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Can I be accepted into Northwestern University or University of Notre Dame?

I know my GPA is very low. However I went through some tough time during college. I was diagnosed with 3 conditions and my brother passed away during college. It took my a few years to get treatment after college. Now I am working in the legal area and falling in love with law. I do believe that my excellent work experience and LSAT should weight more than my GPA of 14 years ago. What are your recommendations that will help me getting into the law schools? Thank you!

Cattuongle wrote: ↑

Tue Sep 22, 2020 5:56 pm

Can I be accepted into Northwestern University or University of Notre Dame?

I know my GPA is very low. However I went through some tough time during college. I was diagnosed with 3 conditions and my brother passed away during college. It took my a few years to get treatment after college. Now I am working in the legal area and falling in love with law. I do believe that my excellent work experience and LSAT should weight more than my GPA of 14 years ago. What are your recommendations that will help me getting into the law schools? Thank you!

Law schools admissions is mostly about your LSAT and GPA. Everything else is only a "soft" factor. It's unfortunate, but your work experience and the fact that your GPA is from 14+ years ago just doesn't move the needle much on your admission chances.

Your numbers make you an extreme splitter. Mylsn suggests that you have almost no chance at Northwestern and Notre Dame, but I would take that with a grain of salt. Its very irregular to have such an extreme difference between your LSAT and GPA, and there aren't a lot of comparable data points.

Given the difference between your GPA and LSAT, and your prior life circumstances, you are one of the rare candidates that could benefit from a short GPA addendum explaining the situation. It won't necessarily increase your admission chances, but it can't hurt. Overall, your chances of getting into any school in the T14 (including Northwestern) are still very slim (think <10%).

If you are flexible on where you go to school, consider blanketing schools ranked in the 15-30 range. Certain schools are more "forgiving" about a low GPA (e.g., WUSTL, GW and W&L), and you will probably have a few different options to pick from (and a few aid packages to consider and/or use to negotiate). The only caveat is that going to a lower-ranked school can make it hard to work in big-law, and chances are that you will wind up working in the same general area where your school is located.