Lol agreed. I linked to them because the Above the Law article didn't really describe the case

I watched that gif like 15 times..

I would use this site to leverage your decision making: http://employmentsummary.abaquestionnaire.org.

My gut here is that the t-14 would give you a huge leg up with policy/govt positions considering that there are very few of these jobs and many students, even in the t-14, end up competing for non-criminal PI jobs. That being said, if you end up in a situation where, for example, you can attend a school just outside of the t-14 on a full ride vs. the t-14 financed solely on debt, I think a case could be made for attending a regional school (since PI pays less generally and law school is expensive). I know I just essentially argued for both sides.. ideally you can study for as long as it takes to kill the LSAT and then go wherever you want to :)

Best of luck!

Please tag me! I'll be rejoining study groups, maybe not this week, but soon.

Disclaimer: I don't have any experience personally applying here but my s/o is a 3L at UVA and this is just what I can remember from his application process/ our experience in C'ville.

He applied early decision because UVA was his first choice, I remember helping him edit his PS in late september but I am assuming that his application was not complete until sometime in early october because that's when he took the LSAT. He got an email wanting to schedule a short phone interview in mid november and they gave him the acceptance about 5 min into the interview (i'm assuming the interview was just a final screen). Admissions at UVA seem to value GPA a little more than many of the other t-14 schools and this held true with him (If you're curious about numbers PM me).

As far as 'culture fit' goes: The community here is very outgoing and collegial. If beer and softball is your thing then you'll be right at home. If it's not, the community as a whole is still really friendly. There's always something social to do. UVA has somewhat of a "fratty" reputation, but our friend group here has been pretty eclectic. There's a laid-back vibe that (from what i've gathered) our friends at other t-14 schools have not experienced, and many law students here genuinely have a fun 3 years together.

Job prospects: in his section, I cannot (off the top of my head) think of a single person who wanted a biglaw job who did not get one. I don't know if that's typical or not but he wasn't short on offers in the market he targeted (NYC).

Overall, I would highly recommend. Good luck!

Hi,

I think we have very similar goals. I postponed in December, delayed a cycle and will also be busy with work after the new year so I am taking in June. I am also aiming for a 173+ and I am worried about burnout since 6 months for a 3-4 point increase seems like a lot. For me, I am completely taking off December. In January I will start to drill my weakest section (games) and try to take 5 timed LG sections per week (older tests) and BR those with a few LR and RC sprinkled in once in awhile to stay sharp. I'll definitely be taking breaks/weekends off, whichever feels right. Then I'll probably go back to full PTs and BR groups sometime in April.

Idk if this is right for you but I think i'm going to give it a shot and then adjust as I go if I start to burn out/discover i'm not improving.

Best of Luck!

I know I kind of evangelize about ABA data on this forum.. but I would really recommend leveraging this website:

http://employmentsummary.abaquestionnaire.org/

If, for example, you want to work in biglaw (500+ employees) and you see that last year school X sent 5/100 graduates to a biglaw job then you can estimate that in order to get that job as a graduate from that school, you would likely need to be in the top 5% of your class. This can be very helpful in deciding how to approach debt and assess risk. If you're paying full price for a 5% chance of getting the job you want and/or a 50% chance of getting a job at all then it wouldn't be worth it. Conversely, if you see that a lower ranked school has plenty of graduates working in small firms/public interest/personal injury and a high overall employment rate then it could be worth it if that's what you want to do.

Just my two cents. Best of luck!

Also took here today, the ballroom did not have a lighting problem, sorry to hear that the rotunda did :(

@ ahh, I see. That's interesting, thanks!

Then maybe my comment does not apply. Another thing to not discount is money. Law school is already expensive, 3 1L semesters must be more expensive than 2, and if there are currently no data to support improvements in performance for students who choose to take 1LS classes then I would think twice about it especially since it sounds like OP is already leaning towards not doing so anyway.

**Another huge disclaimer because this is mostly speculation: but do you know how many people typically go for this option/what they advertise the advantages as being? If, for example, the 1LS classes are small and full of the same kind of people with similar goals all gunning for the top X% of the class then it is possible that the curve in such classes might be more difficult than a regular 1L class. If the curve is more difficult due to the type of people who self select into the 1LS program that *could* defeat the purpose. But again, this all depends on how the classes are graded and who takes them and why, none of which I know. So just something incredibly minor to consider.

