Do you mind sharing what your target score is/where you're at now and what your averages are per section? What is your average blind review score lately?

My gut is that I would push it back to September, as the pressure you have to get +10 for your average score in 25 days is very high. That pressure, in-and-of itself, might hold you back from reaching the +10 average you need. If you take a fall test, you're still set-up well to apply early or on time in the cycle.

I don't think anyone can answer for you the level to which the number of retakes matters and how each additional retake effects your application. I think what you do know, is that you aren't scoring where you want to be scoring and are a bit far from it. So, I'd say reschedule and focus on attacking your weak points versus stressing about being ready in 25 days.

Thank you for this! I have been PT'ing at a 167 flat for the past 4 tests and really want to push 170. I've felt out of it every time I test lately, as I think I'm just becoming a bit drained. Gives me hope that we can do this! Pushing past the high 160s can happen.

You got this (and thank you for the hope that I might too)!

I will! I also have one if you wanna switch and review one another's!

@leahbeuk911 said:

@stormhur181 said:

@leahbeuk911 said:

Yeah, I would think you should include all of them but keep descriptions very brief. Personally, I've been out of college a little over 10 years and have just recently expanded to a 2 page resume. For professional use, I've stopped listing my internship and part time jobs I had during school. But for my law school resume, I did include my internship.

Though you do have work experience, I would generally say that someone who has been out of school for 2 years does not have any need for a 2 page resume. But those internships are good experience. I would say ideally, find a way to list all the internships but still keep it to 1 page. Since this isn't a professional resume, you don't need to have very many bullet points for any position, really.

Hmmm... I'm really struggling with this! Primarily because I have quite a few call outs I think should be made, fitting in 7 positions in one page is challenging, even without adding any bullets. Let alone my volunteer experience and university involvement. Would you also be willing to take a peek?

Sure, I'll message you my email!

(3 thank you.(/p)

@leahbeuk911 said:

Yeah, I would think you should include all of them but keep descriptions very brief. Personally, I've been out of college a little over 10 years and have just recently expanded to a 2 page resume. For professional use, I've stopped listing my internship and part time jobs I had during school. But for my law school resume, I did include my internship.

Though you do have work experience, I would generally say that someone who has been out of school for 2 years does not have any need for a 2 page resume. But those internships are good experience. I would say ideally, find a way to list all the internships but still keep it to 1 page. Since this isn't a professional resume, you don't need to have very many bullet points for any position, really.

Hmmm... I'm really struggling with this! Primarily because I have quite a few call outs I think should be made, fitting in 7 positions in one page is challenging, even without adding any bullets. Let alone my volunteer experience and university involvement. Would you also be willing to take a peek?

@hbochjk116 said:

Two pages are perfectly acceptable. I saw at least one resume where the applicant (accepted to a T13) used just one bullet for a number of positions.

Thank you! Would you mind taking glance at mine once I'm finished and providing feedback?

@ohnoeshalpme804 said:

@ohnoeshalpme804

I don't think they're saying this, but worried that it might be misinterpreted that way.

Personally I don't know how admissions officers would interpret the DS. Online I've seen a lot of identity politics "if you're not a minority, then you don't know what it's like to experience racism" sort of arguments.

Though I'm pretty sure admissions officers don't take it that far, it's still a valid concern IMO.

Um... But that is true, if you aren't a racial minority, you do not know what it is like to experience racism. So, I think that is a weak premise. There is a very clear difference between racism and discrimination. If that's unclear to you and you're interested, I'm happy to send over some literature recommendations. :)

All that aside, being white, cis, a man and middle class does not necessarily preclude you from writing a DS. To oversimplify, let's cut a binary and say diversity can be viewed at either a local or global level. Sure, a person of color, especially a black person, is going to be able to write a DS that likely speaks to local and global racism and discrimination if they live in the U.S. This could make for a more well founded DS, but I don't believe this is a DS --> Local + Global. Instead, I think it is more of a DS --> Local or Global (inclusive or). Yay, conditional logic! Lol.

It is clear that LawSchoolThrow... is looking to write a DS that speaks to their local level diversity. I think that is valid and equally important to address. However, I do additionally believe that DS statements should always demonstrate how you were able to rise above those who discriminated against you. Also, if you can tie it back to "why law", why not?

