3.5/176 Forum

[nycbiglawordie]

Hi,
I was hoping to find out what my chances are.

I've got a 3.5 from an ivy league school in Mathematics (a difficult major)
some classes from when I was a premed hurt me freshman year, but i have an upwards trend.

I just got an lsat score of 176.

Do I have a chance at Harvard or Stanford?

Also, what are my odds at columbia school of law?

Thank you in advance

[merichard87]

Major doesn't matter much. Your GPA is probably going to put you in the maybe or deny pile at H and S. I would still apply though. Columbia is a decent maybe but still not a given. Still apply to every school you can see yourself attending.

[acadec]

3.5 is certainly too low for Stanford; probably too low for Harvard (you'll be lucky to go WL->ding there). You have much better chances at CCN, especially Chicago. Everything below Michigan should be a lock, barring YP.

Trends and majors really don't matter; nor does your ug unless it's HYPS.

[nycbiglawordie]

it isnt HYPS
but thanks for the advice guys! I'll apply and pray

[thechee]

3.5 is certainly too low for Stanford; probably too low for Harvard (you'll be lucky to go WL->ding there). You have much better chances at CCN, especially Chicago. Everything below Michigan should be a lock, barring YP.

Trends and majors really don't matter; nor does your ug unless it's HYPS.

Disagree. While going to an ivy won't give you a boost over people with objectively higher numbers, I think it does make a difference when being compared to applicants with very similar numbers. I doubt it's the name of the school that matters as much as the distribution of LSAT scores compared to the distribution of GPAs.

I was at a pretty tough LAC, and pretty much everyone I know who applied to law school was at the high end of where their numbers would generally predict. For example, if a 3.6 is the top 20%, and 30% of LSAT takers at your school score above the 95th percentile, that communicates a lot about your GPA. That your field is considered harder than most social science/humanities majors can only help. If you go to one of the ivies with rampant grade inflation, then you may be somewhat less in luck. If you went to Dartmouth though, apparently their transcripts communicate a lot of info about your performance relative to other people taking the same course.

Still, HYS are almost certainly out.

[im_blue]

No chance at HYS
About 50% chance at CLS

[Entchen]

We are numbers twins (3.5/177/non-HYP Ivy), so I am interested in what you end up doing. I personally have no desire to go to school in a huge city (read: NYC/Chicago), nor in California, and law school numbers has made me realize a Harvard app would be a waste of my time and $80, so I'm pretty much applying to Penn and down. It does seem like schools up to Columbia would be a reasonable goal, though, if that's what you want.

Good luck!