Top Law Schools

Somewhat unusual applicant. I am applying while currently enrolled in a top PhD program in the hard theoretical sciences. I intend to get admitted to law schools and then leave without finishing my PhD (A complicated personal story, but effectively I had a change of heart and I have become passionate about pursuing something which is less divorced from humanity; law was a childhood dream). (Subquestion: How do you think such an application will be viewed?)

I am targeting YHS. My undergrad GPA is solidly above 3.9. I have just scored a 340 on a GRE practice test and I feel confident that I could obtain this score (or very close). I have been told that the LSAT is weighted more heavily than the GRE, especially at the highest score ends, for various commonly cited reasons (one of which seems to be that the LSAT is harder, which I certainly cannot disagree with). Should I just take the "easy way out" and ace the GRE and submit my application? Would such an approach leave me competitive for YHS?

My concern is that taking the LSAT will not--in expectation--produce a monotonically positive impact on my application. In particular, it carries some risk since even a decent but suboptimal score (something like 174, which is already below Y's median) cannot be "taken back" (due to the nature of the LSAC application system) and will thus be attached to my application no matter what, at which point my GRE is bound to be ignored. On the other hand, leaving the LSAT as a "known unknown" might lead the adcoms to use a perfect GRE to form a more uniformly positive impression of me. Furthermore, I have no LSAT experience and I would almost certainly need to study a significant amount in the next few months in order to do well (177+), even assuming that I can, which admittedly doesn't exactly sound thrilling.

Any comments?

Apply one cycle with your perfect GRE and, if that doesn't pan out, then apply again the next year with the best LSAT score you can muster.

I tend to agree, give the GRE a shot and see what happens. Unfortunately I think we still don’t have enough data about outcomes for GRE-only applicants to generalize broadly, especially since GRE-only applicants tend to have different backgrounds from your average LSAT taker.

Also, while I do think the LSAT is harder than the GRE, you could also take one of the free LSAT practice tests to get a sense for how much you’d need to study to excel on it before you decide.

As for leaving your current grad program, you will just need to be able to construct a compelling narrative throughout of all your application materials that explains why you want to leave your PhD program before finishing. The concerns you will need to adress are that you can’t hack finishing the program so law is a backup, or that you don’t really have any idea what you want to do with your life. (These things matter much less than your stats, but can nonetheless be a factor, especially at Yale, where - unless things have changed since I looked at this - faculty also review applications and can have very weird opinions about appropriate backgrounds.) I’m sure you realize this, but you want to focus on why law specifically is the right path for you, not why the PhD is the wrong path.

Don’t get me wrong, I think overall having a hard sciences background and acceptance to a top PhD program tend to help an application. I think they can raise some questions about why law, but if you can answer that convincingly you’re fine.

If we want to start worrying about very marginal things, I think taking the LSAT rather than relying on the GRE *could* help a little in showing a dedication to law, and not just a desire to get out of your PhD program. On the flip side, though, there’s some speculation that accepting the GRE is intended exactly to allow admission of non-traditional students who have already demonstrated other academic achievements. So probably a wash, although it sounds like you’d have to take the GRE now rather than rely on a score you already have, which may raise the question, if you have to take a test regardless, why not take the LSAT? But again, this is *super* marginal and picky and not worth weighting heavily.

(Not what you asked about, but FWIW, I think limiting yourself to HYS is overly restrictive, primarily financially - you cannot get a full ride at HYS, whereas you could be competitive for a full ride at CCN, and the delta between employment outcomes from the former as opposed to the latter is vanishingly small for the vast majority of jobs. Obviously that’s subjective so take/leave it as you please, but I think sometimes people coming out of academia view law school through more of an academic lens than really fits.)