I say all this with a shrug at the end, because it all comes down to the admissions committee/officer. But, here's my takeaway: if you want the law school to know this about you because it impacts the perspective you'll bring to their classroom and shapes your legal future, let them know. If they don't accept you because of it, they weren't the lawl school for you.

@lucykelly459 said:

To add to this, the Kennedy School of Government may be another one to consider.

100% but Princeton offers full paid + 20K to anyone accepted who isn't coming in with a full paid external fellowship. So it is definitely a top option if you're trying to save $$$

@swamlepow1994844 said:

@stormhur181

Princeton offers a JD?

Nope - but they do offer their MPA in partnership with JDs from (mostly t20/t14) law schools. http://wws.princeton.edu/graduate-academics/programs/joint-mpajd.

@forestdearing2017997 said:

@lucykelly459 Most likely politics or history

If you are looking into politics because you want to pursue a political career (vs academia), I would highly suggest also looking into MPP/MPA programs. Princeton has an MPA program that is full paid + stipend (I think ~20K a year). It is a shoe in for doing government work and they offer an MPA/JD.

Only thing about MPP/MPA programs is that they will want you to have 2-3+ years of work experience, similar to an MBA.

@marine4life6798246 said:

@nicholasthomas127 said:

@marine4life6798246, Really glad to hear you've committed and are happy, plus NYC is a great place to learn about law. Do you know if there's a list of schools offering fellowships?

I don't know! I applied to CUNY as a safety/CUNY is pretty well regarded in the NYC PI sphere. They offered me the fellowship, I didn't apply knowing it was there.

I have some worries about going somewhere so low-ranked but/and the people I talk to make it seem that this is going to be a good experience...and I am going to graduate almost 100% debt free thanks to my savings and the money they are giving me, a huge boon when it comes to PI.

My best best friend is in her 3L at CUNY right now. She got the pro bono scholars award and took the bar in Feb this year and is interning full-time at the ACLU nationwide right now.

She did her first summer at the Hague in The Netherlands and has done other amazing work.

Everyone I know from CUNY (granted they are all people she hangs/studies with) are brilliant. They are all extremely radical in their politics. So, if you would likely be made uncomfortable by studying law at a school that would love to abolish prisons, be mindful of what you're getting yourself into. If you're into it radical stuff, then come hang with us after you start there! Haha.

Keep in mind you won't be learning corporate law. So, big law will not be in your future (but if you got into CUNY then I assume you know that already).

I actually know the 2 3L's this year who have that fellowship and it has really helped them. They're both Pro Bono scholars like my friend; 1 is in South Africa for her final semester and the other is at a trans* rights organization.

They set you up to do very well in the NYC PI area, especially in the public defender space. But, it will definitely be a bit of a battle since those jobs are still super competitive. Go there, do well and I'm sure you'll flourish (and be debt free).

Lol - I should've known doing this that there would be an onslought of questioning my method, which I tired to note upfront was laden with assumptions and a bit faulty. The general conclusion was to say that more matters than numbers, not to say that numbers don't matter. The numbers are easy to find - you just look at each of the law school's admissions statistics on their webpages. They report the number of people offered admission versus enrolled. Definitely would be a better view to look at this from an actual class size level, but TBH I was doing this for a directional idea.

I get the idea of why you say things are called "soft" because they don't affect rank. But, still, I stand by my argument. I still think that, given none of us actually work on an adcoms committee, we should take a bit more of an open mind when we make claims about the weight of softs versus lsat/gpa. Obvi lsat/gpa are great and super important. Still, it doesn't make sense to me as a law school applicant and future lawyer to reduce the importance of softs (arbitrarily, since we don't actually know what level of importance they play) in the admissions/career path decision. Again, softs take as long or longer to develop than most people's goal LSAT score.

That's all I got, I'm not really looking to start a fire here, hahah. I think we are all aligned in the end on what our overall beliefs are when it comes to this discussion.

@swamlepow1994844 said:

I think the sentiment echoed throughout this discussion is probably right. Law school admissions officers know they're admitting more than a number. So, once you meet the numbers cutoff, you have to be liked. So, while you could get a numbers boost, nothing is going to make up for a lack of likability.

