GPA: 3.58, LSAT: 180 Forum

[emanniak]

I was wondering if anyone could help me decide if I should apply early decision to Chicago or regular decision
I am only interested in attending Chicago, Stanford or Yale as they are small schools and emphasize the academic as well as the professional sides of law. If I knew i was gonna get into Chicago I would apply regular decision to all these schools and keep my options open, but if Chicago was a long shot I would apply early there. Any ideas?

[jbagelboy]

Stanford and Yale will hardly ever ever go below 3.6 for non-urm. I would say you have a very very slight chance there. Id give you a strong chance at Chicago, although none of the schools you selected are splitter friendly. If you will only attend Chicago (YS are out), go ahead and ED there. Some people still get $ as ED.

I will say however that I think your approach is pretty asinine, and you should consider all top schools if you actually want to practice law. Why do you want to be an attorney if your focus is so narrow? Chances at success in legal academia are incredibly slim; you should be willing to practice at a firm if the tenure track thing doesnt pan out (which with your GPA, it probably wont). You have a strong chance of $ at Columbia, NYU, and Penn -- moreso than Chi.

[muskies970]

you will probably also get fee waivers at a lot of the T14, so it would be helpful to apply to Chicago's peers for scholarship negotiation later on in the cycle. I would apply regular decision to Chicago if I were you.

[ManOfTheMinute]

Unless you have a damn good reason for your GPA being so low, you are out at YS. ED to Chicago if you really want the small school, but also apply to the other small T14s since Chicago isn't a huge fan of 3.6s either.

[Ti Malice]

Unless you are a renowned author or Olympic medalist, you have zero chance at Y and effectively no shot at S.

I will say however that I think your approach is pretty asinine, and you should consider all top schools if you actually want to practice law. Why do you want to be an attorney if your focus is so narrow? Chances at success in legal academia are incredibly slim; you should be willing to practice at a firm if the tenure track thing doesnt pan out (which with your GPA, it probably wont). You have a strong chance of $ at Columbia, NYU, and Penn -- moreso than Chi.

I agree with all of this. What are your goals, OP? Are you interested in being a lawyer? If not, don't go to law school. Also, classes at all of the top schools will be heavily oriented toward the theoretical. Chicago wouldn't give you anything different from its peers in that regard.

[052220151]

I was wondering if anyone could help me decide if I should apply early decision to Chicago or regular decision
I am only interested in attending Chicago, Stanford or Yale as they are small schools and emphasize the academic as well as the professional sides of law. If I knew i was gonna get into Chicago I would apply regular decision to all these schools and keep my options open, but if Chicago was a long shot I would apply early there. Any ideas?

If you want to be a lawyer, you should apply more broadly duder. This seems like a silly reason to sneer at money at the lower T13. Unless you are independently wealthy and can pay out of pocket. Take the $$$$ and run.