Top Law Schools

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You should retake until you reach your target score or run out of retakes. Waiting one more year to attend could translate into thousands of dollars.

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rlrsb03 wrote:I have heard this advice before, and I am not against it, but I guess I just don't quite understand why schools would offer you more money for a higher score if you are already above their median (and in this case their 75th percentile too).

Hopefully someone else can chime in on this point, but yeah actually I'm not sure how much more money you can get because there are diminishing returns above a 75th.

But to answer another one of your initial questions, a higher LSAT score will certainly get you into better schools

Short and simply, there does appear to be diminishing returns once above the 75th percentile LSAT. These are small sample sizes but it should give you an idea.
A possible benefit of a higher LSAT is that you could apply to peer of higher ranked schools, get scholarships, and negotiate with Colorado.
That being said, I don't think there's a compelling enough reason to sit out the cycle and retake in this case if your #1 choice is Colorado.

Think about if you are truly willing to take on that debt load if you truly are a non-traditional student age-wise.
What are your career goals?

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What are your career goals?

What kind of law?

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rlrsb03 wrote: To me, staying in Colorado seems like the best choice as finding legal work in the bay area seems really difficult now. I would entertain the idea of retaking for a school that could open up opportunities in the bay area, but with my low gpa, I don't know if this is possible.

Yeah, Berkeley and Stanford are out with the GPA. The CA law schools worth attending are unfortunately pretty GPA-centric.

rlrsb03 wrote:Just fyi, I did just complete a second bachelor degree at my local college with a gpa of 3.96, which could help redeem myself a little bit gpa wise.

Unfortunately won't matter. If you write a GPA addendum, you can point to the 3.96 as showing your true academic potential. But law schools report the first Bachelor's GPA so the 3.0 is what they'll care about.

Honestly it seems like you're more mobile geographically than I originally thought. Colorado is pretty stingy with scholarships. Raise that LSAT and you can have really good options (more scholarship $$) at better schools as a splitter.

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rlrsb03 wrote:What kind of schools do you have in mind? I would say that I am pretty mobile geographically, in that I would be open to working in other locations, but California and Colorado are where I have ties.

Check out this :http://mylsn.info/e6tqyx/

and this: http://www.lstscorereports.com/schools/

You can play around with different LSAT scores, and look at the employment numbers of different schools to check out potential options

rlrsb03 wrote:What kind of schools do you have in mind? I would say that I am pretty mobile geographically, in that I would be open to working in other locations, but California and Colorado are where I have ties.

If you get 167+, a $90k+ scholarship at WUSTL is certainly possible. That's over twice as much as CU would give you.
I'll defer to Nony to discuss your career goals, since she's talked about immigration law before.
I get that CU has a special natural resources law clinic/program/what-have-you, but specialty rankings and such are largely considered flame and always take a back seat to costs and chances of desired employment.

I assume you're financing with loans?

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rlrsb03 wrote:I have been under the impression that regional ties were pretty important, unless you're looking at the top 14 schools. Would it be a good choice to go to somewhere like WUSTL, which would have less debt, but maybe be harder to get a job without ties to the area?

My reasoning for Colorado has little do to with their environmental law program, fyi, but it is certainly a bonus. It is because they are the top school in the Rocky Mountain region.

Thanks again, this is all super helpful. I have been feeling pretty confused about all of this.

My experience with WUSTL is that it's a good school in the Midwest, and pretty decent at helping you get back to the market you're from. For example, most people I know from Texas, Florida, California, etc. were able to go back that way. But if you're from Georgia and trying to get to Texas, you can pretty much forget it unless you're at the very top of the class.

Of course, if your ultimate goal is say, Texas, it wouldn't make any sense to take WUSTL over Texas, all else being equal.