Top Law Schools

I was wondering what you guys thought of my chances at various schools. I have a really low GPA but good LSAT. If it matters, I go to Carnegie Mellon, but my softs are pretty good (I think). I started a consulting business sophomore year and started a charity at the end of last semester. Also, in case it's relevant, I'm a Bio major and my business/finance gpa is 3.5 (classes like business law, economics, etc...)

Right now I'm looking to apply to like 15 schools. I was thinking about:
Virginia (fee waiver)
Cornell
Texas
Georgetown
George Washington
Boston
Boston College
Minnesota (fee waiver)
UNC
Fordham
Wake Forest
American
and maybe some more

Am I being way too optimistic? Originally I was thinking that the top 4 weren't even worth applying to, but I'm not sure. I was thinking that I would probably end up in the area of like the last four, but I'm just curious what you guys think.

Retake undergrad?

I couldn't imagine any T30 schools will want you. Your split screams lack of work ethic and obviously law schools can't have that. They will be scared that you will fail out. My advice, blanket as much of the 50 to 100th ranked schools as you can. Write an addendum giving some explanation for your GPA. Explain that you will turn your academics around and achieve your potential (indicated by the 170) with relentless hard work.

canuck wrote:Retake undergrad?

I couldn't imagine any T30 schools will want you. Your split screams lack of work ethic and obviously law schools can't have that. They will be scared that you will fail out. My advice, blanket as much of the 50 to 100th ranked schools as you can. Write an addendum giving some explanation for your GPA. Explain that you will turn your academics around and achieve your potential (indicated by the 170) with relentless hard work.

Wrong. Cut out the top 4. You don't have a chance. Add WUSTL and UIUC to your list. Add NU if you have WE.

Virginia: Out
Cornell: Out (not worth fee)
Texas: Out (not worth fee)
Georgetown: Out (not worth fee)
George Washington: Out
Boston: Out
Boston College: Out
Minnesota: Possible
UNC: Out (not worth fee unless resident)
Fordham: Out
Wake Forest: Possible
American: Possible

Add Illinois and WUSTL and several more "safeties" (50-100). That GPA is gonna make for an unpredictable cycle. Your best course of action might be to get a few years of WE to put some distance between you and those grades, and to possibly open up Northwestern ED.

ED to Northwestern.

Edit: Next cycle if you don't like how your acceptances/$$ go. It's too late to do it this cycle.

FuManChusco wrote:

canuck wrote:Retake undergrad?

I couldn't imagine any T30 schools will want you. Your split screams lack of work ethic and obviously law schools can't have that. They will be scared that you will fail out. My advice, blanket as much of the 50 to 100th ranked schools as you can. Write an addendum giving some explanation for your GPA. Explain that you will turn your academics around and achieve your potential (indicated by the 170) with relentless hard work.

Wrong. Cut out the top 4. You don't have a chance. Add WUSTL and UIUC to your list. Add NU if you have WE.

You clearly do not know what you are talking about. Take a gander at LSN, come back and tell me how many people with a 2.34 got into Georgetown or NU. Not even a single person with a GPA that low got into WUSTL

canuck wrote:

FuManChusco wrote:

canuck wrote:Retake undergrad?

I couldn't imagine any T30 schools will want you. Your split screams lack of work ethic and obviously law schools can't have that. They will be scared that you will fail out. My advice, blanket as much of the 50 to 100th ranked schools as you can. Write an addendum giving some explanation for your GPA. Explain that you will turn your academics around and achieve your potential (indicated by the 170) with relentless hard work.

Wrong. Cut out the top 4. You don't have a chance. Add WUSTL and UIUC to your list. Add NU if you have WE.

You clearly do not know what you are talking about. Take a gander at LSN, come back and tell me how many people with a 2.34 got into Georgetown or NU. Not even a single person with a GPA that low got into WUSTL

FuManChusco gives good advice.

Last cycle someone got into WUSTL with a 173/2.46. And in the cycle before that, someone got in with a 171/2.37, and that's just with the limited sample on LSN. So it's not impossible.

Someone got into UIUC last year with 170/2.3 so it's definitely possible there also.

There just isn't enough data to make a definitive claim one way or another if your chances are good, but I'd say it's definitely worth the application to WUSTL and UIUC.

Also fwiw, a poster on here that applied ED got into NU with a 2.1 gpa last cycle. I can't remember if the LSAT score was 170 or 171.

I am suprised the OP didn't switch majors and just get a degree from Tepper. They have been doing well placing people into consulting and I-Banking.

WashU, UMinn, IUB, UIowa, UIUC, are your targets.

OP if you want to go to a good law school by TLS standards it is almost necessary to get 2+ years of full time WE at this point to separate yourself from your grades and get some letters of recommendation about your work ethic.