Chances for HLS? Forum

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HLSHopeful543

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Chances for HLS?

Post by HLSHopeful543 » Mon Sep 09, 2019 12:37 am

I'm applying the next admissions cycle. 3.88 GPA from USC majoring in political science and a 176 LSAT on third try. Average to good resume. I have been working 2 years now as a paralegal for an international nonprofit, which really confirmed my passion and interest in going into public interest, which I will talk about in my essays. Good enough letters of recommendations, I would say?

What are my chances for Harvard. I'm planning on applying as early as possible because I have most of my stuff together.

dvlthndr

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Re: Chances for HLS?

Post by dvlthndr » Mon Sep 09, 2019 2:23 am

Your odds are very good. Most people applying with that range of GPA/LSAT get accepted (90%+). Everything else sounds pretty average, but that is totally fine. The scores are what really matter.

That said, you should still consider blanketing the top 10 schools. If you pull the short straw and don't get into Harvard, you may be able to console yourself with Stanford/Yale or a free ride at Columbia/Chicago.

QContinuum

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Re: Chances for HLS?

Post by QContinuum » Mon Sep 09, 2019 2:57 pm

dvlthndr wrote:That said, you should still consider blanketing the top 10 schools. If you pull the short straw and don't get into Harvard, you may be able to console yourself with Stanford/Yale or a free ride at Columbia/Chicago.
To be clear, I believe the above was slightly sarcastic. OP, you should absolutely not obsess over HLS to the exclusion of other top schools. There's (just about) nothing Harvard can do that Yale doesn't do better*, and a hefty scholarship at Chicago/Columbia/NYU may well be worth passing on Harvard on. You would be doing yourself a grave disservice by focusing solely on Harvard.

*The main exception that comes to mind is foreign public interest work. This means work that 1) is based in a foreign country, not the U.S., and 2) is not BigLaw (including foreign offices of U.S. BigLaw firms). For these positions, IMO Harvard has the edge even over Yale, in large part due to its global lay prestige. But this is a narrow exception, and even where it applies, one should recognize that these positions are very rare, hire idiosyncratically, and cannot be guaranteed by any stretch, not even from HLS. For domestic positions, including U.S.-based international human rights positions, Yale wins every day and twice on Sundays.

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