Best of luck!

I have not heard of this approach nor do I have any non-anecdotal advice so take this with a grain of salt, but two minor concerns come to mind:

1. You might want to be sure that the particular culture of the law school that you are attending aligns with this plan. Arguably, the second most important thing next to 1L grades is probably networking with both professors and other students /2 and 3Ls who act as mentors (I know they play varying roles at different law schools so this may not be important to you). I can think of a school in the t-14 where the social culture can be particularly punishing towards people who are perceived to be "gunners" and a law school in the t-14 where this might be totally fine, if not expected for students to come to 1L with some knowledge of the curriculum. I don't know if this matters to you, but I can see how this could *potentially* be isolating at certain law schools (which shouldn't stop you, but might be worth thinking about a good culture fit when looking at schools).

2. there is a significant opportunity cost, financially, to doing this which may or may not outweigh the advantage you would stand to gain.

Again, I have no personal experience with this, only a small sample of 3L friends. Best of luck and let us know how it goes either way :)

Hopefully I didn't...

OMG I'M SORRY I THINK I ENDED THE MEETING. :( I pressed the first button out of reflex....

Nah, don't worry about it. They use the data for stats. In part to be sure that the test is fair.

http://www.lsac.org/docs/default-source/research-(lsac-resources)/tr-14-03.pdf

Clearly, I procrastinate too much.

AP credits from high school do not count; however, beware of duel enrollment credits (classes taken at your high school taught by a high school teacher certified to teach a college course. Most of these require a community college tuition fee so you should be aware if you took them). Source: took both AP and duel enrollment classes. AP did not count, DE did count.

I happen to also have been a transfer student, for me the actual grades of AP courses were never factored in to any of my undergrad GPAs.

So LR is my favorite section, but I went from going anywhere between -5 and -9 per section to consistently going between -0 and -2 with kind of intense BR.

I usually take a a timed section or two on Monday before work and circle any that I am unsure of during the timed test or feel that I spent too much time on. After work on the same day, I start with the normal BR process (which I do lightly and only on questions that I think I struggled with or spent too much time on - I don't BR whole sections, but that's just me).

At this point, I grade my section and note the ones I either missed OR was still unsure about during BR. By "unsure" I mean any uncertainty. For example: I know exactly why answer choices "A", "B", and "C" are wrong, I know that "D" is correct, but i'm not 100% certain why "E" is incorrect. Then I open up my favorite note taking app and type out the entire question and answer choices for all of the questions that I either missed, or was unsure of after BR. Additionally, I type out explanations in my own words for why each answer choice is either wrong or correct. Then I go to sleep because this takes all night.

In the morning, before work, I re-read each question and remind myself why I missed or was unsure of each question and I boil that down to a short few sentences of advice for my future self and summarize what I was bad at during that section and I keep all of those short summaries on a different document. The next time I take a timed PT, I read through all of the summaries from past failures and remind myself how I can avoid those traps this time.

Also, because i'm lazy, there is an element of self-punishment that works really well to motivate me (which I understand is not fun or effective for everyone). For example, when I find myself struggling to focus in a timed LR section and I come across a parallel reasoning question, instead of thinking "ahhh so much to read" and feeling overwhelmed, I end up focusing in on it and thinking "there is no fucking way i'm getting this wrong and having to type it all out later". So that's a plus.

I know that this might not work for everyone, but i've found it helpful in getting to -0 every now and then on LR sections.

Also, exactly what @ said. The BR calls are great and i'm sure everyone there would be able to offer even more/much better advice :)

Happy Studying!

Yes, maybe? I know a few people with your numbers or similar numbers paying sticker at UVA. *But* I don't know when they applied in their respective cycles. So if money isn't an object, apply anyway! That being said, if you delay a cycle and retake in feb or June I'm sure you could increase your score a few points and not have to pay sticker at a t-14.

@ said

I don't think anyone in this entire post has denied here that a t14 school gives the best possible shot at big law job. Do not think there are two views on this. But a t14 school is the only way for a big law job is just not true. If you believe that there are no exception to this big law rule that most jobs go to t14 grads, then you are just seeing in a tunnel.

quick rebuttal to this point: I don't think anyone denies that an airplane is the most efficient way to travel between Miami and NYC. But saying that flying is the only way to NYC from Miami is not true. You could also walk. If you believe that nobody can ever walk from Miami to NYC then you have tunnel vision.

