Hi guys,

I really need some advice. I applied to the University of Victoria in BC, Canada. My index score (based on my GPA and LSAT) is quite high compared to most of the students who have posted about their acceptance on lawstudents.ca. BUT I applied on Jan 15, five minutes before the deadline... I did not do a good job on my personal statement, despite being a good writer, because I was anxious and procrastinated for far too long. I have this uneasy feeling that this HUGE mistake (which I know was a major fuck up) might have cost me my acceptance. What's the best thing to do now? Just wait patiently and hope for the best or get in contact with the admissions team? I mean, I don't know what I would say, I just know that I really want to get in...

At a loss for next steps... has anyone had this happen?

Thanks so much ♡

P.S., no I am not being hard on myself. My PS actually sucked.

Hey everyone,

My school in Canada only gives out percentage grades on my transcript. They also have a chart that converts your percentage grade to a corresponding letter grade. But there are no letter grades on my transcript.

Canadian percentage grades seem to be vastly different from US percentage grades; as my institution counts anything over a 94 an A+, over 90 an A, and so on. The conversion chart at LSAC is substantially lower in terms of percentages.

If I calculate my GPA based on the corresponding letter grades at my institution, my GPA is 4.1. However, those grades aren't on the transcript, so my GPA is 3.75 according to LSAC.

My question is, since there's a huge discrepancy, what can I do? I talked to LSAC and they seemed pretty fixated on taking whatever is on the transcript. For note, I haven't sent in anything yet, but since it's such a huge difference it's causing me huge concern.

Thanks guys,

I am lost between entering into a paralegal course( 2 year program) then apply to law school or purchase any of the courses on 7Sage then apply to law school?

I am a newcomer to the law society, I am not an expert on what I should choose, it would be very helpful to get your opinions.

Thank you!

Hi Guys,

I am having some trouble right now with LSATs/admissions, and since I've found this community to be overwhelmingly kind and wise, I thought I would give it a shot. For reference, I am shooting for the T-14 (my undergrad GPA is within those ranges).

Basically, I've had a loooong relationship with the LSAT. Made every rookie mistake in the book. I graduated last June, and I first took an LSAT prep course the summer before my senior year. I went from a 150 to a 160, and thought I could get 173+ by the start of the school year. Obviously that didn't happen, and my entire last year of college was a whole slew of panicked withdrawals and parental pressure, which even resulted in an absence on one of the exams because I didn't withdraw on time.

Thankfully, the gravity of that mistake shocked me out of my cycle. I decided to focus on school, then pick it up again from graduation up until this past September exam. Having finished the curriculum and not discovered 7Sage yet, I studied COMPLETELY the wrong way. My instructor was well-meaning, but he was one of those "unicorns" of the LSAT world - went from a 150 to a 177 in 2 weeks, with a vacation to Mexico in between. (Lol I can't make that up.) He told us the best way to prepare was to drill question types for months and then take practice tests right before. Unfortunately, I still let pressures of friends/family get to me and sat for this past September exam, which I ended up cancelling.

That was kind of the final "shock to the system" I needed and I realized I want to finally do it right this time: PT and BR'ing, not registering until I'm ready, etc. Sure enough, it was working. Then, unexpectedly, I had to get pretty major surgery, which took quite a while to recover from. I have still managed to keep my score from slipping, and now that I'm finally doing a lot better it's on the rise again. I plan to sit for June or September, and am currently PT'ing solidly in the mid 160's (with about 10 PT's down).

However, it has now technically been over half a year (almost 8 months, yikes) since I've graduated, and I've been unemployed the entire time. The resume gap is extremely nerve-wracking, but I also know I can't afford losing focus - especially with an absence AND cancel on my record (also extremely nerve-wracking). Would part time be an option? Does such a big gap already drastically lower my chances of admission to a top school? I am determined to not make any more big mistakes this time around... any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Can I get some feedback on law school in Florida and what you guys think? I'm considering UF's law school and FIU but I'm open to all other options as well. FSU is a great school as well. But what benefits would I have picking one over the other? There are many factors to consider but can someone jump in and throw their two cents of knowledge. All feedbacks are welcome!

