Hey,

I was wondering if anyone had any insight as to how law school admissions view GPA's as they approach the schools median. For example, if a schools median is a 3.8 and I have a 3.75, am I placed in the same "below-median" category as the student with 3.5? To what extent does the marginal .05 GPA matter?

Thanks

Hi all,

Lots of schools offer public interest scholarships. I would like to do public interest work after law school, but I don't have a lot of a lot of experience in anything that falls under the vague umbrella of public interest. Could someone elaborate on how they added more public interest experience to their resume if they were in a similar position? Any and all advice is appreciated!

So far there are only 5 I am really interested in but I feel like I should apply to more to give myself a better chance. Is there anyone who knows of a 'magic' number? Would also love to hear how many you all are applying to.

I have a question for Canadian Applicants. I applied to 4 Ontario schools, I just wrote the LSAT this month and I know I didn’t do well. I am already registered for the January exam, does anyone know what would happen to my application if I cancel my score and just use whatever score I get in January?

Too late to take the January LSAT & apply for Fall 21 Admission in Feb? Higher score later > Lower score earlier?

Anyone else in the same situation?

Hey y'all. I am starting to work on applications in addition to studying to retake my test in Jan. I'm a non-traditional student, working 50+ hrs a week so time is not on my side. But I also don't have anyone to go to for questions/advice in the application process. Are there any resources you'd recommend to get through the application process without having a mental breakdown :)

That's all. I think I blew it with RC yesterday and won't get the score I need to offset my mediocre GPA

I'm looking into two schools but one of them I'm not entirely sure I will get into (I have yet to break 150 on a PT, I've only gotten a 150 in BR and I take exam in JAN, fml). Anyway, there's one school that I'm not entirely sold on because it's a T4 (Widener Law) but I sense that I can get manage to get into it (MAYBEEEEEE) but, I'd love to go to Drexel Law. Assuming I get into Widener and not Drexel, what are you thoughts on transferring after 1L? I've been wanting to go to law school since 2018 and here I am, REALLY TRYING STILL...thoughts?

Hi everybody! I have really been stressing out lately. I've been really harping down on myself about my current situation and I'm really frustrated. I know that there are some discussions similar to this, but I just really need some advice in real-time. So I had a bit of an existential crisis over the summer about what I wanted to do with my life and decided in July that I was going to apply to law school and take the LSAT. This left me with only two months to study, and while I studied about seven hours a day, it still was nowhere near the amount of time needed to study for the October LSAT. I got my score back and it's a 150, which I was SUPER disappointed with because of my UG-GPA. I attended two four-year universities and one community college. My performance at my first college was really abysmal primarily because of extenuating circumstances, a really shoddy mental health situation, and undiagnosed ADHD (which I recently got put on meds for). Realistically, I need to raise my score by A LOT to make up for my GPA. I am mostly wondering, based on what I have said, should I wait to apply until the next Admissions Cycle or not? I plan on taking the January and February test to improve my score and I've read that it might be a little late to apply to schools by the time that I get the results back. Let me know what your thoughts are! If you answer the poll please give me a reason why!

I graduated in 2019 and have worked for the past year in Finance. I was able to get a letter from my current work manager. I understand having an academic letter is important. Over the past month, I have emailed ~10 professors whose classes I have done well in, as well as a few career and pre-law advisors. I have only received 1 response and they said they were too busy and now was not a good time. What should I do? I was hoping to apply before Thanksgiving, but that is looking less likely. I can get another letter from a previous internship supervisor, but that would leave me with 0 academic letters. Should I apply with 2 professional letters and apply earlier, or delay applying and hold out (hopefully) for an academic letter?

Hey all,

I'm kinda having a crisis: I'm applying to Iowa, which is a really dream school for me, and it hits a lot of my desires/requirements as far as the school goes. I'm really interested in PI/gov't work, particularly prosecution, complex litigation, and moving into investigating white collar/environmental crime, ideally as a DA/AUSA. Iowa has a lot of cool academics who work in these fields, and it seems to have some great practical programs to this effect as well. And it punches a bit above its weight as far as things like clerkships are concerned.

But I'm worried that a) Iowa might be too regional outside of the midwest though i wouldn't mind living there (especially Chicago/KC), and that b) it might be too low ranked for these positions that I fear might be a bit unicorn-ish. Would going to Iowa and doing extremely well mitigate that possibility, or do I need to go somewhere in the t14 to have a fighting chance of working in these fields?

Really curious if anyone has an answer to this: I am applying to my alma mater for law school. I was wondering if they refer to my undergrad application by any chance. Only asking because there is some overlap with how one of the essays were written back in my college essay as it was a significant experience for me.

Does anyone know if adcomms have access to undergrad essays?

Hi all,

I am currently struggling with whether or not to submit an addendum with my LS application materials explaining 2 low LSAT scores. For background, I scored a 162 in May and a 153 in August. I have been averaging low to mid 170s on practice tests the past several months, and I think the November test went really well. I am anticipating I scored around a 170 (or maybe slightly over). As a result, I will have something like a 162-153-170ish score spread (yikes!)

For the 162, I took the May LSAT-flex after studying for just 2 months because I anticipated entering the fall 2020 class late in the game. However, when I realized it was smarter to wait until 2021, I signed up for the August LSAT-flex. I have struggled with Generalized Anxiety Disorder for years, which often manifests itself in panic attacks. For the August test, I had a 10-minute long panic attack that resulted in me bombing the logic games section (and my score of 153). The panic attack itself was related to a lot of technological failures (my computer not connecting to the internet, the campus-wide internet going down several times that week) and the fact that I couldn't get to my testing location until 10 minutes before my test (I was testing on a university campus and the COVID screening process didn't open until right before my test time). As a result, my anxiety was at an all-time high by the time I actually got into the test.