I don't think anyone has claimed it's not possible, I think many are saying it's not prudent. Frankly, I don't think the cost benefit analysis is very close at all. Like the commenter above said, these options are apples and oranges. It seems like a lower t-14 or even $$ to a t-20, even if that means sitting out a cycle, would also be a reasonable option (say, driving from Miami to NYC) but a t2 with a goal of biglaw? Seems like unnecessary risk, not risk aversion.

At the end of the day I hope OP does what ever OP wants, but I think the arguments being made here are probabilistic, not absolute. Everyone thinks they're the exception to the rule.

@, thank you for the encouraging words!

Unfortunately for me, NYU's numbers have changed quite a bit in the last couple of cycles, and according to their 2016 entering class profile the most recent percentiles for GPA are 3.9/3.8/3.7, which places me a full point below their 25th. :( But I think you're right. Like you said above, LSAT trumps GPA, I just need to buckle down and get a score that would place me in more comfortable "splitter" territory.

http://www.law.nyu.edu/about/ataglance

Hi, fellow podcast junkie here. Those are all great. I would suggest adding Skeptics Guide to the Universe! Love this podcast. If I had a dollar for every time I recognized a science RC passage topic the minute I start reading because of info i've learned from this podcast... i'd have a lot of dollars.

@ said:

If you want big law.... Go to a top 13 school. I'd even count GT out as of late. BL is a lot like being a gladiator and NYC is Rome!

^this. can confirm. great metaphor. GT has become somewhat of a happy hour punching bag as of late, (sorry GT friends) but that's a perfect example of the prestige-oriented culture that you'll be up against.

If your goal is to work in biglaw in a large market (NYC/CHI/DC) I think that you should absolutely take on the debt and go to Chicago. I really do get your concern here -- it's a lot of money. It's a plus that you have partner connections at large firms that you think you would like to work for, but unfortunately, at a t2 school, interviews as a result of those couple of people pulling strings might be the only biglaw interviews you get. & then of course you have to convince the other prestige-obsessed partners and associates that will interview you that you deserve a place at the firm. & that's IF the particular partners you know can even ensure that you will get an interview. Getting your foot in the door at any biglaw firm that you don't have connections at will be the hardest part, regardless of your GPA. A lot of those top vault firms recruit entirely from their OCI process (on campus interviews) and rightly, or wrongly, they only go to ~14 schools. Many of the large firms just went to $180K for first year associates last summer. That's before a bonus. If you plan, and budget well, even in a high cost-of-living area you should be able to pay this down relatively quickly. IMO Chicago is absolutely worth the options it will bring you, otherwise you are betting your future entirely on a couple of connections. I would re-consider Chicago. (Source: s/o works in biglaw NYC).

Basically what @ said. Correct me if i'm wrong, 7sage, but I can't think of any example that would counter this: Correlation (in either direction) is necessary but not sufficient for causality. So, if I notice a correlation, or a relationship between two things, that by itself isn't enough to prove that one of those things is causing the other thing to occur. On the other hand, if there is causation between two things (we know that one is causing the other), a relationship between those two things (correlation) is a given.

Essentially all that this is doing is breaking the class into frequency distributions, so if the 25th percentile LSAT score in a class is a165, that means that 25% of the class members have LSAT scores that fall at or below a 165. The trouble is that we rarely know what the spread of data is (although some schools will also publish their range, which is nice). I would say that as a rule, if your scores are both at the 25th percentile then it's a pretty big reach, if your score's are both near the median (50th percentile) then it's probably a good school to target and if they're both near the 75th percentile then your odds are much higher. The math gets a little bit harder when, for example, one of your scores is at the 25th percentile and the other is at the 75th, then it comes down to the school and how their admissions formula weights GPA vs. LSAT - which is tough since many schools don't divulge this.

oh! and about the age thing. I was stressing about this recently because I noticed that 68% of the entering class profile for the school that I hope to attend was 2-3 years out of undergrad. I am going on 4 years out of undergrad! but I found a little * at the bottom of the page which said that age ranges accepted reflect the applicant pool, and that made me feel a lot better. This is probably typical, so I wouldn't worry too much about not being the average age or any of the other fun stats they post aside from GPA and LSAT.

Best of Luck on Saturday :)

I just withdrew from December... :( tag me also, please!