jbagelboy wrote:Unless admissions standards have radically loosened again this year, 3.2 from a regional program w/ 172 won't get you in the door at Chicago or Columbia either. NYU, Penn and UVA are possible, but at sticker, which you shouldn't do. Duke, Michigan and Cornell typically aren't splitter friendly, so really Georgetown and Northwestern are the lower T14s in play here.
UT is possible, also apply to WUSTL.
I'm not trying to give you a hard time -- seriously -- but since I'm sure many of your friends, family and casual advisers have spread these misconceptions, we need to do the dirty work of clearing them up. Might be hard to hear, but trust me.
cteammaterial wrote:
I went to a national, flagship university. It's a top 150 USNWR school. I'm just afraid that law school folks look down on it because it's an ag school in a small state.
No one cares about the us news survey rankings, and neither should you, and no one will "look down" on you -- however, schools like Harvard and Columbia give float to GPA for students coming from similar programs in undergrad, i.e., elite universities and highly selective small private colleges. If you search through LSN, the data reflects that sub-3.5 GPA's from selective colleges have an easier time sneaking in. You don't have this.
cteammaterial wrote:
Economics isn't English or Political Science either... I'll take my 3.2 in a business program that actually means something over someone that majored in something easy to get a high GPA.
Re: the bolded, it doesn't. Just accept this.
First, Economics is not a challenging major, and is never looked at as such. It's a classic pre-law choice and at my UG and many others, one of the easier routes to high grades. Second, even if you were a chemical engineering major, a 3.6 in English would beat your 3.2 every day, everywhere (not for job apps but for law school apps). Major matters incredibly little relative to overall GPA.
cteammaterial wrote:
Yes, a 3.2 is low... but a 172 is five points above most of the average admitted scores for those schools. Shouldn't those average themselves out?
There's no "averaging" - you're what we call a 'splitter' on TLS, someone with above 75%ile LSAT and below 25th%ile GPA. This means you stand a moderate to good chance at admission to "splitter-friendly" programs, like the one's I mentioned: Georgetown, Northwestern, UVA, Penn, maybe NYU. The primary way law schools approach admissions today is to look at the two key numbers, LSAT and GPA, and see if you would boost one median or the other. Since you would boost LSAT median and LSAT's are in far higher demand than GPA's, it opens you up for consideration. Then they look to see just how poorly you fall on the other marker, since many of these schools have a vague range of 'floor' below which they will not admit you.
If you look at students admitted to CC with sub-3.4 GPA's, they exist but are overwhelmingly hailing from prestigious colleges with 175+ LSAT's.
The greater lesson here is that in this economy, law school is not justifiable at full cost and you would be forced into sticker/$280K+ in federal loans to attend a school like Virginia or Penn. We highly discourage this, even though these are the best programs you could get into.
cteammaterial wrote:
Does my work experience mean nothing?
Your work experience does mean 'something', but a couple years in sales and energy real estate are not going to fly you above sub-par numbers. Being able to speak to these positions and what you learned will help you when applying for jobs at OCI and in other venues, but from an admissions standpoint, it's a mild soft at most that keeps you up to the standard level of applicants, but doesn't necessarily exceed. The kind of WE that really boosts an application outside of what the numbers would predict resembles starting a successful well known company or non-profit, playing in the olympics or another international sports league, certain IB and management consulting positions (which require stellar UG grades anyway), Fulbright, Watson, and Rhodes scholarships, ect.
