Tons and tons of great advice above.

Just to reiterate: don't make this decision based on potential future hopes of law school. It's great that you're thinking about career choices, but those preferences are very likely to change during college.

Try your best wherever you go, and soak up the experience of college.

Also, cost is likely important. Unless your parents are very well off, you should think about the cost of attending each of these schools. Taking out loans is a really big deal. Even if your parents are going to pay for school, talk to them about how this will impact their retirement, their and your quality of life, and whether it would limit their ability to help you with grad school. There's actually quite a bit of evidence that the "prestige" of undergraduate schools matters little in job and earning outcomes for graduates. So, I caution you against just chasing the highest ranked school. Instead, go for a mix of "fit" and finances. What feels like the best environment for you? Where do you think you'll be happiest?

You seem like a thoughtful kid, and I wish you the best.

I'm sorry to hear this. Studying with you I know you're a great person. You've also got incredible stats/softs.

That makes me think it's one of three things:

You applied too late in an already crazy cycle.

Your writing components were off in some way.

One of your LORs secretly backstabbed you.

You're gonna have to figure out 2 & 3 through your own best judgment I guess. I think you've got to put your writing in front of others, and if at all possible in front of a professional who can tell you if it's good writing and if it is appropriate for law school admissions.

It's not the end of the world if you wait a cycle.

I really hope it works out for the best, and I know that ultimately it will because you're a good person.

@ said:

You won't get any of those orders, there's a 5th section!

Lolol, yes OP, I do hope that in scoring your eighteen 180s in a row you figured out there is an experimental 5th section.

In any case, I don't really understand the preference of sections because if you're scoring 180 time after time, then you've so perfected the test that no section could possibly be worrisome. It'd be like trying to pick a prize out of three boxes, two with a million dollars and one with $999,999.

@ Don't hate on 177s buddy! As @ said, scores above the 75th percentile of a school are treated roughly the same.

@ I was nowhere near that level on the LSAT, but I did get four 180s and 4 179s during my prep (and a 177 on the real thing). Feel free to study buddy me on 7sage if you want to look at analytics. I was pretty conservative with my BR-- I circled anything I wasn't 99.9% sure about. So on better sections I circled 6-10 for BR and on worse sections 10-15. But as far as what I went back to at the end of a section, maybe more like only one to four questions.

@ said:

No difference at all for admissions.

Please just retake. Much better option than trying to transfer.

Retake. It doesn't have to be T14 or bust. A higher score will open up scholarships to great regional schools.

Great job on the LSAT score and the positive attitude.

I hope you get the outcome you desire.

Wait another cycle. Apply in the fall.

Congrats!

The thing is: you don't get to choose the order. You've got to be ready for battle no matter what section comes up.

But if you've scored 180 on 18 straight PTs, it really shouldn't matter. You're an LSAT god at that point.

You can absolutely score highly on this test. You got this.

First off, throw any concerns about timing out the window. You're too early in your studies to worry about time. You should instead be focused on solidifying the foundational skills and then becoming an expert in the higher level skills of the LSAT. Focusing on timing strategies is the cherry on top, don't get ahead of yourself.

As far as what to focus on now: everything. You shouldn't prioritize one section over another. They need to be improved simultaneously. That means start fool proofing LG. It means drilling LR questions to figure out your weak points and return to the CC to learn how to improve those weak points. It means analyzing RC passages in immense depth.

Don't do too many practice tests. Especially with where you are scoring now, they're not going to tell you much. To be blunt: you've just got to improve on everything, and a practice test won't tell you much more than that. Take a practice test once every 2-3 weeks for now.

Don't be afraid to return to the CC often.

Most importantly, to re-emphasize: don't rush yourself, either when you're practicing questions or when you're trying to take on more material. The key is to go slowly and deliberately, to practice the perfect process, and dive as deep in to each problem as possible.

Actually, the main reason I'm considering Harvard is because I want to be a pro wrestler a la David Otunga. People say the way to the WWE is steroids but I think it's through Cambridge.

There are two separate issues in this advice.

There's the consideration of whether the average student at a school like Hofstra and an average student at a school like Harvard face similar outcomes. They simply do not. One in four students at Hofstra fail to find a job as an attorney. One in three students do not pass the bar. One in five students LOSE THEIR SCHOLARSHIP EACH YEAR.

The other consideration is whether someone who has the qualifications to be accepted to both Harvard and Hofstra should go with Hofstra. It seems pretty reasonable to say that someone capable of going to Harvard is probably going to pass the bar regardless of where they attend. But, unless the person already has a great network or special connections, it seems that the person's job prospects would not be similar.

Also, @ talks about the 75% grant. First, I'm assuming you mean that 75% of your cost of attendance is covered, not the 75th percentile grant given to Hofstra students (which is $50k, by the way). Adding up the yearly cost of Hofstra combined with that scholarship, upon graduation you'd be looking at about $65,000 before interest. So it's probably accumulated to like $75k.

