Should I withdraw and reapply? Forum

[Blanket]

1L, school ranked top 75, just bombed first semester. Failed legal writing. D in another subject. Should I withdraw and reapply?

Can post a backstory if interested.

[patienunderstanding]

1L, school ranked top 75, just bombed first semester. Failed legal writing. D in another subject. Should I withdraw and reapply?

Can post a backstory if interested.

I'm interested.

[truevines]

When you re-apply, you will have to disclose all the courses you've taken and the grades thereof in a law school. It's part of the history that you can't erase, unfortunately.

[samcro_op]

Yeah I mean was there a legit reason you bombed? If these are the grades you got by trying or just dealing with some stress than law school isn't for you.

[Lilly76]

I'm interested as well.

[unodostres]

Those grades will be reflected at your new law school. You are fucked.

[LexLeon]

Those grades will be reflected at your new law school. You are fucked.

How might grades be "reflected at [a] new law school?"

[unodostres]

Those grades will be reflected at your new law school. You are fucked.

How might grades be "reflected at [a] new law school?"

You will have to report those grades once you go to a new school. It's not like you can redo your 1L fall semester over and over.

edit: looks like truevines already mentioned it.

[LexLeon]

Those grades will be reflected at your new law school. You are fucked.

How might grades be "reflected at [a] new law school?"

You will have to report those grades once you go to a new school. It's not like you can redo your 1L fall semester over and over.

edit: looks like truevines already mentioned it.

I agree that one would (probably) need to disclose the grades when reapplying.

I was wondering in what sense the grades would be "reflected at [the] new law school." It's not like one's transcript at the new school will include a listing of grades from the previous school.

[NotMyRealName09]

Alright forgive my ignorance, but is this a thing? Can you actually just fail your ass off somewhere, drop out, and re-apply to another school, and the other school won't care about your prior law school experience???

[PepperJack]

Seems like it'd be a huge advantage to have already learned the class before retaking it. Most 1L profs don't necessarily specialize in the course - they normally focus on a more specific area of law, and it's not like Palsgraf becomes something new at a different school.

[thesealocust]

Retake and ED to UVA.

[unodostres]

Those grades will be reflected at your new law school. You are fucked.

How might grades be "reflected at [a] new law school?"

You will have to report those grades once you go to a new school. It's not like you can redo your 1L fall semester over and over.

edit: looks like truevines already mentioned it.

I agree that one would (probably) need to disclose the grades when reapplying.

I was wondering in what sense the grades would be "reflected at [the] new law school." It's not like one's transcript at the new school will include a listing of grades from the previous school.

Ah, my bad.

I figure it would factor into your GPA somehow. I withdrew 2 months into the semester at a T20 to reapply, and the person who handled it said something along those lines. If anything, those grades would follow you if you were to apply for jobs from your new school when they ask for transcripts. That's the only thing I can get out of it. I don't think it will be on the transcript, but grades follow you around. (same concept for applying to different grad school programs).

[jbagelboy]

This question seems to have been floating around TLS recently. The explanation above doesnt fully make sense. Suppose OP took the LSAT in june and got a 175. Got into some T14 next cycle (even with low ugpa, would be some splitter friendly schools), and got median fall of 1L. When they go up for OCI, are you suggesting their prior law school grades would factor into their gpa and class rank at the T14? Or would the old transcript just be available? Why would the recruiters care about the old grades in this scenario? As unlikely as it is that failing T75 -> median T14 would occur, I admit this is not clear from the above.

Failing your 1L fall must create some additional barrier to entry. For example, you may be an auto-reject at any respectable program (you must say on your application whether you've ever enrolled in a law school). Or it might feature into your new law school gpa. Or NLJ firms may have a policy about this kind of double dipping. Im not sure, but Im curious if anyone can clear this up once and for all, rather than just "thats bad news, you are probably screwed somehow."

Regardless, drop out tomorrow.

[patienunderstanding]

This question seems to have been floating around TLS recently. The explanation above doesnt fully make sense. Suppose OP took the LSAT in june and got a 175. Got into some T14 next cycle (even with low ugpa, would be some splitter friendly schools), and got median fall of 1L. When they go up for OCI, are you suggesting their prior law school grades would factor into their gpa and class rank at the T14? Or would the old transcript just be available? Why would the recruiters care about the old grades in this scenario? As unlikely as it is that failing T75 -> median T14 would occur, I admit this is not clear from the above.

Failing your 1L fall must create some additional barrier to entry. For example, you may be an auto-reject at any respectable program (you must say on your application whether you've ever enrolled in a law school). Or it might feature into your new law school gpa. Or NLJ firms may have a policy about this kind of double dipping. Im not sure, but Im curious if anyone can clear this up once and for all, rather than just "thats bad news, you are probably screwed somehow."

Regardless, drop out tomorrow.

As far as I know/heard, when you are enrolling at a new school, you HAVE TO tell them that you attended somewhere else (even for a day), and your old school has to send your transcript (even if you didn't get any grades) to your new school and additionally, they have to send a "letter of good standing." You can't enroll without those two things. I would imagine it will be hard to get a letter of a good standing when you have F's on your transcript and your gpa is below 2.0 (I don't know if that's his/her gpa).

[A. Nony Mouse]

Yeah, I don't think the issue is that at, e.g., OCI at the new school, they'd see the grades from your first semester at your first school or anything like that. But you would have to submit your first LS transcript to any other school to which you applied, so you might run into problems getting into the second law school [that would be worth attending] in the first place.

It's also possible that a new school would actually want to count your first semester grades in some way (I have no idea if this is the case, but if someone withdraws and starts over at the same school, the school usually does some kind of averaging of the new and old grades. When you're grading on a curve, letting someone just come in and redo classes they've already taken without any consideration of the old grades seems a little ishy). But you'd really be best off checking with any school you're interested in applying to, about what their policies are.

[unodostres]

Yeah, I don't think the issue is that at, e.g., OCI at the new school, they'd see the grades from your first semester at your first school or anything like that. But you would have to submit your first LS transcript to any other school to which you applied, so you might run into problems getting into the second law school [that would be worth attending] in the first place.

It's also possible that a new school would actually want to count your first semester grades in some way (I have no idea if this is the case, but if someone withdraws and starts over at the same school, the school usually does some kind of averaging of the new and old grades. When you're grading on a curve, letting someone just come in and redo classes they've already taken without any consideration of the old grades seems a little ishy). But you'd really be best off checking with any school you're interested in applying to, about what their policies are.

Yep. That's what I meant. Sorry for the confusion up top. But it would make sense that they would use those grades from your previous school and the ones at the new one (if you were to get in), which would limit your ability to get a decent job if you were below median (ones that require grades at least). The cutoff would already put you at a disadvantage.

But there was another post in a different sub forum regarding the ABA wanting you to report those grades.

Go figure. To be honest, I doubt any school would allow a new slate when you have sub par grades. Can't work the system like that.