Top Law Schools

My problem is that I've always done very well in school (always at or near the top of my class), but I'm terrible at standardized tests. I've had my sights set on Michigan, Northwestern or Notre Dame, but barring a miracle of biblical proportions on the LSAT today, this won't be happening. I'm wondering what specifically the top 20ish or so schools would look at when assessing potential transfer students. If I go to a lower ranked school such as Michigan State and am in the top 5-10% of my class after my first year, will schools disregard lower LSAT scores (150-160) in favor of your high class rank? I'm very confident that I could make the top 5% or so and am just wondering if it's worth my efforts. The only thing holding me back is my LSAT and see transferring as a potential solution to my problem. Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Bro, if you're not good at standardized tests, you're not going to do good on law school exams. They're basically standardized tests.

For example, my friend went to Fordham (he had low LSAT). He was at the top of his classes his first year and transfered to NYU.

You can definitely go that route

cp16 wrote: I'm very confident that I could make the top 5% or so

So is everyone else going to a given school. And whatever excuse you just thought up in your mind for why they would think that and be wrong while you can think that and be right? Yeah, they all thought up that excuse too. Don't go into a school banking on doing well and transferring.

I'm pretty confident in my abilities and know where my limitations lie. Out of high school I wanted to go to Michigan but got a 19 on my ACT. Obviously not good enough. I went to a community college for a year and got a 4.0 there and was accepted to Michigan as a transfer student. Ended up getting into the Ross School of Business graduating with honors. Regardless, if you could answer my question I would appreciate it. Hypothetically, if one were to apply to Michigan, Northwester, Notre Dame from a T3 and they were in the top 5% of their class, would they have a chance? Do admissions for transfer students tend to place less focus on the LSAT and more on your actual law school grades? Obviously I would re-evaluate before applying for transfer and if I didn't think I had a realistic chance, I wouldn't waste my time.

edit: and thanks for the info sojuteacher, just wondering if it's possible.

Bildungsroman wrote:

cp16 wrote: I'm very confident that I could make the top 5% or so

So is everyone else going to a given school. And whatever excuse you just thought up in your mind for why they would think that and be wrong while you can think that and be right? Yeah, they all thought up that excuse too. Don't go into a school banking on doing well and transferring.

If everyone going to a given school who is doing so for the purposes of transferring to a higher ranked school is making up these excuses and justifying why they will be accepted over others, then some of these students will be accepted because higher ranked schools do accept a certain number of transfers every year. I'm sure the competition is fierce but so is the competition to get into these schools out of college.

cp16 wrote:I'm pretty confident in my abilities and know where my limitations lie. Out of high school I wanted to go to Michigan but got a 19 on my ACT. Obviously not good enough. I went to a community college for a year and got a 4.0 there and was accepted to Michigan as a transfer student. Ended up getting into the Ross School of Business graduating with honors. Regardless, if you could answer my question I would appreciate it. Hypothetically, if one were to apply to Michigan, Northwester, Notre Dame from a T3 and they were in the top 5% of their class, would they have a chance? Do admissions for transfer students tend to place less focus on the LSAT and more on your actual law school grades? Obviously I would re-evaluate before applying for transfer and if I didn't think I had a realistic chance, I wouldn't waste my time.

edit: and thanks for the info sojuteacher, just wondering if it's possible.

they don't care about lsat. most top schools (e.g. columbia) will disregard it entirely and consider only your 1L performance, professors' recs, and app. true story from the mouths of admissions folks.

glewz wrote:

cp16 wrote:I'm pretty confident in my abilities and know where my limitations lie. Out of high school I wanted to go to Michigan but got a 19 on my ACT. Obviously not good enough. I went to a community college for a year and got a 4.0 there and was accepted to Michigan as a transfer student. Ended up getting into the Ross School of Business graduating with honors. Regardless, if you could answer my question I would appreciate it. Hypothetically, if one were to apply to Michigan, Northwester, Notre Dame from a T3 and they were in the top 5% of their class, would they have a chance? Do admissions for transfer students tend to place less focus on the LSAT and more on your actual law school grades? Obviously I would re-evaluate before applying for transfer and if I didn't think I had a realistic chance, I wouldn't waste my time.

edit: and thanks for the info sojuteacher, just wondering if it's possible.

they don't care about lsat. most top schools (e.g. columbia) will disregard it entirely and consider only your 1L performance, professors' recs, and app. true story from the mouths of admissions folks.