Now, moving to job prospects, you claim one could grab a job with 85K in starting salary coming out of Hofstra. I really question that assumption. First, even if you did, you'd be looking at roughly a 1:1 debt/income ratio (~75k vs 85k). If we took the 150k of debt you mentioned with Harvard, and a 180k starting salary in biglaw, you're again looking at a roughly 1:1 debt/income ratio (and it's probably easier to service at 180k than 85k even given the same 1:1 debt ratio because of how living expenses work). So that already makes me think your analysis has gone awry.

But the 85k assumption is really questionable. Law salaries are bimodal (https://www.nalp.org/salarydistrib). That means that if you're not making the biglaw salary, there are very few jobs until you get to 65k or less. From NALP, we see that half of salaries earned are between 45k and 65k. Hofstra places only 8% of their graduates in large firms (not even biglaw necessarily). So, if you could go to Harvard, but went to Hofstra, could you dominate your Hofstra class and still get biglaw? Maybe, but maybe not.

TL; DR: The spirit of your post is somewhat meaningful, that is, be debt averse and don't chase prestige. But, your analysis on the hard facts and probabilities is lacking and flawed.

Rank doesn't matter but employment outcomes do. Mitchell Hamline places 57% of their grads into jobs as lawyers. That's a pretty low number. So just be aware of the risks.

Depends on the school. Definitely no for H and Y. Probably not for S.

If you've got something new to tell them then go for it.

That it's relatively late in the cycle probably makes it more acceptable.

Retake.

You don't necessarily have to quit your job. The September LSAT is a good 5 months away. December is a possibility.

Not sure what your financial aid package was from the T100 school, but 1 year more away from law school is probably worth getting into a better school (in terms of fit and outcomes) and/or with possibly less debt.

This is the most used guide for fool proofing:

https://classic.7sage.com/discussion/#/discussion/2737/logic-games-attack-strategy/p1

You should wait til near the end of the CC or completely after you've completed the CC. Basically, only start once you've done all the LG lessons.

It takes at least 3 months, and that's if you're doing a ton of games throughout.

Look up their generic admissions email address and say

"I am withdrawing my application from consideration. I sincerely appreciate the offer and wish the law school all the best.

Sincerely,

John Smith

LSAC #"

Myers-Briggs is fun to talk about, but it's not a scientifically valid way of classifying personality.

@ said:

Granted Harvard still has a good clerkship rate at 15%, but Chicago is at 22%, Stanford ~27%, and Yale 30%+.

Just to clarify, the three year rolling average for Harvard clerkship prior to this year is 17.8% and Chicago's is 15.8%. I think Chicago had a particularly good year in 2017 and Harvard a somewhat sub-standard year.

I also disagree that Harvard's quality of education is lower than YS and C. I'll accept your anecdata, but I've heard from others that it's in some ways better than Y and S in terms of learning. No doubt professor connections take a bit more work at Harvard.

For me, Harvard's size actually has many very important benefits. It has the greatest variety of programs, student groups, professors, etc. and the most money and resources to put behind those.

@ 's analysis: it' on the right track but using admissions offers is a bit off because one applicant can be admitted to all top 14 schools.

It's probably better to use the more conservative number of students who actually enroll at the schools. And even using this number, there are nearly 1,000 seats at HYS and still significantly fewer 175-180 scorers than that.

So, bluntly, 175+ is not a requirement for the T6. It's still too rare a score.

I think also that the LSAT arms race only goes so far. First, the amount of money the lower T14 can throw at these applicants means that some significant number of 175+ scorers won't even go to the T6. Second, the schools ultimately want an interesting and balanced class. Once you score in the 170s, you're probably going to do great at law school.

Both of those scores are fantastic. You've absolutely got the potential to go at least 175 if not 180.

It's going to be hard to get there within 3 months, but you're selling yourself short if you settle for less.

Guessing you're taking July, but think about taking in September as well.

@ said:

233 people (13 administrators) in the YLS Facebook group.

Just curious, beyond the admins, are there other current students as part of the group?

I think, regardless, that there are very very few offers remaining, especially after that wave on Saturday night.

Yale is the only school I have yet to hear from, and I am 99% sure I'm not getting in. I just cannot fathom getting a 12 (or even an 11) on review. Looking forward to that rejection sometime this week and finally having full clarity.

Edit: To be clear, upon submitting my application I was probably 95% sure I wasn't going to be admitted.

Agree with @

It's going to be really really hard to do that in 3 months. It's possible by September if you study insanely hard and everything fits right.

https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/

Great website on early retirement and general life philosophy.

In any case, there are way easier ways to make money than the law. I think something in tech or finance is a much easier route. The earnings are similar or superior, and you don't have to go through 3 years of debt and forgone wages.