3.5 GPA, what do I need on LSAT to have chance at T20? Forum

[imjustjoking22]

I have a 3.55 GPA (but very strong upward trend, will have addendum- transfer student with 3.8 at second school). Graduated from a UC (not UCLA or Berkeley, but a good school).
I've been taking an LSAT course, diagnostic at 161, second full length/timed was a 171. (I'll ramp up the full tests as it gets closer to Oct).

I generally have a fair bit of time left over on all sections but LG, which I am doing in decent time but don't have excess yet. I'd say out of the 10 questions I missed, about 7 weren't difficulty but just misreading/silly mistakes (which seem to be the hardest to cut out- argh!). I seem to be getting better in terms of fatigue, I don't feel burnt out by a full test and my accuracy stayed fairly stable and even improved at the end.

My LORs should be pretty good, but I don't have good softs (just nothing too remarkable).

What I'm interested in:
Definitely corporate law (contracts, transactional, I'm especially interested in business related to viticulture).
Would like to go to school in CA or somewhere with successful national job placement (tbh, I'd love to go out of state, but I am nervous about not making connections here since I'd like to return).

Ideally, I'd love to go to a top 25 school (or T50 with money). What will it take, score-wise?

(let me know if this is not ok for this section- I couldn't find a lot of comparable stats from people who didn't have much in the way of softs/work experience).

[tyro]

166/167

[imjustjoking22]

166/167

Seriously? That seems low...or is this just a "really small chance" number?

[tyro]

166/167

Seriously? That seems low...or is this just a "really small chance" number?

166/167 and 3.55 is basically out at T14 (maybe shot at Cornell/NU if strong writer & recs). You would have a shot at the 15-20 range but these schools are not worth the price (at full price). Do you have an in-state tier one (top 50) where you can get a huge reduction on tuition?

[imjustjoking22]

166/167

Seriously? That seems low...or is this just a "really small chance" number?

166/167 and 3.55 is basically out at T14 (maybe shot at Cornell/NU if strong writer & recs). You would have a shot at the 15-20 range but these schools are not worth the price. Do you have an in-state tier one (top 50) where you can get a huge reduction on tuition?

Well, that's good news! Thanks for elaborating. In-state (CA) there's Stanford (yea, right), Boalt (dream school, but I'm betting my chances will be ~.000001), UC Davis (will be apping there, Hastings, UCLA, USC, Pepperdine (I'll probably apply to most of the decent CA schools to keep my options here open).

ETA: If I do make it into the low 170s on test day, do I have a chance at T14?

[tyro]

UC - Davis costs 34k for residents. That's about 3x as much as students attending similarly ranked public schools will pay if they are residents.

[imjustjoking22]

UC - Davis costs 34k for residents. That's about 3x as much as students attending similarly ranked public schools will pay if they are residents.

That's depressing.

[LawSchoolChampion]

Aim for 172. You'll get some $$ for the score at schools.

If you were willing to take top 25 you'd get a lot more $$ with a 170+.

[Moomoo2u]

Lawschoolpredictor.com

[dakure]

Lawschoolpredictor.com

lawschoolnumbers.com

[imjustjoking22]

Aim for 172. You'll get some $$ for the score at schools.

If you were willing to take top 25 you'd get a lot more $$ with a 170+.

I'm certainly willing to take top 25 (or lower) if they will offer me a good amount of money. I just want to know what my numbers need to look like to be really competitive.

Lawschoolpredictor.com

lawschoolnumbers.com

Thanks, I've played the numbers on all the sites, I just figure at top 20 it's not all numbers anymore and I'm guessing without a lot of softs my chances get worse than the numbers would indicate.

[RaleighStClair]

Lawschoolpredictor.com

lawschoolnumbers.com

TITCR

[SA1928]

This thread offers some good advice for splitters - http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 2&t=162680

[imjustjoking22]

This thread offers some good advice for splitters - http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 2&t=162680

Ooh, that gives me a bit more hope- I'm not sure of my LSAC gpa yet, but I have a 3.55 transfer GPA according to my counselor so I should be ok in terms of not being below many of the top schools' floors.

Does being ranked at my school help? I think I'm in the top 10% for humanities majors for UG.... and *very* valid reason for the bad section of my GPA, it is completely solid otherwise- not that this will help me much, but I'm hoping since the top schools are sometimes a bit more holistic maybe it will make a difference.

[AffordablePrep]

Lawschoolpredictor.com

lawschoolnumbers.com

TITCR

LSAC.org's is better, because you can actually weigh it against all active applications, not the unrepresentative group that can be law school numbers where it's possible people only post their cycles if they are proud of them, etc. You do have some schools where it's all green then a point later it's all yellow (clearly a cut off), but there are many where some people have 60k with numbers others are rejected from.

[imjustjoking22]

Lawschoolpredictor.com

lawschoolnumbers.com

TITCR

LSAC.org's is better, because you can actually weigh it against all active applications, not the unrepresentative group that can be law school numbers where it's possible people only post their cycles if they are proud of them, etc. You do have some schools where it's all green then a point later it's all yellow (clearly a cut off), but there are many where some people have 60k with numbers others are rejected from.

Where is this exactly? The only one I could find on LSAC didn't seem to include many schools...

[RaleighStClair]

Lawschoolpredictor.com

lawschoolnumbers.com

TITCR

LSAC.org's is better, because you can actually weigh it against all active applications, not the unrepresentative group that can be law school numbers where it's possible people only post their cycles if they are proud of them, etc. You do have some schools where it's all green then a point later it's all yellow (clearly a cut off), but there are many where some people have 60k with numbers others are rejected from.