Thanks, I appreciate the objective response. This is the information I was looking for.

cp16 wrote:

glewz wrote:

cp16 wrote:I'm pretty confident in my abilities and know where my limitations lie. Out of high school I wanted to go to Michigan but got a 19 on my ACT. Obviously not good enough. I went to a community college for a year and got a 4.0 there and was accepted to Michigan as a transfer student. Ended up getting into the Ross School of Business graduating with honors. Regardless, if you could answer my question I would appreciate it. Hypothetically, if one were to apply to Michigan, Northwester, Notre Dame from a T3 and they were in the top 5% of their class, would they have a chance? Do admissions for transfer students tend to place less focus on the LSAT and more on your actual law school grades? Obviously I would re-evaluate before applying for transfer and if I didn't think I had a realistic chance, I wouldn't waste my time.

edit: and thanks for the info sojuteacher, just wondering if it's possible.

they don't care about lsat. most top schools (e.g. columbia) will disregard it entirely and consider only your 1L performance, professors' recs, and app. true story from the mouths of admissions folks.

Thanks, I appreciate the objective response. This is the information I was looking for.

np best luck. And if you have a specific school in mind, Definitely call about the issue. Everyone I've spoken with was fairly open about admissions policies.

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Tough Crowd

Columbia Law wrote:Bro, if you're not good at standardized tests, you're not going to do good on law school exams. They're basically standardized tests.

No they're not. Do you even attend law school?

cp16 wrote:My problem is that I've always done very well in school (always at or near the top of my class), but I'm terrible at standardized tests. I've had my sights set on Michigan, Northwestern or Notre Dame, but barring a miracle of biblical proportions on the LSAT today, this won't be happening. I'm wondering what specifically the top 20ish or so schools would look at when assessing potential transfer students. If I go to a lower ranked school such as Michigan State and am in the top 5-10% of my class after my first year, will schools disregard lower LSAT scores (150-160) in favor of your high class rank? I'm very confident that I could make the top 5% or so and am just wondering if it's worth my efforts. The only thing holding me back is my LSAT and see transferring as a potential solution to my problem. Any advice is greatly appreciated.

I was a transfer last year. Nobody (including HLS) cares about your UG GPA or LSAT after you have a year of law school grades. The only real consideration is grades (there’s softs and other factors too, but 95% of the transfer decision is going to be based on grades). The rationale is that UG GPA and LSAT are predictors of law school grades, and it makes no sense to look at those when you have real law school grades to look at.

cp16 wrote:I'm pretty confident in my abilities and know where my limitations lie. Out of high school I wanted to go to Michigan but got a 19 on my ACT. Obviously not good enough. I went to a community college for a year and got a 4.0 there and was accepted to Michigan as a transfer student. Ended up getting into the Ross School of Business graduating with honors. Regardless, if you could answer my question I would appreciate it. Hypothetically, if one were to apply to Michigan, Northwester, Notre Dame from a T3 and they were in the top 5% of their class, would they have a chance? Do admissions for transfer students tend to place less focus on the LSAT and more on your actual law school grades? Obviously I would re-evaluate before applying for transfer and if I didn't think I had a realistic chance, I wouldn't waste my time..

LOL. I heard a monkey got a 19 on the ACT.

FWIW, I got a 19 on it too. I didn’t even recognize the ACT was very important for college admissions for a long time after I took it during the mandatory ACT test day (but I smoked a lot of pot back in high school, didn’t take anything very serious back then, and dropped out halfway through my senior year and somehow still graduated with straight Fs on my transcript for 2 quarters).

I do want to add to my comment above that you really should not plan on transferring up from a t3 law school to a t14 (or any real upgrade for that matter). I transferred from community college to a real college as well in UG. Law school is very different. Grades are on a forced curve and incredibly subjective in law school. Basically, you have one 3-4 hour exam per class at the end of each semester and your entire grade in that class depends on that exam. As you can probably infer, there’s a lot that could go wrong. If your laptop exam software crashes in the middle of one of your exams, that could be the thing that can drop your grade in that class from an A to a C+ (there are really harsh medians at low ranked schools) because in some exams you will need to crank out 50-60 WPM in order to get an A (e.g. torts). That one low grade can be difference between being able to transfer and not being able to transfer.