Agreed! And, remember, building up those things that make you liked take as much (if not more) time than getting the LSAT score of your dreams.

@jchamberlainf946 said:

@stormhur181 said:

I had a bit of fun:

If you look at the Spivey post and add up the total number of applicants who scored between a 168 and 180 this year, you get 4,568. The number of those who scored between 175 and 180? 751.

If you sum the # of applicants admitted at the T6 law schools you get roughly 4,800.

What do we learn from this?

Even if every single 168-180 scorer were accepted to one of the T6 law schools, there would still be 232 spots remaining.

Even if every single 175-180 scorer were accepted to only one of the T6 law schools, there would still be 4,000 spots remaining.

Obviously, the number of schools an applicant gets into at the 175-180 range within the T6 is probably going to be decently high. Regardless, my main point is that there are a lot of admissions offers that go out to folks from the T6, let alone the T14. To me, this demonstrates that what we call softs are not actually softs; they matter. As mainly folks have stressed, the holistic view of your application is important.

It seems like a lot of splitters are very heavily focused on getting that GPA/LSAT discrepancy resolved, but less focused on "what kind of experience should I be gaining to bolster my softs?" I feel like broadening these conversations to be mindful of the importance of experience would be worthwhile. In the end, yes, it might take you 9 months to score a 170+, but it likely takes the same amount of time, if not longer, to gain relevant and meaningful experience for your application. This seems to get lost in the conversation. I say this all with a shrug, because there are so many threads here that it seems impossible to keep up with how many people push this type of view. I also recognize this is an LSAT discussion board for the most part, so we are all coming from it with the numbers perspective.

Great analysis! This only confirms what we learned based on this results.

Thanks! I do work in analytics, afterall ;) Glad it can pay off in some way. Haha

I had a bit of fun:

If you look at the Spivey post and add up the total number of applicants who scored between a 168 and 180 this year, you get 4,568. The number of those who scored between 175 and 180? 751.

If you sum the # of applicants admitted at the T6 law schools you get roughly 4,800.

What do we learn from this?

Even if every single 168-180 scorer were accepted to one of the T6 law schools, there would still be 232 spots remaining.

Even if every single 175-180 scorer were accepted to only one of the T6 law schools, there would still be 4,000 spots remaining.

Obviously, the number of schools an applicant gets into at the 175-180 range within the T6 is probably going to be decently high. Regardless, my main point is that there are a lot of admissions offers that go out to folks from the T6, let alone the T14. To me, this demonstrates that what we call softs are not actually softs; they matter. As mainly folks have stressed, the holistic view of your application is important.

It seems like a lot of splitters are very heavily focused on getting that GPA/LSAT discrepancy resolved, but less focused on "what kind of experience should I be gaining to bolster my softs?" I feel like broadening these conversations to be mindful of the importance of experience would be worthwhile. In the end, yes, it might take you 9 months to score a 170+, but it likely takes the same amount of time, if not longer, to gain relevant and meaningful experience for your application. This seems to get lost in the conversation. I say this all with a shrug, because there are so many threads here that it seems impossible to keep up with how many people push this type of view. I also recognize this is an LSAT discussion board for the most part, so we are all coming from it with the numbers perspective.

@sberg14963 said:

You will be a splitter if you can get your LSAT above the 75th. And admissions are not hopeless for splitters. You'll have a fair chance, but apply broadly. First get the great LSAT score though. Then worry about whether you are a splitter and what your exact chances are.

http://mylsn.info/g072mm/

Thanks for the advice. I forgot about using mylsn in the stress of discovering the news (my academic report just populated on CAS). It actually looks like, if I can swing a 171+, there could be hope at NYU, Columbia and Michigan. Hopefully my softs and the GPA addendum can help too. This helps me not give up.

I suppose, to clarify, what I'm really asking is - am I screwed now with getting into these schools?

@hbochjk116 said:

Would you mind sharing your LSAT score? Hard to say whether you are a Splitter by your GPA alone.

Hey! I am still studying now. My doable LSAT score looks like it will be 169-171 given PTs and studying trends.

These responses are extremely helpful. Thank you!!!