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Hey y'all. I'm new-ish to the forums and a first time poster.

June 2013 LSAT: 168

My LSAC GPA is 3.06, which includes one year, ten years ago, when I had a rough bout of depression and got a slate of Fs. My university (non-fancy state school) granted me a fresh start and counts only my GPA since I came back to school in 2010, which is a 3.965. So my transcript shows a year of Fs and then three years of almost all As.

I don't have an impressive resume, activities-wise, because I've worked low wage jobs to pay the bills since I quit school when I was 18. I am gay woman (highlighted in my personal statement), so I get a couple diversity points some places.

I've already got undergrad debt so scholarship money/future earning potential is my biggest consideration here. I've looked at lots of graphs but I know this year is a little weird for scholarships since apps are down so far.

I'm applying to Emory, Mercer, Vanderbilt, and South Carolina. I'm mostly interested in public interest law, but I'm open-minded, especially considering the economics of that choice. I'm okay living in the south for five-ish years after law school but ideally want to get further north.

Any guesses of acceptances and money for me at those schools? Anywhere I'm overlooking?

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I wish there was some hard data on how much of a soft an upward grade trend grants, but I don't think it exists.

vandy isnt too friendly with scholarships for splitters, youll definitely get in, emory may offer you a solid chunk of money, if you want to go to school in the south take a look at UGA (theyll probably offer you in state + money), and Alabama (possible close to full ride), wake forest is also pretty generous with big scholly.

However, if your intention is to go north i would not recommend going to a southern law school.

You could get a little money at Vandy now that their LSAT median is 167, but you won't get much. This past cycle they seemed much more friendly to reverse-splitters than applicants with your numbers. Most people in your situation who got a good amount of $$ were URM, but there was one with a 168/3.14 who got $65k off the waitlist. No idea how much was merit and how much was need though. I wouldn't go to any of the other schools if you want PI, but then again I probably wouldn't take Vandy if your real goal is PI. Vandy will open doors further north, but your grades will definitely have to be decent. Honestly, with PAYE, the debt is less of a factor than it used to be since you can basically shove it off on the taxpayers after 20 years of paying 10% of your income. If your ties are in the south, it will be easier to start out in the north and move south. It will be very difficult moving from a secondary southern market to a major market in the north, if that's what you're after.

Yeah, I'm a little confused. If you want to be in the north, why aren't you looking at northern law schools?

Dylanlj13 wrote:You could get a little money at Vandy now that their LSAT median is 167, but you won't get much. This past cycle they seemed much more friendly to reverse-splitters than applicants with your numbers. Most people in your situation who got a good amount of $$ were URM, but there was one with a 168/3.14 who got $65k off the waitlist. No idea how much was merit and how much was need though. I wouldn't go to any of the other schools if you want PI, but then again I probably wouldn't take Vandy if your real goal is PI. Vandy will open doors further north, but your grades will definitely have to be decent. Honestly, with PAYE, the debt is less of a factor than it used to be since you can basically shove it off on the taxpayers after 20 years of paying 10% of your income. If your ties are in the south, it will be easier to start out in the north and move south. It will be very difficult moving from a secondary southern market to a major market in the north, if that's what you're after.

I think that is really good advice and I'd like to echo that sentiment. From my experience (rather limited, so take it for what it's worth), it can be very challenging for lawyers to move mid-career to a new city and a new organization. I'd imagine with PI it may be possible depending on your connections (say the organization you work for in the South has its headquarters in DC), but it's risky to make career decisions on connections that may or may not be there in the future. The North may have more legal jobs, but it also has many more attorneys competing for those jobs - a lot of them will have strong ties to the area.

I'd say it would be much more feasible for someone to start in a large market in the North and move to a mid-size market in the South and although it may very well be possible to do the opposite, I think it will be a challenge and may come down to factors you cannot control. However, if I had any piece of advice it would be find a lawyer that works in the same field or type of organization you want to work in and ask these questions, because all of what I just said is mostly my speculation.