Wait, LSAC.org's system makes their predictions based off of actual admissions data? That seems highly unlikely. I would assume they use a similar metric to LSP -- which isn't necessarily trustworthy, especially for splitters.

[Errzii]

Lawschoolpredictor.com

lawschoolnumbers.com

Thanks, I've played the numbers on all the sites, I just figure at top 20 it's not all numbers anymore and I'm guessing without a lot of softs my chances get worse than the numbers would indicate.

Law schools place a huge emphasis on numbers. With a 3.55 you are still reasonably competitive for T20 and as high up as T6 depending on how you do on LSAT (167-173+). Softs are really meh for law school imo, it's not like med school where softs, e.g., research, shadowing, volunteer work, etc. count for like 1/3 of the app. You'll be fine as long as you do well on the LSAT. That being said however, not a lot of schools have "successful national job placement." ITE it's important to consider where you want to work after law school as that's a much safer bet than going somewhere solely on ranking and hoping it can place you where you want to work afterward.

[imjustjoking22]

Lawschoolpredictor.com

lawschoolnumbers.com

Thanks, I've played the numbers on all the sites, I just figure at top 20 it's not all numbers anymore and I'm guessing without a lot of softs my chances get worse than the numbers would indicate.

Law schools place a huge emphasis on numbers. With a 3.55 you are still reasonably competitive for T20 and as high up as T6 depending on how you do on LSAT (167-173+). Softs are really meh for law school imo, it's not like med school where softs, e.g., research, shadowing, volunteer work, etc. count for like 1/3 of the app. You'll be fine as long as you do well on the LSAT. That being said however, not a lot of schools have "successful national job placement." ITE it's important to consider where you want to work after law school as that's a much safer bet than going somewhere solely on ranking and hoping it can place you where you want to work afterward.

I definitely agree; what I'm concerned about is that going to a CA school can be ridiculously pricey and not guarantee job placement here either- I do feel relatively confident that I have enough "connections" in place here in CA to at least get myself a job somewhere if I graduate from a well-ranked/respected school.

Which schools would you guys consider to place well nationally? I'll definitely be willing to look out of T20 if there's money to be had at lower ranked schools (within reason).

[Tiago Splitter]

Exactly zero schools outside the top 20 place "well" nationally. If you would like to end up in California either go to the highest ranked school you can get into within the T14 (and probably more like the T12) or go to USC/UCLA.

[Bildungsroman]

the T14 (and probably more like the T12)

Lol, when talking about national placement the only thing more useless than arbitrary cutoffs is rejecting them for other arbitrary cutoffs.

[bk1]

@OP: T20 is a misleading term. You're basically asking what LSAT you need for WUSTL/GW since the schools in the band above them (UCLA/USC/Vandy/UT) generally require a higher LSAT and the schools in the band of that (the lower T14) require an even higher LSAT. It also doesn't make any sense since even though WUSTL/GW are "T20" they are relatively equal to many, but not all, schools ranked all the way through the T1 (peers of WUSTL/GW include BU/BC/UCD/UCH/Fordham/Emory/UW/Illinois/etc). It makes no sense to aim for GW/WUSTL if you have no desire to work in DC or the midwest.

UC - Davis costs 34k for residents. That's about 3x as much as students attending similarly ranked public schools will pay if they are residents.

Your number is wrong. UCD was just shy of 42k/year for residents last year and is higher this year. (It's over 46k this year but it is hard to tell how much it actually jumped because the 46k contains a bunch of fees and I'm not entirely sure how many of those fees were included in the 42k.) But yes, UC's are the most insanely expensive public law schools (outside of UM/UVa).

[bk1]

the T14 (and probably more like the T12)

Lol, when talking about national placement the only thing more useless than arbitrary cutoffs is rejecting them for other arbitrary cutoffs.

I respect you for not forgetting your "roots."

[Moomoo2u]

EDIT: Apparently I may only embed 4 quotes within each other. IVE GONE TOO DEEP

HYS obviously place nationally, and I'm inclined to think that schools like Michigan/Penn that are sort of in-between the north-east and mid-west place pretty well nationally (probably not as good in Cali).

I'm fairly ignorant as I haven't looked at the placement stats, but from what I understand NYU/Columbia / UChicago/Northwestern, while being amazing schools, place very well in their respective markets and in their general area (I.e. midwest/east-coast) but might not place as well farther west with competition from schools like Stanford/Boalt.

If you want to stay in cali S/Boalt/UCLA are probably your best bets.

Lower ranked schools are not really a good choice unless you want to be restricted to a smaller market and/or are getting significant $$$$

[Tiago Splitter]

the T14 (and probably more like the T12)

Lol, when talking about national placement the only thing more useless than arbitrary cutoffs is rejecting them for other arbitrary cutoffs.

I respect you for not forgetting your "roots."

LOL. Cornell love dies hard, I guess. Tough to take anything bildungsroman says seriously when I read it with Sterling Archer's voice in mind. But his point is well taken.

OP: I know a guy who wanted California from Cornell but ended up in New York. He was above median and has a great biglaw job in NYC, so it worked out but required some flexibility. If you are dead set on California take USC/UCLA over the bottom of the T14, but understand that California is just not where the jobs are right now.

To answer your question: Get above a 168.