Top Law Schools

LSAC finally processed my last transcript, due to too many retakes, I am now officially a 2.71, which is pretty shocking because my overall ugpa is around 3.3 and I had over 140 credits, never thought retakes can do me that much damage.

I took the LSAT twice already, Dec 2015 and Oct 2016, I got 163 and 166, registered for Jun LSAT again but feeling pretty discouraged by my final LSAC GPA. Law school has been a dream since I was in high school, no excuse for making many horrible decisions during my first couple years during college, but I never thought of doing anything else besides becoming a lawyer.

I lived in U.S under a student visa for the past 9 years now, my mother will put in my green card application next year, but since I m over 21 the wait time is about 6-7 years after the application, that means I will probably need big law after college in order to get sponsorship for a work visa.

I have above average softs, but nothing too glamorous.

With my stats and the fact that I need big law,should I just forget about law school?

You can work for big corporations in JD advantage jobs. I'm not going to say it's likely or probable, but if you can get into a top regional you'll have a decent chance at big law/big 4/big corp. I'd say 50% or so if you take the right classes (tax for big 4) and work hard and network hard. It's risky but depends on your risk tolerance.

If you were not international I would say you would be fine getting into and attending a good regional school. But, since you are not a citizen and will need to be sponsored, anything out of the T14 or a strong regional with good Biglaw placement I think is to risky for you to commit to. Retake until you have an LSAT that makes you competitive at these schools or consider not going to law school.

Like the two other respondents have said you're going to have to work very hard and try and get a really strong LSAT score so you can be able to attend a strong regional school with good career prospects. You don't want to put yourself into debt and not have the possibility of securing employment in the states. Good luck to you. I hope everything works out. If you have the drive and motivation things should workout for you.

So my first year my major was computer engineering at UMD and I was put on academic probation. I failed my calculus and computer programming classes but did well in non-major classes. so I transferred back to my community college to find a new direction. I have straight A's following a path of criminal justice and accounting. My question is, how does a Law School look at your GPA when they are from different schools? Since I won't ever take computer programming classes again I can't salvage that grade. Is there any chance at law school with a first year GPA less then 2.0?

erikbonilla wrote:So my first year my major was computer engineering at UMD and I was put on academic probation. I failed my calculus and computer programming classes but did well in non-major classes. so I transferred back to my community college to find a new direction. I have straight A's following a path of criminal justice and accounting. My question is, how does a Law School look at your GPA when they are from different schools? Since I won't ever take computer programming classes again I can't salvage that grade. Is there any chance at law school with a first year GPA less then 2.0?

Law schools look at your cumulative LSAC-determined GPA, not your GPA by year. A really rough first year may stand out, but if your cumulative GPA is still 3.0+, you won't be dead in the water.

166 LSAT and 2.7 lsacGPA should get you into some T2 (some more regional schools like ASU too) schools as a split app, and probably scholarships too.

Roughly look at all the schools with median scores below 166 (giving you outside shot) and top 25% scores below 166 (indicating they could use your LSAT's help to prop up score, may even give you scholarships) and you should get a good idea of where have a chance with.