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Bit of a long story here, but I'll try to keep it as short as possible:

I graduated undergrad about 5 years ago and had a 3.8/167 when I went to apply right after UG. Ended up at a T20 school with about $70k of $$. Completed first semester with a 3.7 GPA (2 A, 1 A-, 1 B+, 1 B) and in the top 10% or so of my class. Went back for second semester but ended up withdrawing towards the end due to some tough circumstances I was in at the time with my health and a lack of real passion for being at law school. Not sure what it's worth but it wasn't technically a medical withdrawal, just a voluntary one. I had already lined up a summer internship for 1L with a federal COA feeder judge and had to back out of that - pretty rough.

After getting my shit together I worked at some small law firms (doing PI and contract stuff, super dull) for about a year and then began working at a big-name U in fundraising. I've been here a little over 2 years now and have definitely been moving up quickly and enjoy it. I'm not completely sure I'm done with law school yet, though, and before I go any farther with even thinking about going back, I wanted to get advice from you all:

Would my 1L grades from 1st semester be of any positive use in applying again if I decided to? I don't have any lasting relationships with profs from 1L that I could ask to write letters, but I'd like to think those are at least pretty good grades that any school I applied to would have to see? I imagine I'd have to write a pretty good PS explaining why the drop out and why I wanted to come back with specific long-term aspirations, but assuming I could do that, would I basically be in the same or slightly better of a position as I was the first time I applied coming out of UG?

Do you want to go back to the T20 school? If so, I would reach out to whoever your advisers were before, and/or the admissions committee, and let them know you want to reapply. From your record its pretty clear that you have what it takes to succeed, and you seem to have had a very valid reason for dropping out. In fact, I would go as far as to say that dropping out, if your health issues were really that significant, was the right move to make. I doubt you'll have any trouble going back to the T20.

But a more important question for you to reflect on - do you actually want to go back? You went through one semester, so you have an idea of what it's like. No one on here can help you answer that question, and regardless of what advice you get on here, you need to be very honest with yourself about whether you want to go back.

Thanks for the response, floatie.

Should've been clearer initially: I will not be going back to my original T20. There's a number of reasons why, but at bottom I just don't think it was a good fit in the first place. I'm not going so far as to say that's a reason why I dropped out, but I think that if I had to do it all over again I would have picked a different school when coming out of UG.

Given that, any thoughts I'm having of picking up law school again (which, you're right, is something I realize I need to weigh carefully) would be based on my chances of getting into other comparable/better schools. There's the question of how my current grades would transfer over to another school (if at all). Based on the super broad conversations I had with the advisors when I decided to take my withdrawal, I think it's likely that my grades wouldn't really matter for anything other than admissions - I'd have to 'start over' wherever I went (probably even if I went back to the same T20, based on what I was told). If anyone knows differently, feel free to chime in.

Bump, anyone else have any thoughts on this? Thanks!

I think you need to speak directly with a registrar's office somewhere about this, because it's a fairly unique situation. I'm not confident that your GPA wouldn't follow you. It would be wildly unfair to other 1Ls to let you retake classes with them, and my understanding is that in drop-out-come-back situations, any completed coursework remains completed on your record.

cavalier1138 wrote:I think you need to speak directly with a registrar's office somewhere about this, because it's a fairly unique situation. I'm not confident that your GPA wouldn't follow you. It would be wildly unfair to other 1Ls to let you retake classes with them, and my understanding is that in drop-out-come-back situations, any completed coursework remains completed on your record.

I think it's very situation-specific. Someone in my 1L class dropped out before the end of the year (but after 1st semester grades) and then redid 1L over again. Now, I don't know whether she failed out and started over or what, so it may be very different from the situation here. But if a school accepts someone as a new 1L and doesn't give them credit for the previous courses, which people here have reported having happen (admittedly not often), then you'd have to retake all the courses. I agree that some point you'd probably have to talk to the schools you're considering to see how they'd handle it.

I think this is a rare scenario, and that you're going to have to reapply and see what happens.

Thanks for the replies, everyone.

My thought is that I will probably give this decision some more time before moving ahead with anything. Having a few more years in my current position will help me decide if law school is something I'd like to do again, and also give me some more time to study for and retake the LSAT. I haven't looked at admissions stats in a lot of detail in a number of years, but from what I've seen lately, it looks like with a 3.77 GPA, my 1L grades and an even slightly higher LSAT (moving that 167 up to a 170, maybe) I'd be in the running for some good aid at schools around the T20/T14?

Either way, I suppose I'm in a big of a holding pattern on this for now, but thanks again for the feedback everyone. Good to know this door isn't closed and that I might end up being a slightly more competitive candidate this time around if I do end up reapplying.