Hi Everyone,

I apologize if this discussion distracts someone studying the LSAT and I seriously need to apologize since I posted this discussion before and I just did a minor edition to it. I currently got into BU law, Emory Law, Georgewashington Law, and william and mary law (receive scholarship from all of them). When I limited my choice to GW and BU (incline to BU), an offer from Vanderbilt Law School kinda ruined my decision. Is it true that ranking does not matter if law school is not T14? I want to practice corporate law in Northeast area such as NY, MA (might be DC if possible). As an international student, I really cared about if I can get a job. Now it is GW, BU, or Vandy. 7sagers, what do you think? Thank you so much for whoever has left their comment down here!!

Columbia's application indicates that "the résumé should include a summary of written scholarships, presentations..." What are these exactly in the undergraduate sense? For someone who just did an undergrad degree, what count as "written scholarships"? And we've all done various presentations for classes but what kind of presentations are we to include here? Anyone familiar with Columbia has an idea on this? Thank you.

Good Afternoon, I hope everyone is doing well. I have two questions about how to navigate the CAS service that I was hoping someone could answer for me:

1: If my UG major is not in the dropdown menu for the "First Major" tab, am I forced to select the "Any Area not Listed" tab? Is there anywhere where I can fill in my major?

2: I was a transfer student, so I technically attended two undergraduate institutions. Is there a way to indicate this on CAS? I seem to be only able to select one undergraduate degree-granting institution. I am planning on sending both transcripts to CAS for GPA calculation, so I am concerned that they will not be able to indicate where part of my GPA came from.

Thank you.

Hey guys,

It still feels so weird to be on the other side of the LSAT haha. I (surprisingly) received an interview invite from Columbia today. I would greatly appreciate any insight! I've heard their interview can be pretty tough.

So....

I JUST SUBMITTED MY APPLICATIONS..... except for UT Law because they warned me in advance to wait until closer to deadline to submit since my February score will be coming in then.

Anyway, how does the process work normally and how long will it take for them to respond upon receipt of my February LSAT score? Do we get e-mail notifications from the school or does the LSAC let us know?

Hello,

So...I asked my prof to write a letter on January, and she kindly accepted.

But it's Feb already and it seems she does not open the email from LSAC yet.

The deadline is 2/15 and I told her that and I emailed her like 4 days ago attaching uploaded PS, but should I email her again and tell her as a reminder that the deadline is 2/15?

It must take some time for LSAC to upload the letter and send application to school so I hope she can email the letter like 2/13 at the latest but I do not want to push her neither...what should I do?

Should I wait for a couple of days more?

Thanks

Which one do you guys look at, US News? There's that other site, "law-schools.startclass.com".

What are you looking at to decide which is best, bar passage rate? or employment rate?

Also, I've been offered some scholarships to local and lower ranked schools. They are not in the region that i want to live. How hard is it to move right after going to law school? Or is it a better choice to forfeit the scholarships and go to the higher-ranked schools in the State that I want to move? PS. my tuition is paid by the VA so the scholarship money would be extra money.

Hey guys! I just got notified that HLS is offering me an interview! Wondering if anyone has been through it and would like to share some tips?

Hello,

I may put my working period or time wrongly...

For example,

worked at X from April 2011 to April 2013

worked at Y from April 2009 to March 2013. (supposed to be March "2011")

And I put different working hours on resume and the lsac online page, I only put the official hours on lsac form but on my resume I included hours that is not officially assignedtoo so longer...

This kind of mistake...

Should I email them and let them know if I mis-wrote any info? Would it look bad?

Really...I don't know why I did this.

When should we contact them?

