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Sorry for the impending wall of text.

So... there has been about a 2 year gap between when my undergrad started and now when I'm about finished. My GPA in that previous 3 years of UG was a 2.5 cumulative. Spectacular, I know. I'm not going to give you a litany of excuses, but I was just an athlete who saw myself as others saw me. Lacked a lot of confidence in the classroom, despite the feelings deep down that I had more in me.

I've had corporate/management experience since leaving school the first time and have excelled. Blah blah...

I went back to school in the fall of 09' and have a 3.9GPA. While working 50-60hours a week, I've managed to make short work of upper-division Poly-Sci classes and completed about 2 years of classes in about 1 1/2 years. The extra semester is due to the fact that I changed my major from when I initially began my college career.

However, I just plugged my numbers in the LSDAS calc and it's saying I'll graduate around 3.0-3.1 depending on if I can squeeze in some A+s.

The good news is that I've become selfaware of my potential. I know my strengths and have overcome many of my weaknesses. I've got some work to do on the LSAT as I'm around 155-160 on the PTs, but my dilemma is my LSDAS GPA. I feel that I will do well on the LSAT with some practice and some work on the logic games. It's not guaranteed, but I feel that some practice will go a long way.

I'm not URM and I don't have any excuses. All I can provide to law schools is the drastic change my performance and a decent LSAT if I can pull that off.

My question to you all is, providing I do well on the LSAT, is there any possibility of a T14 school? I hear a lot of talk of Northwestern accepting splitters with work experience, but I will be quite the splitter even if I only managed a 160. If I can manage a 170, will that be a game changer?

I suppose, I'd like to imagine that I still have some control in the here & now of where I'm going. But, I do understand that my previous performance is damning.

..

Northwestern is only a real possibility if you get that LSAT up to the 170+ range. You really need a 165 to be viable with that GPA. Try using lawschoolpredictor.com and lawschoolnumbers.com as a gauge to see where you are and figure out where you wanna be.

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I see. Thanks for all the responses. It's funny how much can change over the course of a few years.

I guess I just need to focus on my LSAT and do what I can with that. Northwestern/Notre Dame are the only two midwestern colleges I can see myself at...

UC-Davis/Hastings/Santa Clara would be my choices in California... If I could afford it, anyway.

Otherwise BC/Northeastern/Arizona State/Boston U seem like they'd be a lot of fun..

Do these other schools seem more probable? That gpa is going to screw me quite a bit when it comes to scholarship money I think so, cost needs to be a consideration.

Azmatt wrote:My question to you all is, providing I do well on the LSAT, is there any possibility of a T14 school? I hear a lot of talk of Northwestern accepting splitters with work experience, but I will be quite the splitter even if I only managed a 160. If I can manage a 170, will that be a game changer?

You'll have a shot at a T14 with a 3.0+ GPA and a 170+ LSAT.

TL;DR, short version?

trialjunky wrote:TL;DR, short version?

Got a 2.5 GPA over 3 years of college, left school and got corporate/management experience, went back and got a 3.9 over 1.5 years while working 50-60 hours. Hoping for 3.0-3.1 GPA, PTing in the 155-160 range. What LSAT does OP need for T14?

im_blue wrote:

trialjunky wrote:TL;DR, short version?

Got a 2.5 GPA over 3 years of college, left school and got corporate/management experience, went back and got a 3.9 over 1.5 years while working 50-60 hours. Hoping for 3.0-3.1 GPA, PTing in the 155-160 range. What LSAT does OP need for T14?

URM?

trialjunky wrote:

im_blue wrote:

trialjunky wrote:TL;DR, short version?

Got a 2.5 GPA over 3 years of college, left school and got corporate/management experience, went back and got a 3.9 over 1.5 years while working 50-60 hours. Hoping for 3.0-3.1 GPA, PTing in the 155-160 range. What LSAT does OP need for T14?

URM?

nope

I can't express how enthusiastic I am to hear the opinion of someone who didn't read the whole thread. Oh boy!



Regardless, it is disheartening to a degree... I'd imagine GPA is indicative of a few things, but namely work ethic. With a two year gap and the subsequent 3.88+ GPA in upper division courses, I'd imagine I'd have answered those questions by my recent performance.

However, it does not appear that this will have a big impact at all. Schucks. I guess all I can do is hope/work my ass off for for 170+ and throw my name in the box at Northwestern.

Azmatt wrote:I can't express how enthusiastic I am to hear the opinion of someone who didn't read the whole thread. Oh boy!



Regardless, it is disheartening to a degree... I'd imagine GPA is indicative of a few things, but namely work ethic. With a two year gap and the subsequent 3.88+ GPA in upper division courses, I'd imagine I'd have answered those questions by my recent performance.

However, it does not appear that this will have a big impact at all. Schucks. I guess all I can do is hope/work my ass off for for 170+ and throw my name in the box at Northwestern.

The reason why it makes no difference is that law schools have to keep their GPA and LSAT medians high to maintain/increase their US News rank. They can't afford to look beyond the numbers unless there are extraordinary factors to consider.

If the median is what is the issue, and assuming softs or other factors(like a great positive slope to GPA), should it really matter if you have a 3.6 or a 3.2 as long as the school firmly expects its median to be in the 3.7 range?

If a school only accepted 3 students and the first two were selected with a 3.8 and a 3.9, the third could have any GPA between 0 and 3.8 and the median would still be 3.8. If the LSAT scores of the first two were 170 and 175, the schools medians would be much better served by picking a 180/2.0 splitter than a 169/3.8 kid. The former would result in a medians of 3.8 and 175, while the latter 3.8 and 170...