Self-study
Hi. I’m 39 years old and thinking to go to law school in the future. Sadly my GPA is 2.63. My degree is in Computer Science, which I got 16 years ago, and I’ve been working as a software engineer for the past 16 years.
I’ve covered positions from software engineer, full stack engineer, team lead, principal software engineer and software architect. I also founded ny own company which I’m running at the same time while working full-time. I’m also a bilingual.
I started studying for the LSAT now and planning to take the test in January 2027, because I want to get a 170+ score to get into a good law school, if possible a T-14, but I’m ok with T-50.
Realistically, is my profile good enough to achieve this?
Thanks in advance.
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14 comments
absolutely. you can do anything (editing this because of course we cannot do anything LOL but you get the gist)
Hi. Best wishes with law school. You have an extensive background. I recommend leveraging your business owner experience to off set poor performance in undergrad. Use your business as a means to showcase your commitment to a thing and how you’ve been successful. Running a business successfully requires skills needed to navigate the complexity of a law school program. Again, all the best. You’ve got this!
38-year-old cat mom here. You can do this - you need to allow yourself to believe it. I am someone who struggled immensely with substance use disorder. After an overdose in August 2018, I chose to live again. Since being in long-term recovery, I have received a BA, am currently writing a Master's thesis, and am fulfilling my dream of being on the other side of a courtroom (*insert rehab funny here* hahaha). It isn't easy. Nothing in life worth having is. But I can promise you that it'll be worth it. As my prof always says - onwards and upwards!
Please reach out if you ever need a vent session.
@MegGaudet Thank you so much for your words and your story inspires me to keep pushing. I appreciate it.
@jcar787 You have it in you to do great things, my dear friend. Thinking of you. And don't you dare give up.
I have a similar GPA and I’m in my early 40s. I work as a business analyst in procurement for an insurance company, and before that I spent about six years in sales and retail management. To add to what Jacob said, and from what I’ve seen from other non‑traditional students on here, the things that matter most are a strong LSAT score, a solid personal statement, and your work experience. Storytelling is key. If you put those pieces together, you can build a very competitive application. Wishing you the best!
@AnswerChoiceE Thank you so much, wishing you the best as well.
@jcar787 - Yes, there are going to be candidates to law school who look like you and will be admitted! It happens every year!
First things first - your age isn't really relevant in the discussions that admissions officers will have about your app, or at least not directly. Being older isn't a good or a bad thing, but it immediately clues me into a few things. If someone is older, they're more likely to have a deeper resume (good!) and a clear rationale for why they want to make a career switch (and that clarity is also good!). One flip side is that they're more likely to have developed roots in their present community, including maybe having a family and children. Just from professional experience, I've found that those folks are a little less inclined to move than a 22 year old since those younger candidates don't need to worry about things like "selling my house" and "finding a new school for the kids."
(And please don't read that as a problem that you need to overcome or anything! If you can clearly articulate your interest to the school when you're applying - usually on the Why School X doc - you're fine!)
Regarding your GPA, it's low but there's the context that it was a long time ago. Older GPAs aren't as reliable for predicting your law school GPA as your LSAT will be.
And speaking of that, yes, a higher score can balance things out!
But one quick note - taking the LSAT in January will be late for applying to T14s and even a good number of T30s. National apps are way up (+30% vs two years ago). If you need to take that long to get the score you're hoping for, that's alright because you have to do what you have to do. But I just wanted to give you a heads-up about this! My general rule of thumb for the upcoming cycle is that it's probably best apply before Oct 15th if at all possible.
I hope that all helps!
@JacobBaska Thank you very much Jacob for this. I understand it's going to be late but I'm not in a rush either. I prefer to do things right than rush them. Regarding moving, I live by myself (unless we count my dog) so moving for me is not really an issue, quite the opposite I would love to have an excuse for moving.
Thank you so much for your response, it clears tons of confusion I had.
@jcar787 I hear you and appreciate you about not wanting to rush things! But let me put this another way - it's a bit like saying that you're planning to arrive at the airport 45 minutes before your flight takes off because you want to be careful about packing and don't want to rush things. That's close enough to departure that you're probably going to run into problems unless you're leaving from a smaller airport where the security line is never longer than five people.
Here's what I mean outside of that analogy. With the marked increase in apps this year, there were some law schools who hadn't even touched their January apps by the time that their deposit deadlines were due in April. We could tell this from websites like lawschooldata.org. But these tended to be schools in the top 20-30 (names like Stanford, Vandy, Notre Dame, and USC). Schools further down the rankings typically have more flexibility for applicants submitting their materials in January and February. So if you're targeting the top schools, it may be better for you to test in January and then wait to apply to the next fall. But if you're applying outside that cohort (ie, flying out of a smaller airport), this is less of an issue.
Not trying to scare you, but just clarifying the nature of my "heads-up!"
@JacobBaska my plan is to apply next fall, that gives me plenty of time to organize everything related to my full-time job and my business before I move for law school if I have to move. So I'm targeting 2028 to start law school.
@jcar787 Then I gladly rescind my "heads-up!" and adjust it to a "wishing you the best on the January 2027 LSAT and then preparing your materials for submission in Sept/Oct 2027!"
@JacobBaska thank you for your advice. It helped tons.
You aren’t alone. I have a lower GPA and 47 years old. Good luck to you