Hi everyone,

It's my first time posting, but I'd love some insight on my resume. I don't have any friends in law school, and I've been out of undergrad for almost two years now, so any advice would be great. Basically, I graduated from a good university with a bachelor's degree in music performance. I had a high GPA, but aside from music courses in history/theory/performance, all my other courses were in language (I wasn't thinking about law school then, and foreign language study + classical music made sense...). I mean, I think I've accomplished a good amount in the classical music community, but that isn't exactly related to law. After I graduated, I spent a year waitressing, and now, in my second year, I work part-time in retail, do music gigs and teaching, and regularly volunteer with a non-profit in my state. I may have the opportunity to start volunteering with my state's legal aid soon, but I'm basically worried that my resume is too weak. Will a high GPA/LSAT score make up for this? I haven't officially taken the LSAT yet, but like everyone, I would want to score at least 170. Am I worrying too much?

Thanks in advance!!

Or we only need to submit it when they require?

Thanks!!

The instructions "strongly recommend" to send in my resume WITH my personal statement. I didn't, because I didn't remember to, because that is weird.

The online checker system says my application is "complete" but on the checklist, "resume" is unchecked.

Should I try and email them my resume? Or do you think that would annoy them?

I'm curious about the turnaround time for applications. I'm about to submit everything and I wanted a general idea about how long I should expect to wait to hear back. I realize it may vary by school, but for those of you who have already heard back, how long did that take? Thanks, guys!

I just found out that I didn't submit my summer school transcript. Could I estimate the GPA before submitting it on CAS?

Hi,

I found some schools even limit the words number to 350 even though they do not have page number limit for PS.

When there is no page number limit, should we still limit DS to 1 page/shorter than PS? or maybe, longest 2 pages or so?

By the way, characters and words are different right?

When it says 1000 characters, it is not the same as 1000 words, right?

Thank you

Hi,

My recommendar asked me to email the transcript too.

I have never been asked to give a transcript to a professor, so not sure this is common.

Did you show your transcript to your recommenders?

Thank you.

So. I've been in the LSAT/Law School admissions process for a while.

But something happened that I've never seen before today.

A friend of mine applied to a T20 law school.

He/She has solid softs, great life story, and her/his numbers put her squarely in the medians for the school.

He/She has one more LSAT take left and was training hard for her/his take in February.

My friend received this message from the school:

" Hello (Name),

Thank you for your email. If you would like your file complete now, you will need to cancel your February 2017 test registration and email a confirmation of the cancellation. Feel free to contact our office if you need additional assistance.

Best regards,

(admissions person) "

Is this normal??????

It seems like some type of garbage way to yield protect.

Would love some insight on this.

Hi all,

Just to give you an idea of where I stand, I applied to almost all of the T14s, as well as a few schools ranked 17-25. My stats aren't that great, but I am a nontraditional student with a very interesting life story, as well as an underrepresented minority. One of my friends told me that, because of this, I would actually have a better shot of getting into a higher ranked school because they don't need to be as worried about preserving their numbers. I didn't believe her until I very recently got my first acceptance.

So far I have been accepted into Columbia (4), waitlisted from Cornell and Georgetown (13 and 14) and rejected from Berk, Emory, and GW (8, 22, and 25). I haven't received anything about scholarships from Columbia, so I don't know how much money (if any) they are going to offer me.

From what I have heard, you can negotiate with a given law school based off of what another law school offers you. In light of this, I am hoping that I get into a lower T14 school (like Duke or Northwestern) and use Columbia as leverage. I would love someone's opinion on how feasible that would be, as well as how the process actually works.

Thanks in advance!!

Let me edit this post because I don't want him to see it just in case.

Thanks again, everyone :)

The purpose for me pursuing law school is to ultimately work in public interest. I hope to get into policy making/changing.. especially education law and disability law. With that said.. I would love to make it to a T14 school.. Georgetown would be a dream come true.. or Cornell.

My husband is applying to veterinary school the same time I am applying to law school.. This limits my choices of T14 schools. I honestly just want to get into a decent school with scholarships that will allow me to work in public policy.

Considering what my goal with a law degree is, is it reasonable to NOT attend a T14 and still accomplish my goals?

I've been doing too much lurking on the TLS forum.