For the November LSAT-flex, I talked with my doctor and was prescribed medication that decreased my situational anxiety going into the test so that I could avoid a panic attack altogether. I also wired into the internet with an ethernet cable to avoid anxiety related to technological failures. Overall, I feel that I was able to overcome the previous hurdles I experienced on the August flex.

I am leaning towards writing a no-BS addendum briefly explaining that I have an anxiety disorder that manifests itself in panic attacks. However, I have heard advice from different admissions officers that you should never use "nervousness" as an excuse on your addendum. I am also worried that sharing info about a psychological disorder is a bit of an "overshare" on an LS app. I am also curious if I should even include info about the technological failures/screening process because I don't want the addendum to seem like a laundry list of excuses. I want to be straight to the point, conveying only the facts. Any advice? Of course this will all bank on my November score coming back higher, as I've predicted.

Thank you 7sage-rs!!!

Does it take a while after a recommender uploads a letter for it to show up as received on LSAC? I'm getting worried because my recommenders said they would upload them weeks ago but it still says "requested but not acknowledged by recommender" and 0 letters received

2 years ago, I applied to a T14 school and was rejected. At the time, my GPA was at their median, and my LSAT was below their 25th percentile. Now, I have improved my LSAT score to exactly the median score. My personal statement, résumé, and letters of recommendation are very strong. Since my waitlist two years ago, I have made very solid advances in my career.

Do I have to re-work my entire application? Submit an entirely new personal statement? Write an addendum? Can I submit the same application with an updated résumé? Any advice is appreciated.

My downstair apartment was always vacant, the university reserved it as a temporary quarantine housing for students. Unfortunately, right after my LSAT started this afternoon, I heard loud TV noise downstairs, cheering and laughing. (I guess it might be the media coverage for Biden victory.)

That was really distracting as I couldn't concentrate on the test. I can read but cannot understand stimuli. I flagged 10 questions on LR (usually 2-3 flagged questions during PTs), and had no clues for the RC section.

I have to say the timing was "perfect", no noise during my test check-in, and just right after my first session began, the TV was turned on. (I can no longer leave the room at that time) If I had known someone moved in and the insulation was that bad, I would have politely asked my neighbor to lower the volume.

My decision is to cancel the score (I have my August score on hand). In my situation, is this a reasonable reason for cancellation? Do I need to provide an addendum for this? As I once read on the forum, that admission officers would not flag a single cancellation, they would just assume something bad happened.

my test was LR-RC-LG, LG was quite normal, sorry I cannot assess the difficulties for LR and RC, as I was not at the test during these two sections. LOL

GOOD LUCK on your FLEX exam and remember to check with neighbors if necessary.

What does YIELD mean in the Law School Predictor?

Hey everyone,

Duke Law's personal statement prompt says to mention your "personal and career ambitions," but in my "Why Law, Why Duke" optional essay, I go into detail about my career ambitions. I don't want to repeat myself (Duke specifically says not to do this), but I also don't want it to seem like I'm not following their directions... Does anyone else who has applied to Duke/gotten accepted have any insight on this? Thanks in advance!!

Hi,

I bombed my October LSAT and I thought I did so well. I planned on submitting my applications as soon as I received that score and was so discouraged when I saw me score. I am going to take the January exam and hope for the best.

I've talked to admissions counselors and they said that it's okay to apply with the January score but I don't know if they're just saying that. Is it better to wait to submit during the next cycle or take a leap of faith and submit as soon as I get my January score?

(I have really great softs and a good GPA (also URM))

I purchased CAS on 10/22/20 and ordered 3 college transcripts via LSAC's online form link on 10/25/20. My CAS status shows that no transcripts have been received or processed. Is this normal? I'm in no rush but worried I messed something up which is why they haven't been received?

does anyone know what the LSAT scores for Cambridge and Oxford are like? I can't seem to find data anywhere

Hello all,

I have taken the LSAT 4 times (158 160 163 (flex) 167(flex) upward trend) would an addendum be necessary? I do not have much to say about the score increase, other than I studied and improved my nerves and comfort with the exam.

Additionally, do I need a GPA addendum? I only have a 3.19 which is below the 25th for most of the schools I will be applying to.

Appreciate any insight.

Hi everyone! I'm just looking for some advice/feedback.

I started my law school journey a little later than most of you, and wrote my first LSAT this past August with hopes of attending law school in the fall of 2021. I originally planned on only applying to Canadian schools, as I am a Canadian citizen, but I've extended my interests and plan to apply to some T14 schools. Harvard, Columbia, NYU, UC-Berkeley, Cornell, and Duke are some I've been exploring but have yet to apply to. I scored a 167 on my first LSAT but I expected to break into the 170s, so I registered for the November LSAT. However, I then had to switch to January's exam due to personal reasons.

So, my dilemma is: should I apply to these top schools now (even though my LSAT score is below medians for most) or should I wait until receiving my January LSAT score and apply in February? February is cutting it close, and my chances of admission may decrease, but I believe I can score well into the 170s. I have a pretty high GPA (a 4.25) and know that my personal statements/optional essays will give me a boost as well.

Any guidance and/or personal experience would be highly appreciated! :)

Just going out on a limb here... I presume that "strongly suggested" in the context of the application instructions means that you definitely should do it. The ask is to explain test history if submitting more than one LSAT administration (I have 3 - 166, 166, 171).

No marching bands (or anything of the sort) were practicing outside while I was taking the test. Nerves definitely played a factor though. Is this something that I should still write given that I don't have a ton to say? Or do I just write what I can about nerves being a factor?

Hi everyone! I'm in the process of finalizing my personal statement and was wondering if anyone on here would be down to give me their opinions on it. Any help is appreciated :)