What are my chances across the T-14? Forum

[legalbeagle123]

Hi,
I've been a lurker here for a while and am looking to get some input.

I graduated in May with a 3.91 and a 169 LSAT as a humanities and social sciences double major with a business minor. I've taken the test three times and scored a bit below my PT averages, but I don't want to retake as the test is going digital and I'm worried it would take a while to relearn timing and strategies for LR and RC when I don't have the passages in front of me to mark up. I currently work at a mid-size law firm in NYC that has some former SDNY and EDNY prosecutors as well as many former biglaw attorneys working for it. I'd say I'm a paralegal, but at the firm we handle some of the more substantive work alongside admin and typical paralegal duties, as there are no junior associates. In the month I've been there I've already had significant travel abroad to work on cases and I think that my work experience is probably going to be a decent soft when I apply. Back in undergrad I took some graduate level courses with PhD candidates in my major department and was president of the student government within my school's liberal arts college for a year. I was also involved in some academic student organizations. In terms of recs, I have two from professors that I had long-term research and class relationships with who know me very well and who both advised on my thesis.

I plan to apply in fall of 2020 and would appreciate a realistic gauge of where I stand. I know the tendency is to advise people to retake to score as high as possible and get into a top-3 school, but I'm not chasing the prestige for the sake of it. I want to go to a school that will give me both ample opportunity and allow me to graduate with minimal debt. Career-wise I am open to either biglaw or public service work; I figure I still have some time to work out which I would prefer to do. I'm wondering what my chances would be across the T-14?

[albanach]

Hi,
I've been a lurker here for a while and am looking to get some input.

I graduated in May with a 3.91 and a 169 LSAT as a humanities and social sciences double major with a business minor. I've taken the test three times and scored a bit below my PT averages, but I don't want to retake as the test is going digital and I'm worried it would take a while to relearn timing and strategies for LR and RC when I don't have the passages in front of me to mark up. I currently work at a mid-size law firm in NYC that has some former SDNY and EDNY prosecutors as well as many former biglaw attorneys working for it. I'd say I'm a paralegal, but at the firm we handle some of the more substantive work alongside admin and typical paralegal duties, as there are no junior associates. In the month I've been there I've already had significant travel abroad to work on cases and I think that my work experience is probably going to be a decent soft when I apply. Back in undergrad I took some graduate level courses with PhD candidates in my major department and was president of the student government within my school's liberal arts college for a year. I was also involved in some academic student organizations. In terms of recs, I have two from professors that I had long-term research and class relationships with who know me very well and who both advised on my thesis.

I plan to apply in fall of 2020 and would appreciate a realistic gauge of where I stand. I know the tendency is to advise people to retake to score as high as possible and get into a top-3 school, but I'm not chasing the prestige for the sake of it. I want to go to a school that will give me both ample opportunity and allow me to graduate with minimal debt. Career-wise I am open to either biglaw or public service work; I figure I still have some time to work out which I would prefer to do. I'm wondering what my chances would be across the T-14?

If you've lurked for a while, you know admissions is a numbers game. Congrats on that GPA. Experience and PhD courses won't count for much if anything.

I'm assuming you're not a URM. In which case you can expect your cycle to look much like this:



Already that looks like a great cycle. Apply broadly and you can expect decent dollars at a fantastic law school. However, about that LSAT. It's good, but it's not great. Imagine you hit 171 or 172. You go from being out at Harvard to a 50% chance. Or how about a full ride at UVA? It's going from good to the stuff dreams are made of.



Let's say you take UVA, so instead of that $50k offer you get a Dillard and attend for free. Your outcome might look the same, but I can promise you that having $200k less debt will make the start to your legal career an order of magnitude easier.

The choice is yours, but the potential ROI is amazing, and you will only get a single shot at law school.

[legalbeagle123]

Hi,
I've been a lurker here for a while and am looking to get some input.

I graduated in May with a 3.91 and a 169 LSAT as a humanities and social sciences double major with a business minor. I've taken the test three times and scored a bit below my PT averages, but I don't want to retake as the test is going digital and I'm worried it would take a while to relearn timing and strategies for LR and RC when I don't have the passages in front of me to mark up. I currently work at a mid-size law firm in NYC that has some former SDNY and EDNY prosecutors as well as many former biglaw attorneys working for it. I'd say I'm a paralegal, but at the firm we handle some of the more substantive work alongside admin and typical paralegal duties, as there are no junior associates. In the month I've been there I've already had significant travel abroad to work on cases and I think that my work experience is probably going to be a decent soft when I apply. Back in undergrad I took some graduate level courses with PhD candidates in my major department and was president of the student government within my school's liberal arts college for a year. I was also involved in some academic student organizations. In terms of recs, I have two from professors that I had long-term research and class relationships with who know me very well and who both advised on my thesis.

