2.93/ 152 applying for T3 and T4 schools Forum

[rwallis]

So... what are my chances?
I'm trying to be realistic about my situation. My applications are currently under review. I've only applied to 4 schools for this cycle because I'm only truly interested in my No. 1 school, and honestly if I can't get into my safety school I'm fucked anyway. These are my schools in order of interest:

1. Franklin Pierce Law Center (T3, my number one choice)
2. New England School of Law (T4)
3. Roger Williams (T4)
4. Western New England College School of Law (T4, my safety)

Be honest, brutal, whatever you gotta do. Thanks.

[jawsthegreat]

So... what are my chances?
I'm trying to be realistic about my situation. My applications are currently under review. I've only applied to 4 schools for this cycle because I'm only truly interested in my No. 1 school, and honestly if I can't get into my safety school I'm fucked anyway. These are my schools in order of interest:

1. Franklin Pierce Law Center (T3, my number one choice)
2. New England School of Law (T4)
3. Roger Williams (T4)
4. Western New England College School of Law (T4, my safety)

Be honest, brutal, whatever you gotta do. Thanks.

Save your money don't go to a crap law school, you will find yourself 150k in debt with no job prospects. You will have a very hard time finding a job from any of these schools. Either retake the LSAT or don't go to Law School.

[thegor1987]

if your parents are paying tuition it's probably not a disaster to go, but the education may be of low quality

[rwallis]

Pierce Law has the #6 best IP program in the country though... not exactly a crap law school. BUT if I don't get accepted into their IP program this cycle I plan on retaking the LSAT. I'm already rescheduled for Feb.

[thegor1987]

hmm, if your shooting for IP this means you have a degree in science. So your GPA may not kill your chances at tier 1 if you did Engineering or even chem. or physics. but why the low LSAT score? were you sick or was it a fluke? A degree in science is conducive to doing well on the LSAT

[rwallis]

hmm, if your shooting for IP this means you have a degree in science. So your GPA may not kill your chances at tier 1 if you did Engineering or even chem. or physics. but why the low LSAT score? were you sick or was it a fluke? A degree in science is conducive to doing well on the LSAT

I'm planning on concentrating on Soft IP (trademarks, copyrights, etc.) and have a degree in Communication. This was my first LSAT.

[thegor1987]

ic, good luck in Feb., with a 160+ I don't think you need to be looking at TTTs at all. This of course is easier said than done. I mean raising your score by 8+ points

[jawsthegreat]

The individual program rankings are designed to get people like you to pay lots of $$$$ to attend a crap school with the thought that you are attending the number six IP school in the country, when in fact that doesn't mean anything and your job prospects are going to suck.

[NancyBotwin]

You may not want to hear this, but I strongly suggest retaking and applying next cycle. I was 163/2.9ish this time last year, and now I'm 170/3.0x and have 3 Tier 1 acceptances so far (waiting to hear back from several more). Study hard, take lots of timed practice tests (every single real one you can get your hands on), and try again in June. Assuming you didn't burn out studying for the 152, a 10 point jump is not entirely unreasonable with enough study, and will land you in a much better place and with much better prospects.

Also, as was said above, the individual program rankings (#6 in IP, etc) mean absolutely nothing.

[misformafia]

Pierce Law has the #6 best IP program in the country though... not exactly a crap law school. BUT if I don't get accepted into their IP program this cycle I plan on retaking the LSAT. I'm already rescheduled for Feb.

Wrong. As you will discover, the specialty rankings are garbage. Going to ANY T1 school is better for IP law than Pierce.

The best advice is to retake! The LSAT is learnable, just focus and try new study techniques. A 152 means that there is some promise for a better score! There is a ton of advice on this site on ways to improve scores.

[09042014]

So... what are my chances?
I'm trying to be realistic about my situation. My applications are currently under review. I've only applied to 4 schools for this cycle because I'm only truly interested in my No. 1 school, and honestly if I can't get into my safety school I'm fucked anyway. These are my schools in order of interest:

1. Franklin Pierce Law Center (T3, my number one choice)
2. New England School of Law (T4)
3. Roger Williams (T4)
4. Western New England College School of Law (T4, my safety)

Be honest, brutal, whatever you gotta do. Thanks.

