 / 163
Wisconsin 3.63 / 163
UC Davis 3.63 / 163
you can use this site to see what schools are likely to accept you:
http://www.lawschoolpredictor.com/wp-co ... atcher.htm
and you can use this site to see where others with similar numbers to yours were accepted/denied:
http://www.lawschoolnumbers.com/
For information on the LSAT, please see here:
(link will be posted after)
The point of this information is that one should look at what the required admissions standards are for the top schools are and put themselves in a position to achieve the grades to receive acceptance to said schools. Upon glancing at the numbers, there is still some auxiliary information that should be noted.
There is another tool that can allow students to enter certain law schools that would otherwise be above their range. This called called the early decision. Some schools allow students to apply with what is called a "early decision". The "early decision" is a binding agreement that if accepted, one will attend the school. Frequently, if one applies for with an early decision application, the requirements are a bit lower. Another important thing to note is what are called splitters. These are people who fit above/below the 25%/75% medians for LSAT/GPA's for certain schools. For example, if someone has a low GPA but an extremely high LSAT score (and vice versa), they would be considered a splitter; there are certain schools which are very friendly to splitters and should be seriously considered.
A great example an early decision splitter friendly school is the University of Virginia School of Law. As stated previously, one should have a GPA/LSAT score of around 3.85 / 170 to attend. However, if a student applies for early decision with a GPA at 3.00 or above and an LSAT of 170 and above, they will almost for certain be accepted.
(INSERT LIST OF SPLITTER SCHOOLS)
(INSERT LIST OF ED FRIENDLY SCHOOLS)
NEED TO ADD:
EMPLOYMENT NUMBERS WHICH EXPLAIN WHY STUDENTS SHOULD ONLY GO TO A T14
THE SCHOOLS OUTSIDE OF THE T14 THAT STUDENTS MIGHT BE WORTHWHILE TO ATTEND AND THE CIRCUMSTANCES THAT CALL FOR IT
THE REASONS WHY SOMEONE SHOULD GO TO A TIER 1, 2 OR TTT
Thanks.