I plan to apply in fall of 2020 and would appreciate a realistic gauge of where I stand. I know the tendency is to advise people to retake to score as high as possible and get into a top-3 school, but I'm not chasing the prestige for the sake of it. I want to go to a school that will give me both ample opportunity and allow me to graduate with minimal debt. Career-wise I am open to either biglaw or public service work; I figure I still have some time to work out which I would prefer to do. I'm wondering what my chances would be across the T-14?

If you've lurked for a while, you know admissions is a numbers game. Congrats on that GPA. Experience and PhD courses won't count for much if anything.

I'm assuming you're not a URM. In which case you can expect your cycle to look much like this:


Already that looks like a great cycle. Apply broadly and you can expect decent dollars at a fantastic law school. However, about that LSAT. It's good, but it's not great. Imagine you hit 171 or 172. You go from being out at Harvard to a 50% chance. Or how about a full ride at UVA? It's going from good to the stuff dreams are made of.


Let's say you take UVA, so instead of that $50k offer you get a Dillard and attend for free. Your outcome might look the same, but I can promise you that having $200k less debt will make the start to your legal career an order of magnitude easier.

The choice is yours, but the potential ROI is amazing, and you will only get a single shot at law school.

Thank you for your response. My main concerns with retaking the test are that I've already taken it three times, that I currently work 60 hour weeks, and that I am worried about having to relearn the pacing and test taking strategies. When I do LR and RC, I tend to mark up the passages a lot on the paper and that helps me break down the structure of a passage. From what I understand that isn't really possible to do efficiently on the digital version of the test.

[notinbiglaw]

The softs don’t matter for law school admission but will be helpful for OCI a little.

Honestly if you’ve taken test 3 times and capped out at 169, I think you should start putting your applications together. I’d take the test one last time because a few points make a huge difference for you.

At 169, you’re getting like 2-3 questions wrong per section.

To crack 170, your priority should be:
Perfect LG. Even students that will never crack 170 can get nearly perfect on average (1-2 wrong) after lots of practice.
Whatever section you’re averaging 3 or more incorrect.

Beyond that, you get into areas where you should get help (programs, books, tutors) to identify question types you’re weak at. If there are no glaring weaknesses, you just have to do more question banks and practice. At this point you’re probably close to your ceiling.

[legalbeagle123]

The softs don’t matter for law school admission but will be helpful for OCI a little.

Honestly if you’ve taken test 3 times and capped out at 169, I think you should start putting your applications together. I’d take the test one last time because a few points make a huge difference for you.

At 169, you’re getting like 2-3 questions wrong per section.

To crack 170, your priority should be:
Perfect LG. Even students that will never crack 170 can get nearly perfect on average (1-2 wrong) after lots of practice.
Whatever section you’re averaging 3 or more incorrect.

Beyond that, you get into areas where you should get help (programs, books, tutors) to identify question types you’re weak at. If there are no glaring weaknesses, you just have to do more question banks and practice. At this point you’re probably close to your ceiling.

Thank you for the advice. Unfortunately I've used every released test and a host of prep materials between my takes. In practice I was averaging around 173 over 8 practice tests (with a 178 on an older test) before my last retake, but I think a combination of mild tiredness from a grueling senior year at school and early morning testing impacted my test day performance. My logic games were perfect. I got three wrong in each LR section and four wrong in RC. My LR mistakes were for both sections between questions 15-20, which is where LSAC seems to consistently drop trickier questions. RC was one wrong per passage and there was no pattern to the mistakes I made there. I'm just concerned that if I come back into studying for it now, I'll be out of materials and have to relearn notetaking and markup strategies for LR and RC because it's digital now.

[albanach]

Thank you for the advice. Unfortunately I've used every released test and a host of prep materials between my takes. In practice I was averaging around 173 over 8 practice tests (with a 178 on an older test) before my last retake, but I think a combination of mild tiredness from a grueling senior year at school and early morning testing impacted my test day performance. My logic games were perfect. I got three wrong in each LR section and four wrong in RC. My LR mistakes were for both sections between questions 15-20, which is where LSAC seems to consistently drop trickier questions. RC was one wrong per passage and there was no pattern to the mistakes I made there. I'm just concerned that if I come back into studying for it now, I'll be out of materials and have to relearn notetaking and markup strategies for LR and RC because it's digital now.

Just reuse old tests. You've taken so many, it's not like you'll remember them all. Sure there'll be questions that you remember, so be it. Even if it's just a wild shot in the dark, the difference a few points could make is worth it.

Is there anything you can do about the 60 hour weeks? Say 20 hours a week for three months gets you a 172 and an extra $50k scholarship. That's $200/hour.