Hey 7Sagers!
My name is Jake Baska and I'm one of the admissions consultants here at 7Sage. Just FYI that I'll be doing an AMA tomorrow on the Law School Admissions sub-Reddit over here: https://www.reddit.com/r/lawschooladmissions/new/. It'll be from 11AM - 1PM Eastern. Come on by, ask a few questions, maybe give my ridiculous gif-game a kind upvote, etc.
Hey kme_2023,
Thanks for your question/s! Just chiming in from the 7Sage AdComm perspective.
Speaking broadly, yes, AdComms will take into account your major and the school that you went to for undergrad. LSAC also provides information to law schools about the GPA spread for students applying to law school who graduated from various undergrad schools - one thing I always noticed was that GPAs tended to be lower for students coming out of the service academies.
As far as how to balance out a lower GPA, the big things you can do are:
Do well on the LSAT.
Build a great professional resume.
On your application, clearly articulate who you are and the unique things you'd bring to the law school learning environment.
Serving in the Coast Guard certainly takes care of the second point; the first point is a bit subjective (ie, one school's median is another school's 25th percentile...); and the third one is something you'll be working on this summer.
I hope that helps!
7Sage Admissions Consultant chiming in here!
While it's always great to have an academic letter, Admissions Officers realize that that's not really feasible once you get a few years out of your most recent collegiate work. Put another way, if I opened up an application and saw that some graduated from college in 2015, I would automatically assume that I would be reading professional LoRs instead of academic ones.
So what should you do about your letters? I'd encourage you to reach out to your supervisors. They can give a sense of what you bring to the work space on a daily basis.
And regarding your second question about reaching out to a school post-decision for feedback, I'd say that there's no reason to worry about that now. Keep your eyes on your goals (most immediately - doing well on the LSAT) and approaching your applications with confidence!
Hey 2tUSSCs-1-1-1-1,
Thanks for your messages and sorry that we missed it! You're right, the admissions consulting team doesn't typically scan our LSAT pages as often to see if there are questions to answer!
With that said - hey! My name is Jake and I'm one of the admissions consultants at 7Sage. Prior to joining our team, I was the director of admissions/fin aid at a law school for seven+ years. I hope I can be of assistance!
First and as Matt Sorr suggested - track down your transcripts. I would suggest obtaining copies of your transcript for your own records. That also then allows you to be as accurate as possible when creating your CAS account.
Regarding dual enrollment classes, you will likely have to report those. Any and all baccalaureate credits have to reported to LSAC.
Regarding your study abroad classes, check your undergrad transcript (eg, School A) first before worrying about obtaining a transcript from the foreign institution (eg, School B). If School A has a study abroad agreement with School B, your classes/credits/grades from School B will likely appear on your School A transcript. If that's the case, then you only need to send your School A transcript to LSAC. Again, the keys here are if your School A transcript shows your classes, credit hours, and grades received from School B.
I hope that helps! Feel free to drop a follow up note here if you'd like (and also do feel free to connect with our team via the "Schedule a Free Consultation" link on this page: https://classic.7sage.com/admissions/pricing/).
Best,
Jake Baska
Hey BeepBoop and blanklaw,
7Sage Admissions Consultant here to chime in!
There's a lot of "it depends" here. The big one is "when did you apply?" If it's within the past few weeks (let's say in 2023), then schools are probably still just processing your app along a normal pace. But if you applied back in crazy old days of 2022...? Then it could be worthwhile to send a check in message.
And notice how I'm calling it a "check in." Technically, a LOCI is something you send if you're on the waitlist somewhere. But if you haven't heard anything, then we're just checking in.
As far as the message goes, it doesn't have to be anything fancy: introduce yourself, mention when you applied and when your app went complete, and what your current app status is via your status checker. Briefly mention that you understand that the admissions committee is working hard and has likely received a lot of applications this year, but you just wanted to check in and offer to address any questions the committee may have regarding your candidacy. You can also note some of the main reasons why this school is among your top choices and why you're so excited to hear back from them about a decision. Notice how you aren't asking "WHERE IS MY DECISION?!?!" You're just checking in, offering to help if they need assistance, and mentioning again how interested you are in attending. The subtext can be ALL CAPS while your words directly say "I'm a professional."
I hope that helps!
Hey paula951005.paez,
Great question and just jumping in with an opinion from the perspective of an admissions consultant.
As with most things, the main answer is "it depends"! For example, these would certainly be appropriate to list if you are a current college senior or a recent grad (ie, one or two years out). However, if you're someone with 10 years experience then it's probably best to cut out most of your collegiate activities and awards except for perhaps the two or three things that mean the most to you and/or are the most impressive.
The one matter that I can say could be cut without thinking twice about are those merit scholarships. Most merit scholarships are awarded to students as they're coming into college. So that's really an award for being awesome in high school and that's not relevant once you're applying to law school.
I hope that helps!
Hey krkr1234! Chiming in as one of the 7Sage admissions consultants!
So I'm making some assumptions here. Given that you said that you have a "bachelor's degree in law" but you ask if you can be "accepted to study jd in America," I'm guessing that you have an LLB from a college/university outside of the US and Canada. I not, just let me know!
OK, so if you have an undergrad degree from outside the US, two things are true:
Your GPA will not be reportable in numerical form and won't be considered as a factor in schools' medians.
Schools will still look at your grades.
So while it would have been nice if your grades had been higher, they're also not hurting you as much as you may be worried about since they won't go into schools' medians.
Now to your questions:
Can you still be accepted to a law school if you do well on the LSAT? Totally! Schools admit foreign educated students every year. You can get a sense of how much by checking out their ABA required reports (https://www.abarequireddisclosures.org/Disclosure509.aspx).
Will they consider your Masters work and ignore your BA? No, they'll consider both.
I hope that helps!
Thanks for the question, Beserkeley!
Yes, schools will consider the context of your academic performance. They'll notice if you were taking a consistent amount of credit hours (usually 15 or 16 per semester) or had some semesters where you were either over- or under-loading. This isn't a problem at all but we would advise addressing this issue somewhere in your app. The usual place is an Addenda. You could mention the car accident (including details on when it was and how it affected you) and then note that you took a lighter courseload in the subsequent semesters while recovering.
I hope that helps!
Hey thatruth28,
Thanks for the email and question. Just chiming in from the 7Sage consultant perspective.
First - it certainly sounds like you have a lot going for you! Congrats on everything you've accomplished to this point!
Second - depending on your goals and preferences, it may not be a crazy thing to apply to a few more schools. As far as "goals" go, if you KNOW that you want to go to law school next year, then it may not be appropriate to just look towards reapplying in the fall. And as far as preferences are concerned, if you were focused on one geographic area, maybe you can expand your radar. Or maybe if you were focused only on schools in a certain rankings range, maybe you can expand out that range.
And heck, if you'd like to talk this out, you can schedule a consultation call with one of the admissions consultants. We'd be happy to help out!