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Hi All, I am feeling some anxiety and panic about being admitted to law school. I did not have a linear path to obtaining my degree. I made quite a few mistakes along the way and I'm very afraid that those mistakes are going to make it difficult to get into law school. Here's my story:
I went to my state's university right out of high school in 2018. I grew up in a small town (I was very sheltered and moving to a big city) and had a lot of pressure weighing on me. I had severe depression (I have a diagnosis letter from my therapist) and I stopped showing up to classes in my first semester. Unfortunately, I was there long enough that I couldn't withdraw from my classes, so I ended up with F's in all of my first semester classes.
About a year later, I tried again. I was only able to take two classes (it's a very long story as to why only 2 classes), but I ended up having a medical issue that affected me physically and emotionally. I ended up withdrawing from one of the classes and getting a C in the other class.
I took a little time off to find out what was important to me. I worked on my mental health and overall living situation. Eventually, I started going to school online in 2020. This turned out to be the best decision because I was on the Dean's list numerous times and didn't get a grade below an A- for quite some time. However, I was working part time and ended up moving to an apartment and had to get a full time job. I was able to hold on to my grades for a little bit, but they started slipping and I began to get some Bs and Cs here and there. I ended up falling behind in some of my classes. The classes were only 5.5 weeks, so if you fall behind, it's almost impossible to catch up. I ended up failing a handful of classes. That wasn't the end though, because I was determined to graduate. I retook every class I had failed and graduated with a 3.72 GPA.
During all of this, I had undiagnosed ADHD. I am currently on a medication that has been life changing.
I have been working in the legal industry since May of 2022. I started at a boutique law firm, moved on to a medium firm, and now I'm at one of the biggest firms in my city as a legal assistant. I'm not planning to go to a T14 school or anything like that. I really just want to try to go to UMKC (Preferred) or even Washburn.
I did not realize that the GPA on LSAC would be determined by all grades I've ever gotten, so my GPA went from a 3.72 to a 3.16. I know this means I now have to get a higher score on my lsat than I originally thought.
Question:
Does my academic path seriously hinder my application or does it show growth? I would be confident that it would show growth if it weren't for the period of bad grades after starting a full time job.
I plan to take the Sept LSAT. I'm aiming to be in the low 160s. I just had a PT of 156, but this is before I even started the RC curriculum. Regardless, I'm pretty sure that I will have to take the LSAT again. Should I shoot for the October or November LSAT? I feel confident I can raise my score to the low 160s in Oct, but I'm not sure if I should be aiming for an even higher score due to my academic path?
Any thoughts or advice would be welcome. Thanks in advance for reading this novel!
I struggle with this too. I use my brain all day at work and it can be hard to come home to study and use my brain even more. The biggest thing that helps me is knowing that I don't have to practice perfectly. If my plan is to study 2 hours that night and I only study 30 minutes, I try to remind myself that 30 minutes is better than nothing. Having that mindset stops a shame spiral that completely derails studying.