Also, the grade you get on the exam, to a large extent, depends on whether you catered to what the prof is subjectively looking for (as oppose to merely your substantive knowledge of the material). Point is, I think at a lower ranked school if you work hard you will get into the top 25% or so, maybe even the top 15%. But beyond that it is all about luck. Profs are really splitting hairs on some exams as to what constitutes an A versus what constitutes an A- (but they are forced to do so because of the mandatory grading curve). Straight A-s might put you at top 10-15%, and that’s simply not good enough to transfer from t3-->t14. When I transferred, you needed to be well within the top 5% to make it from t3-->t14. From everything I’ve heard, the competition for transferring has gotten much stiffer since then (probably because of the bad economy).

In sum, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to transfer out after your 1st year of law school. But at the bare minimum, attend a law school you would be happy graduating from. The reason is because you might be forced to have to stay at that law school if don’t make grades to transfer out. Also, heavily consider debt. If you are going to attend a t3 law school your first year, make sure you get a full tuition scholarship (because the odds of not ever actually getting to be a lawyer is pretty good with how bad the economy is right now – e.g. there are even NYU grads video blogging on youtube about how they can’t find any paying legal job). HLS grads posting on JDU about how they can’t find jobs isn’t unheard of either. So think about it, if a HLS grad (the 2nd best law school in the country) can’t find any paying legal jobs, what are your odds of getting something decent out of a t3?

I was a transfer from a T2 to a T10 this last fall. Here is what I saw the trend as being:

T2 --> T14 = Top 5-8%
T2 --> T10 = Top 3-5%, or probably better.
T2 --> T6 = Top 3% for a decent shot
T2 --> HYS = #1, and even then still nearly impossible (I don't think I've heard of this happening).

I was top 3% at a T2. I had great letters of recommendation. I applied to every school within the T14, and I was accepted to only 2!!!! Fortunately I got into my top choice and I love it there.


T3/T3 -->T14 = Top 5% will PROBABLY NOT CUT IT (maybe for GULC...). You most likely need a Top 1-3%
T3/T4 -->T10 = At the very top 1-3 people. One person on this board landed in there and transferred from T4-->Berkeley.


And here is an example of what can go wrong. One of my friends at my T2 aced her first semester and was on the edge of the Top 5%. During the second semester we had a professor who tested completely different than any other professor (multiple questions, strict word limit). Like most of us, she was thrown off on the timing, and she ended up not finishing the last few questions, giving her a C+ in the class. That one little mistake kicked her into barely the top 20%--she fell that far from a stupid professor's decision to give an odd ball test.


Anyways, if you go in willing to put in 16 hour days and have the natural ability to perform well on tests, I think that you will have a shot. But that shot is not a guarantee. And there are a LOT of things that can go wrong. Going in the back door is MUCH MORE DIFFICULT than performing well on the LSAT. But hey, if that's your only option, attack next year with NO REGRETS. That was my philosophy...

"I'm pretty confident in my abilities and know where my limitations lie. Out of high school I wanted to go to Michigan but got a 19 on my ACT. Obviously not good enough. I went to a community college for a year and got a 4.0 there and was accepted to Michigan as a transfer student. Ended up getting into the Ross School of Business graduating with honors. Regardless, if you could answer my question I would appreciate it. Hypothetically, if one were to apply to Michigan, Northwester, Notre Dame from a T3 and they were in the top 5% of their class, would they have a chance? Do admissions for transfer students tend to place less focus on the LSAT and more on your actual law school grades? Obviously I would re-evaluate before applying for transfer and if I didn't think I had a realistic chance, I wouldn't waste my time."


First of all, props for not only transferring to UMich but also to Ross. That is not easy. But everyone graduates Ross with honors, it's like a min MBA so don't think that equates to law school success. CC success wouldnt either.

there is a lot more memorization necessary for LS exams than people make it seem. id say the most straight up logic dependent classes are crim law and civ pro. Also, logic and memorization are important but so is being able to plow 8,000 words in 4 hrs like you are the morse code operator on the Lusitania. For this reason, polisci/english/history majors have an advantage because they have been dumping piles of poop on paper for years and are usually rather adept at it. Im also a .5 L so I don't know what I don't know.

