2.8 gpa, Mexican American Male, top 20-30 chances? Forum

[mikecal208]

Hello,
I am a mexican american male from South Central LA. I have around a 2.8 GPA. I go to a very good public university. What LSAT Score should I am for to attend a top 20 law school? Do I have any chance in enrolling in a top 20-30 law school?

[DportIA]

I attend Iowa (26), and you could probably attend here with a 162. Remember, declining admissions numbers are your friend.

Honestly, use http://www.lawschoolpredictor.com/ and http://lawschoolnumbers.com/

[Nova]

Hitting median would give you a pretty good shot at most t20/30s

[Ti Malice]

Use LSN and myLSN. LSP is worthless in general, and it's worse than useless for splitters.

Also, there's really no such thing as "T20 to T30." Don't fixate on USNWR rankings. Pay attention to employment outcomes and location. Schools outside of the T14 (and even within) place regionally/locally. Employers don't care about USNWR. Someone who wants to work in Philly, for instance, will be much better off coming out of Temple (56th) than someone with equivalent grades out of Iowa (26th). Most secondary markets range from somewhat to extremely insular, and preexisting ties will be important for getting job offers.

[cinephile]

You should be aiming for a 180 because why wouldn't you want to go to the best school possible and go for free?

[BigZuck]

Just go to http://www.mylsn.info and play around with that.

Also be sure you listen to what cinephile and Ti Malice are saying. Golden advice right there.

I really don't know how MA URMs with sub 3.0s do with CA schools but keep in mind that if you want to work in CA long term that might be a pipe dream. The good CA law schools (Stanford, Berkeleu, UCLA, USC) generally prefer higher GPAs and the rest of the schools in CA generally aren't worth attending because of poor job placement. If you want to work in CA your best (only?) bet might be Northwestern.

If you want to work some place like the Midwest you could go to a school like Washington University in St. Louis if they give you a big scholarship but I would move out there first and work for a year or two to establish some ties. Trying to get a job in the Midwest out of a school like WUSTL without Midwest ties or trying to take a WUSTL degree back to CA is too risky IMO but there are plenty of people on this site who are ok with taking that gamble so maybe I'm just too conservative with stuff like that.

[Nova]

Just 1 data point but...

[MA/3.2/167]

Got SC with 120k.

ok ok... there is usually a pretty big difference between 3.2 and 2.8....

But 167+ is about top 30 MAs, so even schools like UCLA/USC cant be too picky when they want to pick up MAs at or above the median.