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Hi all,

I was looking to see if you could help me either alleviate my concerns or help me with a predicament I've been having.

My stats as currently stands are as follows:

LSAT: 180
GPA: 3.69
Undergrad: Ivy-League, Biology Major
Hispanic, Not URM (as far as I know... do Ecuadorian-Americans count? Would anyone be able to shed some light on this)?

Overall, based on Mylsn, I feel pretty good about my chances overall, and in particular, at Harvard, which is where I want to go. My concern, though, is related to my Letters of Recommendation. I haven't asked for them yet, but I kinda screwed up my chances there, since I didn't really interact very much with my professors during my Undergrad. On the whole, I didn't attend office hours very often, and I'm not sure very many professors would remember me by name. I regret it now, but there's not much I can do about it at this point.

I was thinking of getting LORs from one of my professors that I took a couple classes with (one of them a smaller, 10 person seminar), along with another visiting professor, who is currently a law professor at Northwestern. I can't expect that what they write will really be anything other than generic, though. That's really all I've got, unfortunately.

I will also be including LORs from my current employer and former employer, and I expect those will be extremely positive, but from what I've read thus far, since I've only been out of school a year now (two by the time I start law school), there's not very much weight put on employment-based recs.

How much will mediocre LORs affect my chances for HYS and through the Top 14?

Thanks in advance for taking the time to read this.

I'd predict you'll probably get a full ride at some T-14s, LORs don't really matter

JusPassItToWill wrote:Hi all,

I was looking to see if you could help me either alleviate my concerns or help me with a predicament I've been having.

My stats as currently stands are as follows:

LSAT: 180
GPA: 3.69
Undergrad: Ivy-League, Biology Major
Hispanic, Not URM (as far as I know... do Ecuadorian-Americans count? Would anyone be able to shed some light on this)?

Overall, based on Mylsn, I feel pretty good about my chances overall, and in particular, at Harvard, which is where I want to go. My concern, though, is related to my Letters of Recommendation. I haven't asked for them yet, but I kinda screwed up my chances there, since I didn't really interact very much with my professors during my Undergrad. On the whole, I didn't attend office hours very often, and I'm not sure very many professors would remember me by name. I regret it now, but there's not much I can do about it at this point.

I was thinking of getting LORs from one of my professors that I took a couple classes with (one of them a smaller, 10 person seminar), along with another visiting professor, who is currently a law professor at Northwestern. I can't expect that what they write will really be anything other than generic, though. That's really all I've got, unfortunately.

I will also be including LORs from my current employer and former employer, and I expect those will be extremely positive, but from what I've read thus far, since I've only been out of school a year now (two by the time I start law school), there's not very much weight put on employment-based recs.

How much will mediocre LORs affect my chances for HYS and through the Top 14?

Thanks in advance for taking the time to read this.

All this parsing of URM status for Hispanic-Americans is a bit maddening. Do we consider URM status as a function of how that person is perceived by the society at large (and thus may hypothetically be shut out from certain opportunities) or the particular background of the individual candidate. Is a kid from a wealthy, well-established Cuban-American family is maybe not a URM, while a kid with Ecuadorian parents who grew up in the Bronx maybe is? What about an African-American kid who grew up lower-middle class versus the child of African parents who grew up wealthy? Disentangling ethnic/racial and socio-economic identity here seems tricky. So whether you will be considered a URM or not, and whether you should be considered a URM or not, is a difficult question.

That said, you'll probably get into some good schools. Who knows about HYS.

So whether you will be considered a URM or not, and whether you should be considered a URM or not, is a difficult question.

That said, you'll probably get into some good schools. Who knows about HYS.

Two separate arguments between will OP be considered a URM and should OP be considered a URM....it doesn't really matter if we think OP should be considered a URM or not

URM boosts exist whether fair or not

You're gonna get in somewhere. As to where, I dunno. I suspect LSN could give you an idea.

I'd imagine out of HYS .....H is the most probable because of the low GPA for Y and S

One of my LORs basically said I was lazy. Still got in places. You'll probably be fine

Broncos15 wrote:

So whether you will be considered a URM or not, and whether you should be considered a URM or not, is a difficult question.

That said, you'll probably get into some good schools. Who knows about HYS.

Two separate arguments between will OP be considered a URM and should OP be considered a URM....it doesn't really matter if we think OP should be considered a URM or not

URM boosts exist whether fair or not

I wasn't talking about the fairness of the URM boost as a general concept, I was talking about how ill-defined the category of URM can be, thus making it difficult to know whether one will get a URM boost, whether or not one "should".

bretby wrote:

Broncos15 wrote:

So whether you will be considered a URM or not, and whether you should be considered a URM or not, is a difficult question.

That said, you'll probably get into some good schools. Who knows about HYS.

Two separate arguments between will OP be considered a URM and should OP be considered a URM....it doesn't really matter if we think OP should be considered a URM or not

URM boosts exist whether fair or not

I wasn't talking about the fairness of the URM boost as a general concept, I was talking about how ill-defined the category of URM can be, thus making it difficult to know whether one will get a URM boost, whether or not one "should".

I don't think there is much data or anecdotal evidence on this .....My guess is a wealthy AA still trumps a poor Caucasian/white....but if ( and if so , to what extent) a poor AA outperforms a wealthy AA is much less clear

With that huge of a split it's very hard to predict how your cycle will look. Your GPA is by no means bad but you'll still be considered a big splitter because of that stellar LSAT. I think Harvard is doable because they admit a very large class size and need to maintain their high LSAT median. And I think you'll be looking at some generous scholarships or even full rides from places like Columbia or NYU (very splitter friendly). Chicago is a crap shoot because they aren't splitter friendly. If you do get in though they are known to be quite generous. Below T6 you should be a shoo in (or maybe yield protect for Virginia and other strong YP offenders) , mediocre LOR or otherwise. The only exception may be Berkeley because they really value GPA over LSAT. That being said, I do think they really do take a holistic approach and will probably understand that your 3.7 as a science major is worth more than a 3.7 in Criminal Justice, for example.

3.69 is not that huge of a split.

Check out http://www.mylsn.info for chances

You'll be fine.

retake

LSATobsessed wrote:retake

Excellent post/user name combo

I bet you'll nab Harvard, don't think the LORs will be a problem there at all. I think the quality of LORs are something you stress like crazy about when you send in your apps and then laugh about after you get your decisions because you realize how little of a difference they make, one way or the other. Y/S who knows, but you should have good options no matter what.

Broncos15 wrote:

bretby wrote:

Broncos15 wrote:

So whether you will be considered a URM or not, and whether you should be considered a URM or not, is a difficult question.

That said, you'll probably get into some good schools. Who knows about HYS.

Two separate arguments between will OP be considered a URM and should OP be considered a URM....it doesn't really matter if we think OP should be considered a URM or not

URM boosts exist whether fair or not

I wasn't talking about the fairness of the URM boost as a general concept, I was talking about how ill-defined the category of URM can be, thus making it difficult to know whether one will get a URM boost, whether or not one "should".

I don't think there is much data or anecdotal evidence on this .....My guess is a wealthy AA still trumps a poor Caucasian/white....but if ( and if so , to what extent) a poor AA outperforms a wealthy AA is much less clear

That last question is what I was trying to get at - how the category URM is defined for the purposes of admissions and how this impacts people of color who are coming from different socio-economic backgrounds. My impression is that wealthy people of color outperform less well-off people of color, perhaps almost to the point of excluding them, with regards to competitive admissions processes. I'm not saying that anything should be one way or another, just that when the OP raised the question of whether he "counted" as a URM because he was Ecuadorian-American, this raises a lot of really interesting questions.