Simple advice- if you get into a school, be comfy graduating from there before you go. Planning to transfer is fine but you must go into it knowing that the odds are not in your favor and you should be kewl with graduating from there. Like, 95% kewl with it.

Like the previous posters stated, law school grades can be surprising for many. And jumping from a T3 to a T1 or a T14 is incredibly hard. Is it possible? Sure, you could jump from a T4 to a T14. But you better be in the top 1% of your class or maybe top 5% at the least. And even then a transfer is no guarantee.

Do not attend a school planning to transfer out. Attend a school only if you would be happy to graduate from the school because chances are you will not be able to transfer out. Most students even in T3 law schools have great GPAs. They are smart students and the competition for the top few percentile of the class will be fierce. Your best bet is to improve your LSAT score through practice and reapply in a future year.

Note that going to a T3 school is not the end of the world. If you will be happy graduating from the school feel free to matriculate at a T3.

cp16 wrote:My problem is that I've always done very well in school (always at or near the top of my class), but I'm terrible at standardized tests. I've had my sights set on Michigan, Northwestern or Notre Dame, but barring a miracle of biblical proportions on the LSAT today, this won't be happening. I'm wondering what specifically the top 20ish or so schools would look at when assessing potential transfer students. If I go to a lower ranked school such as Michigan State and am in the top 5-10% of my class after my first year, will schools disregard lower LSAT scores (150-160) in favor of your high class rank? I'm very confident that I could make the top 5% or so and am just wondering if it's worth my efforts. The only thing holding me back is my LSAT and see transferring as a potential solution to my problem. Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Friend got into WUSTL/ND with top 15%/20% from MSU. Rejected from GW.
Id say top 25% to be competitive.
Michshitgan might be out of reach unless you get top 5%+ and instate. Anything higher than WUSTL (ie) vandy,ucla,usc/tejas will need top 5%+ to be competitive. Or other special factors.

This year's transfer situation was a lot more difficult than last year. Hopefully it will be better for your year. Good Luck.

cp16 wrote: I'm wondering what specifically the top 20ish or so schools would look at when assessing potential transfer students. If I go to a lower ranked school such as Michigan State and am in the top 5-10% of my class after my first year, will schools disregard lower LSAT scores (150-160) in favor of your high class rank? I'm very confident that I could make the top 5% or so and am just wondering if it's worth my efforts. The only thing holding me back is my LSAT and see transferring as a potential solution to my problem. Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Me and another person on this board transferred from a T3 (Toledo, more specifically) to Michigan this year. The previous yeaer, 2 people from Toledo also transferred to Michigan -- as well as Virginia and a few other schools. I know others here (at least 1, maybe more) that have transferred from MSU to UM.

I can't say what part LSAT played because I had a really good LSAT score. I'm not sure about the other guy's LSAT.

I think it's more about 1L grades (we both had >3.9 1L GPA) and, especially with Michigan, writing a persuasive letter about why you want to transfer to that specific school. Also, I think professor recommendations are very important. Softs probably help (I think my participation in public interest work was beneficial since Michigan seems more interested in PI than some schools).

Journeybound wrote:I was a transfer from a T2 to a T10 this last fall. Here is what I saw the trend as being:

T2 --> T14 = Top 5-8%
T2 --> T10 = Top 3-5%, or probably better.
T2 --> T6 = Top 3% for a decent shot
T2 --> HYS = #1, and even then still nearly impossible (I don't think I've heard of this happening).

I was top 3% at a T2. I had great letters of recommendation. I applied to every school within the T14, and I was accepted to only 2!!!! Fortunately I got into my top choice and I love it there.


T3/T3 -->T14 = Top 5% will PROBABLY NOT CUT IT (maybe for GULC...). You most likely need a Top 1-3%
T3/T4 -->T10 = At the very top 1-3 people. One person on this board landed in there and transferred from T4-->Berkeley.


And here is an example of what can go wrong. One of my friends at my T2 aced her first semester and was on the edge of the Top 5%. During the second semester we had a professor who tested completely different than any other professor (multiple questions, strict word limit). Like most of us, she was thrown off on the timing, and she ended up not finishing the last few questions, giving her a C+ in the class. That one little mistake kicked her into barely the top 20%--she fell that far from a stupid professor's decision to give an odd ball test.


