Hi everyone, I'm currently preparing for the LSAT for law school admission, but I'm not sure which law schools I could realistically target given my undergraduate transcript. I have a French bachelor's degree with a 12.9/20 overall average. I know LSAC doesn't do a straightforward GPA conversion, and in the French system it's quite rare to score above 16/20, so I'm not sure how admissions committees will actually read my transcript.
Could anyone help me figure out which schools might be within reach with a 170+ LSAT score? My goal is to work in Big Law in NYC after law school.
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I appreciate the very French handle to go along with your French bacc, @thibaultfieve!
In your case, I'd use your LSAT combined with your desired postgrad location (NYC) to determine your list of reach/target/safety schools. Your French bacc work will be seen by admissions officers as being totally solid. I know that that's a bit vague, but such is life when we're trying to compare apples and oranges (or in this case, the American and French educational systems). The key matter statistically is that you won't have a reportable LSAC GPA - it'll just be blank. That neither hurts nor helps you. But all it means is that we just have your LSAT as your lone statistical measure for figuring out your list.
Starting with schools in the city and near environs:
Reaches: Cornell, NYU, Columbia
Targets: Fordham (there's a bit of a gap here from the top three to the next group with just Fordham in between)
Target/Safety: Cardozo (only because it's a unique school)
Safeties: St. John's, Brooklyn, Seton Hall, Rutgers (you don't have to apply to all four, but I usually recommend doing one or two)
Outside of those schools, a lot of schools in the 170ish LSAT range will have solid NYC outcomes (Vandy, Duke, and Notre Dame come to mind). You can check out that information the ABA's employment forms found here: https://www.abarequireddisclosures.org/employmentOutcomes
I hope that helps!
@JacobBaska thanks for the advices,
I’ll try to have the strongest LSAT as possible and probably take the January LSAT if November is too short.