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[deleted].

given the severe nature of your situation, i would write one. it's the people that write addenda when their 4.0 slips to a 3.95 because they had the flu one week who draw negative attention.

it would help the overcoming adversity angle

see MyLSN.info

I'm usually strictly opposed to addenda, but this is a definite write it scenario

You are in the small percentage of people who should probably write an addendum. It may not help you rise above the GPA (don't expect miracles), but at least it could allay some adcom's curiosity/fear about why your grades varied so wildly.

Question:
1) Should I write an addendum? Yes.
2) How would admissions committees in the T14 potentially view this information? If they are humans they'll take it into account.
3) Would an LSAT, hypothetically, over 170+ make me competitive? Where? 170+ will get you into some of the low t-14 you might get a bite of one t6

OP here.

Thanks for the fast replies so far.

rinkrat19 wrote:You are in the small percentage of people who should probably write an addendum. It may not help you rise above the GPA (don't expect miracles), but at least it could allay some adcom's curiosity/fear about why your grades varied so wildly.

I guess the nature of this question is highly dependent on the respective admission committees looking at my application. Would anyone here comment on the possibility of the addendum being enough for an admission's committee to partially ignore the 2 failed years?

mvp99 wrote:170+ will get you into some of the low t-14 you might get a bite of one t6

Would a 174+ LSAT with this addendum make me competitive for T6? Or what LSAT score would make me as competitive as the other candidates?

Am I eliminated from Merit Scholarships if I scored exceptionally high on the LSAT?

PoCaha wrote:OP here.

Thanks for the fast replies so far.

rinkrat19 wrote:You are in the small percentage of people who should probably write an addendum. It may not help you rise above the GPA (don't expect miracles), but at least it could allay some adcom's curiosity/fear about why your grades varied so wildly.

I guess the nature of this question is highly dependent on the respective admission committees looking at my application. Would anyone here comment on the possibility of the addendum being enough for an admission's committee to partially ignore the 2 failed years?

mvp99 wrote:170+ will get you into some of the low t-14 you might get a bite of one t6

Would a 174+ LSAT with this addendum make me competitive for T6? Or what LSAT score would make me as competitive as the other candidates?

Am I eliminated from Merit Scholarships if I scored exceptionally high on the LSAT?

you're getting into some deep adcom psycho speculation right now... we don't know.

what is competitive for t6 vs competitive as other candidates? yea 174 would make you likely to get into at least one t6.
no, why would you think that you would be dq'd from scholarships... that's the whole point of merit.

starry eyed wrote:you're getting into some deep adcom psycho speculation right now... we don't know.

what is competitive for t6 vs competitive as other candidates? yea 174 would make you likely to get into at least one t6.
no, why would you think that you would be dq'd from scholarships... that's the whole point of merit.

It was to my knowledge that some merit scholarships focused on a combination of GPA + LSAT (Columbia's Hamilton Scholarship being 3.8+ GPA and 174+ LSAT). Does anyone here know of any T14 school that awards merit scholarships (maybe even full-rides) based on LSAT scores?

PoCaha wrote:

starry eyed wrote:you're getting into some deep adcom psycho speculation right now... we don't know.

what is competitive for t6 vs competitive as other candidates? yea 174 would make you likely to get into at least one t6.
no, why would you think that you would be dq'd from scholarships... that's the whole point of merit.

It was to my knowledge that some merit scholarships focused on a combination of GPA + LSAT (Columbia's Hamilton Scholarship being 3.8+ GPA and 174+ LSAT). Does anyone here know of any T14 school that awards merit scholarships (maybe even full-rides) based on LSAT scores?

It's not an either/or thing or a formula that's precisely predictable. People who help a school out with boosting both the GPA and LSAT medians are going to get more merit money than people who only help out with boosting one median. High LSATs are, technically, more rare than high GPAs, so maybe a splitter (low GPA/high LSAT) gets more money than a reverse splitter (high GPA/low LSAT).
Merit money is an unpredictable thing. I know people with pretty crappy GPAs who got a little bit of merit money at NU because of high LSAT scores. But it's not a guarantee by any means. Plenty more people who didn't.