Anyways, if you go in willing to put in 16 hour days and have the natural ability to perform well on tests, I think that you will have a shot. But that shot is not a guarantee. And there are a LOT of things that can go wrong. Going in the back door is MUCH MORE DIFFICULT than performing well on the LSAT. But hey, if that's your only option, attack next year with NO REGRETS. That was my philosophy...

TITCR. Rest assured, this professor is at every law school in the country. The one at my 1L school gave me a below median grade as well. And only because I aced every other class did it not hurt me, but MAN I got lucky.

God this thread is lulzy. So, so lulzy. Between the person who is "confident" in his ability to get top 5%, the guy likening law school exams to standardized exams... just, so much fail. So, so much fail.

ToTransferOrNot wrote:God this thread is lulzy. So, so lulzy. Between the person who is "confident" in his ability to get top 5%, the guy likening law school exams to standardized exams... just, so much fail. So, so much fail.

Do you have any meaningful thing to say? Your posts are absolutely baseless, meaningless, and far from helpful for anyone. If you don't have something useful to say (as we know that is always the case), save thread time, post time and the like by NOT posting.

Now go ahead and start throwing insults and other meaningless spew. I can tell you vent on these boards to escape the sad realities you may face.

LSHopeful2 wrote:

ToTransferOrNot wrote:God this thread is lulzy. So, so lulzy. Between the person who is "confident" in his ability to get top 5%, the guy likening law school exams to standardized exams... just, so much fail. So, so much fail.

Do you have any meaningful thing to say? Your posts are absolutely baseless, meaningless, and far from helpful for anyone. If you don't have something useful to say (as we know that is always the case), save thread time, post time and the like by NOT posting.

Now go ahead and start throwing insults and other meaningless spew. I can tell you vent on these boards to escape the sad realities you may face.

Ah yes, I face truly sad realities. I /wrists every day, but I fail even at that (going down the river just hurts too much!!!) I will be jobless, homeless, woman-less, using an automated wheelchair because of my massive girth. I have no friends, am never trusted with any positions of responsibility, and have failed miserably in law school. The only respite I get is coming on to TLS and making fun of people making absolutely lulzy statements.

But man, it's such a good respite.

Also, I'm not sure that you know what the word "baseless" means.

ToTransferOrNot wrote:Ah yes, I face truly sad realities. I /wrists every day, but I fail even at that (going down the river just hurts too much!!!) I will be jobless, homeless, woman-less, using an automated wheelchair because of my massive girth. I have no friends, am never trusted with any positions of responsibility, and have failed miserably in law school. The only respite I get is coming on to TLS and making fun of people making absolutely lulzy statements.

But man, it's such a good respite.

Also, I'm not sure that you know what the word "baseless" means.

To be fair, you just proved his point.

BrownBears09 wrote:

ToTransferOrNot wrote:Ah yes, I face truly sad realities. I /wrists every day, but I fail even at that (going down the river just hurts too much!!!) I will be jobless, homeless, woman-less, using an automated wheelchair because of my massive girth. I have no friends, am never trusted with any positions of responsibility, and have failed miserably in law school. The only respite I get is coming on to TLS and making fun of people making absolutely lulzy statements.

But man, it's such a good respite.

Also, I'm not sure that you know what the word "baseless" means.

To be fair, you just proved his point.

Oh, I don't argue the point that most of my posts are pretty caustic. At least when they involve statements about "I'm totes gonna be top 5%" and "law school exams are like standardized tests man." There is a freaking sticky post in this forum that basically says "hey, 0Ls, this isn't the forum to ask about your transfer chances before you've started law school."

If you have no experience with law school exams, and you've never attempted to transfer, you need to lay off TToN. He helped to inspire most of last year's transfers by sharing his own experiences, and filling us in on the realities of what it takes to transfer. That is what we are trying to do here. Anyways, ToTransferorNot was a successful transfer, he is top of his class at Chicago, and it appears that he has a Court of Appeals clerkship lined up, along with a BigLaw gig.

If you are a 1L, and you are planning on transferring, wait a few weeks until your grades come back. Then we can talk. You might have what it takes. If you are a 0L, and are thinking about someday transferring out of your T3 that you have been accepted at, don't count on it. The odds are against you. And if you do kill it after your first semester, then you MIGHT have a shot.

Anyways, don't come into the transfer forum asking for advice, and then insulting those who are trying to give it. We are just trying to fill you in on the realities of what it takes. Toughen up.