Applying super late with a 170+, 2.1 CAS-adjusted, decent "soft" factors; looking at OSU, UNC, IU Bloomington, WUSTL
Posted: Thu Mar 09, 2017 10:39 pm
Due to sleeplessness and performance anxiety the day of the test, my LSAT as it stands is a crappy 159. However, I only studied for three weeks and was PTing at 163-165 (under strict conditions). I have just over 12 weeks until the June LSAT, and I'm confident that the potential for a 170+ is there.
The biggest weakness in my app is the CAS-adjusted GPA. 2.1. I was naive and uninformed. I met with an advisor only once in all my five years of undergrad; I literally had no idea my retakes would come back to haunt me. There was one semester wherein I became ill and stopped attending classes (tuition was applied towards the following semester but there are still 5 Fs on my transcript). All of my other shitty grades and retakes were in required entry-level science classes, and in Spanish. Fuck Spanish. Needless to say, I plan on writing the addendum of addenda.
As far as soft factors are concerned, I was a political and legal philosophy major. I have three As and a B in four grad-level philosophy seminars. I won a departmental award for a paper I wrote in a grad-level seminar on contemporary political and legal philosophy. Two profs from the department (and possibly the department chair) are writing my LORs. Of less relevance, I held various leadership positions in a student outreach group I was involved in.
Oh, and I haven't done much research into how much it'll help, but I'm in the process of gathering evidence to prove that I'm 1/16 Sioux.
From what I've read, the applicant pool is small this year (more applications but fewer applicants). All the schools listed in the title of this post are officially accepting super late applications, and rumor has it that schools with earlier deadlines and rolling admissions policies are waiting until after the June LSAT to tap into their WLs.
I'm well-aware of all the cons of applying super late in a given cycle so there's no need to reiterate them. Honestly, I would rather gamble on a TTT - or blow my brains out for that matter - than spend another whole year waiting tables. Can a 170+ and my soft factors compensate for my GPA and get me in somewhere halfway-decent this cycle? Preferably somewhere that positions me as a competitive applicant for a PD job upon bar passage.
The biggest weakness in my app is the CAS-adjusted GPA. 2.1. I was naive and uninformed. I met with an advisor only once in all my five years of undergrad; I literally had no idea my retakes would come back to haunt me. There was one semester wherein I became ill and stopped attending classes (tuition was applied towards the following semester but there are still 5 Fs on my transcript). All of my other shitty grades and retakes were in required entry-level science classes, and in Spanish. Fuck Spanish. Needless to say, I plan on writing the addendum of addenda.
As far as soft factors are concerned, I was a political and legal philosophy major. I have three As and a B in four grad-level philosophy seminars. I won a departmental award for a paper I wrote in a grad-level seminar on contemporary political and legal philosophy. Two profs from the department (and possibly the department chair) are writing my LORs. Of less relevance, I held various leadership positions in a student outreach group I was involved in.
Oh, and I haven't done much research into how much it'll help, but I'm in the process of gathering evidence to prove that I'm 1/16 Sioux.
From what I've read, the applicant pool is small this year (more applications but fewer applicants). All the schools listed in the title of this post are officially accepting super late applications, and rumor has it that schools with earlier deadlines and rolling admissions policies are waiting until after the June LSAT to tap into their WLs.
I'm well-aware of all the cons of applying super late in a given cycle so there's no need to reiterate them. Honestly, I would rather gamble on a TTT - or blow my brains out for that matter - than spend another whole year waiting tables. Can a 170+ and my soft factors compensate for my GPA and get me in somewhere halfway-decent this cycle? Preferably somewhere that positions me as a competitive applicant for a PD job upon bar passage.