Top Law Schools

Hi everyone, I was wondering what you think my chances are given my stats for getting into top California schools. Just got my February score back.

I'll be applying next fall to:

Stanford
Berkeley
UCLA
USC
UC Hastings

I think I have pretty decent softs. I've done research and been published, worked/internship in law during school, and I am doing a thesis.

Keep in mind, your MA boost is likely to be less in California than in other states. You may want to throw an ap or to to some eastern schools just for the sake of comparision, scholarship negotion etc.

Thanks KMaine for the advice. I was considering the same thing. I figured I would probably try to apply to as many T14s that I can get a fee waiver from.

Although you have better than average chance in most of those schools, I'll suggest you look at a few more schools outside of Cali, in a region that you would not mind living. The things is that you would, more often than not, receive a handful of fee waivers too.

Retake and spam the T14. Ignore USC and Hastings altogether. With a higher score you're looking at HYS or chunky scholarships from CCN.

Thanks for all of the advice, but because of circumstances I have to stay in the California area, and I only scored a point or two below my average. Taking it again, I'd be afraid of, under the stress, doing worse than this score, so I think I'm going to stick with this score. Does it make a difference that I'm a male? I've heard there are less URM males than females. Berkeley is really my dream school though. What are my chances there do you think? Also, I'm out of state which I know gives me less of a chance at the UC schools.

You have a very good chance at Berkeley, just make sure u write a great PS. for Berkeley it can be 4 pages long

Wouldn't these stats be pretty solid for Berkeley even without being a URM?

I thought URM didn't matter for cali?

Thanks parsi, I really appreciate hearing that. I'm definitely going to spend the whole summer working on my PS and DS.

ndirish2010, I know it falls within the ranges, I was just hoping the URM gives me a boost with a socio-economic statement. So I was wondering what people thought my chances were on top of just being in the general 25th to 75 percentiles for gpa/lsat. Berkeley's my number one choice, so I'm trying to take as much advice as I can get right now.

RockyIII, URM doesn't matter for public schools in California to the extent that they can't admit on the basis of URM alone. So it'll give me a definite boost in USC and Stanford relative to other non-URM applicants from what I understand. As for public, they encourage socio-economic statements in lieu of DS about being a URM, so I'll be writing that.

I appreciate everyone's replies.

triplem25 wrote:Hi everyone, I was wondering what you think my chances are given my stats for getting into top California schools. Just got my February score back.

I'll be applying next fall to:

Stanford
Berkeley
UCLA
USC
UC Hastings

I think I have pretty decent softs. I've done research and been published, worked/internship in law during school, and I am doing a thesis.

In at Berkeley down, a decent shot at SLS, but it's really unpredictable there. Probably money at UCLA on down (Berkeley mainly does need-based aid, so you may see some money there if you qualify, but they are fairly stingy). I echo the advice to apply to some non-California schools, but if you really must stay in Cali that's understandable, and I think you will be looking at Berkeley at or near sticker versus UCLA/USC with some scholarship money. Remember, public California schools can't officially do affirmative action, but I feel like they still do it anyways.

RockyIII wrote:I thought URM didn't matter for cali?

not sure if serious? joke because white people are actually the minority in california?

triplem25 wrote:Hi everyone, I was wondering what you think my chances are given my stats for getting into top California schools. Just got my February score back.

I'll be applying next fall to:

Stanford
Berkeley
UCLA
USC
UC Hastings

I think I have pretty decent softs. I've done research and been published, worked/internship in law during school, and I am doing a thesis.

are you dead set on cali? apply to harvard for the hell of it if nothing else

paulinaporizkova wrote:

RockyIII wrote:I thought URM didn't matter for cali?

not sure if serious? joke because white people are actually the minority in california?

California public schools can't officially practice affirmative action. Plus some argue that since there is a higher Mexican American population in California, you get less of a "boost" than for midwestern/east coast schools, where Hispanics are less common.