Ok I'm going to be brutal because you said I could.

A 2.9 152 means you are stupid or lazy. If you are stupid, you won't succeed at law school, so don't go to T3 and waste a quarter million. If you are lazy you need to get the fuck past that and study for the LSAT because a 152 is just embarrassing. If you can't buckle down for three months to study the LSAT you won't buckle down for three months to pass your finals.

For the record I've got a 2.8 and I was lazy. I got over it.

Get a 165 and you can get into some T1's. If you can't do that find a different career. For your own good.

[Helmholtz]

The assessment scores in the USNWR comprehensive rankings entail somebody (a judge, academic, etc.) rating "programs on a scale from marginal (1) to outstanding (5). Those individuals who did not know enough about a school to evaluate it fairly were asked to mark 'don't know.' A school's score is the average of all the respondents who rated it. Responses of "don't know" counted neither for nor against a school."

How the specialty rankings work: "These specialty rankings are based solely on votes by legal educators, who nominated up to 15 schools in each field. Legal educators chosen were a selection of those listed in the Association of American Law Schools Directory of Law Teachers 2007-2008 as currently teaching in that field. In the case of clinical and legal writing, the nominations were made by directors or members of the clinical and legal writing programs at each law school. Those programs that received the most top 15 nominations appear in descending order."

Yes, that's right. If 99 people have Yale as the #1 IP school and Franklin Pierce as their 15th school, and one additional person doesn't include Yale, but considers Franklin Pierce the 15th best IP school, FP will be rated higher than Yale in the specialty rankings. Sound a little screwy? Well, yeah. Also consider the fact that no actual employers or career placement data are included in the equation anywhere. Frankly, a lot of it is self-fulfilling prophecy as well. We'll use FP as an example, although the facts might not hold 100% true for their case. FP wants to recruit students (aka tuition dollars) but they know their program as a whole has a pretty crap reputation. So they launch a massive campaign including mailings, etc. to the people who vote in the USWNR specialty rankings bragging about how robust a particular program of their's is. All they have to do is make it in enough people's 15 nominations, they don't have to claim a certain amount of #1 nominations or even top 10 nominations, they just have to be listed - and they can achieve this partially by convincing certain people that they have a strong specialty program. The Specialty Rankings put out by USNWR are such a huge pile of bullshit, it's not even funny.

[Helmholtz]

A 2.9 152 means you are stupid or lazy.

This is what they call a false dichotomy.

[09042014]

A 2.9 152 means you are stupid or lazy.

This is what they call a false dichotomy.

Agreed, but I figure they are the two most likely options so I ignore everything else. I figure if his Mom died before the LSAT or something he'd tell us, and either way my retake advice still holds.

[Helmholtz]

A 2.9 152 means you are stupid or lazy.

This is what they call a false dichotomy.

Agreed, but I figure they are the two most likely options so I ignore everything else. I figure if his Mom died before the LSAT or something he'd tell us, and either way my retake advice still holds.

I sort of meant the chance that one could be stupid and lazy.

[09042014]

A 2.9 152 means you are stupid or lazy.

This is what they call a false dichotomy.

Agreed, but I figure they are the two most likely options so I ignore everything else. I figure if his Mom died before the LSAT or something he'd tell us, and either way my retake advice still holds.

I sort of meant the chance that one could be stupid and lazy.

In that case my or was an inclusive or.

[OperaSoprano]

OP is roughly similar to the median American college grad, which doesn't imply stupidity or laziness. Everyone outside the top 2% is not stupid or lazy. I was plenty embarrassed over my own numbers, and used both those labels to describe myself, until I was forced to stop by my friends at higher ranked schools, who told me how ridiculous I sounded. I was warned that if I called my LSAT score the score of epic fail just once more, someone would physically visit harm upon me. The point being, of course, that it's all relative. Compared to my friends at HLS, I pretty much failed epically. I had 59th percentile numbers for my own program at the time I got in (my LSAT was at our 75th for PT), which is why I thought being waitlisted was something personal. It's also why I couldn't complain to my own fellow applicants.

The fact of the matter is that OP can probably improve if he or she retakes, and we rightly encourage OP to do so. This can be accomplished without implying that OP is stupid or lazy, since we know nothing about his or her situation.

[jawsthegreat]

OP is roughly similar to the median American college grad, which doesn't imply stupidity or laziness. Everyone outside the top 2% is not stupid or lazy. I was plenty embarrassed over my own numbers, and used both those labels to describe myself, until I was forced to stop by my friends at higher ranked schools, who told me how ridiculous I sounded. I was warned that if I called my LSAT score the score of epic fail just once more, someone would physically visit harm upon me. The point being, of course, that it's all relative. Compared to my friends at HLS, I pretty much failed epically. I had 59th percentile numbers for my own program at the time I got in, which is why I thought being waitlisted was something personal. It's also why I couldn't complain to my own fellow applicants.

The fact of the matter is that OP can probably improve if he or she retakes, and we rightly encourage OP to do so. This can be accomplished without implying that OP is stupid or lazy, since we know nothing about his or her situation.

I would argue that the median American College Graduate is very lazy and could very easily be argued to be stupid.

[OperaSoprano]

OP is roughly similar to the median American college grad, which doesn't imply stupidity or laziness. Everyone outside the top 2% is not stupid or lazy. I was plenty embarrassed over my own numbers, and used both those labels to describe myself, until I was forced to stop by my friends at higher ranked schools, who told me how ridiculous I sounded. I was warned that if I called my LSAT score the score of epic fail just once more, someone would physically visit harm upon me. The point being, of course, that it's all relative. Compared to my friends at HLS, I pretty much failed epically. I had 59th percentile numbers for my own program at the time I got in, which is why I thought being waitlisted was something personal. It's also why I couldn't complain to my own fellow applicants.

The fact of the matter is that OP can probably improve if he or she retakes, and we rightly encourage OP to do so. This can be accomplished without implying that OP is stupid or lazy, since we know nothing about his or her situation.

I would argue that the median American College Graduate is very lazy and could very easily be argued to be stupid.

I believe ~ 27% of Americans have a bachelor's degree or higher. These are not necessarily the top 27% in intelligence or industry, though there is probably some correlation. (This is not to imply that those who don't go or don't finish are lazy or stupid, but some perspective here is badly needed.) An argument like the above ignores socioeconomic factors completely, and is likely inaccurate.

TLS is full of overachievers, and while that's generally awesome, we do tend to lose perspective a bit. I was certainly guilty of that.

[rwallis]

Lazy? Maybe a little. However...

...a 152 puts me in good, realistic standing considering my list of schools. I could study harder, retake and improve my score for the next cycle and shoot for TT schools, but there's no telling that the extra 2-3 points I could accrue (the average improvement for the 150-160 range) would make a huge difference.

All that being said, I think the only thing I can really do is wait and see the decisions for this cycle and retake the exam regardless. Based on that I can decide whether or not to wait until the 2011 cycle.

[09042014]

Lazy? Maybe a little. However...

...a 152 puts me in good, realistic standing considering my list of schools. I could study harder, retake and improve my score for the next cycle and shoot for TT schools, but there's no telling that the extra 2-3 points I could accrue (the average improvement for the 150-160 range) would make a huge difference.

All that being said, I think the only thing I can really do is wait and see the decisions for this cycle and retake the exam regardless. Based on that I can decide whether or not to wait until the 2011 cycle.

Your list of schools sucks. I wouldn't attend any of them if you paid me 60 grand a year plus expenses and tuition.

You could accrue a shit load more than 2-3 LSAT points. Did you even study the first time around?

Don't go to any of these schools, they aren't good, and they have terrible job prospects.

Register for June 2010 test, and aim for 175. Study harder than you've studied for anything, or don't go to law school.

[reasonable_man]

Intense.

[rwallis]

Intense.

+1

[jawsthegreat]

rwallis why do you want to go to law school?

[eye]

but there's no telling that the extra 2-3 points I could accrue (the average improvement for the 150-160 range) would make a huge difference.

If you study, you will improve way more than that. So please find something to do for a year and come back with a better score. If you're really set on Franklin Pierce, you can get a substantial amount of $$$ with a better LSAT.