@ Thanks, I have been honestly feeling like my comments aren't as useful as I hope. I also tend to ramble unfortunately.

I would actually really enjoy admissions or advising work, if that's what you meant about joining them. I certainly haven't beaten them. We are all fish swimming upstream this year.

@ Thanks so much for that link, I'll enjoy listening to it.

So, personal anecdote, but I applied to 13 schools with a 174, a 2.x undergrad GPA, (upward trend) and a 3.8high graduate GPA (and no grade below an A-, so there was strong consistency). This cycle was probably the worst ever to apply with stats like that, but I have thus far not been admitted anywhere. Denied by Northwestern, Michigan, Cornell, Georgetown, Texas, and Boston. Waitlisted at WashU, Emory, and Washington and Lee. Still waiting to hear from Columbia, Virginia, Duke, and Minnesota.

Aside from my personal experience this cycle as an extreme supersplitter/non-trad with a phenomenal graduate GPA, I think that scholarships are always hard to come by for super splitters because we don't boost the rankings of schools. Universities can claim that scholarships are "merit based" but what they typically mean is "you scratch our back, we will scratch yours." If you are above their 75th in one stat but below median in the other you aren't a net positive for the school's rankings. Getting straight A's in graduate school means that a school that is hoping to raise their LSAT score might admit me when they never would without it, but they are hardly jumping all over themselves to do it.

@ Not an adcom, but if only.

@ I think we'd need a lot more information about your law career goals, your financial position/goals, and what schools you're looking at.

@ Congrats man, you deserve it and Cornell is an exciting school with lots of cool programs. Goodluck in upstate New York. Great food, lots of snow, and very exciting football over in Buffalo these days too when you aren't hitting the books.

I applied to 13 schools in December and January. As of my rejection from Cornell today, still haven't heard from 4. 3 WLs at Washington, Emory, and W&L and 6 rejections at UT, Boston, and 4 lower T14. Still haven't heard from Duke, Minnesota, Virginia, and freaking Colombia. I've all but given up on scholarships this cycle and an facing that I'm better off pushing a year and reapplying.

I believe I initially heard that from Vanderbilt, if any non-traditional students with many years of work experience are thinking of applying there.

Agree with everything @ said with one caveat. With two years of work experience it might not matter, but I have had admissions reps say that if you have extensive work experience it looks strange not to have a work LoR and that it could raise concerns. If you're more than a few years out of undergrad and you are submitting more than 2 LoRs I would say that submitting your two strongest academic LoRs and one good workplace LoR might be better than submitting that third or fourth academic LoR. I really don't think a fourth academic LoR can add much and it could hurt if that professor doesn't echo the same strong sentiments as the first few.

@ It means that they are unable to view your GPA at all. Redaction is editing a document to censor information in it. You may have seen it in crime or war movies involving federal agencies/the military where a character receives a file or letter with sections completely blacked out. That is an example of a redacted document.

Well, I think that, since you're averaging 173 on tests now, you should go ahead and take in April. Being able to boost your application earlier is better when it comes to wait lists. That said, assuming you can afford to, I think you take both if you're still trying to get in this cycle but also looking down the road. If you hit around the same score in April you can still notify them in June with a last minute avoid then. If you don't improve you have another shot before applying first thing next cycle. You're in a solid place. Take all the shots you can get.

The worst that can happen is that you don't improve and then you can still study until the fall and take another test. 4 takes is not too many and depending on when you took not all of them may even count towards limits.

The analytics are based on your tests taken here on the site, so without a subscription and the ability to take PTs here you won't have access to the analytics. I think @ is best served to answer any specific questions you have.

That is awesome! Congrats!!!

@ This is super old now, but I haven't been on the forums as of late because I was ready to take a break from law school nonsense and, after moving internationally, went straight into a 70 hour a week job. I didn't get in anywhere last cycle, but I didn't really fight for it either because I am just not going without substantial scholarship support.

For the record I retook and improved from a 173 to a 174. Still well under my 177 goal and 176 average, but it is well above median anywhere I have a chance of getting into. I was rejected at 10 schools and waitlisted at a top 20, a mid 20's, and a low 30's. The mid-20 school and to a lesser extent the low 30 school expressed a lot of interest in me and I survived several rounds of waitlist cutdowns but never reached out to them because there was definitely not going to be that scholarship offer. I'm reapplying this year and don't really have anything to share besides a low 20's school expressing a lot of interest in me including a handwritten note from the director.

@ I emailed them and they said no action was necessary. Still haven't heard anything though.

If you're below the 25th I definitely think there is no point in not redacting. I would say if you're near the median but below you definitely don't want to use the redacted option. What I am less sure about are applicants near but above the 25th percentile.

If you're applying next year it's really hard to say honestly. I think a lot of people are operating under the assumption that numbers will be lower (both applications and 170+ LSATs) next year but no one really knows. Complicating forecasting that is the fact that law schools themselves won't know either. While we can be confident that medians will have risen when they release this year's numbers, I suspect that they will be hard to maintain for a second year even if they still wind up a bit above the 2019/2020 entering class numbers. My personal best guess is that schools will probably grab high stats early in the cycle (so I encourage you to apply as close to September 1st as possible) to ensure a base from which to operate and then slow play it as they try for the second year in a row to figure out what in the world their targets should be. That may mean that ED will be the best way to lock up a spot at a first choice school early before things get complicated again, but that also limits scholarship potential. What that means for you is that having a score even one or two points higher may make a big difference at T14. It could take you from the "wait and see/slow play" pile to the "admit early so that we have a set number of high scores safety margin" pile. Again, that assumes that I'm right but I think striking early with a score at or above the medians that will be released later on will allow you to avoid long months of uncertainty. That future median is likely to be 1-2 points higher than this year at most schools.

What I am not saying is that you necessarily need to improve anything for admission next year. Even this year those numbers could potentially get you into the schools listed above so long as they liked your application. It's about increasing your odds and hopefully getting auto-admitted early before the cycle gets going and gets too chaotic. I say this of course not being an admissions counselor and not having a crystal ball. Good luck with your journey.

@ I think that people were unsure if you've already applied this year or were thinking of applying next year. Are you already waitlisted? Anticipating waitlists? If you haven't been waitlisted yet and you're tired of studying I don't think there's much point. I believe that the June LSAT is open for registration until May some time. I'd wait and see. If you're already waitlisted and aren't concerned enough about scholarships to push to next year then definitely retake in June. It gives schools a tangible reason to pull you off the wait list.

@ I've been thinking about this and don't have confirmation, nor have I dived deeply into law school numbers, but my guess is that reverse splitters faired better than usual this year and also probably better than splitters given the number of high LSAT scores. I think hitting about where the predictor said you would is impressive indeed when the predictor was created before the wave of extra applications and high LSATs. Glad things worked out well for you.

@ thanks for your input. I'll be doing that, particularly since, on balance, I would rather be seen as a bit pushy than be accidentally left off of the list because of how I applied.

This tells me that it might be especially important for your to have extra time at the end of your sections to go over the first few questions when taking the test. I used to flag every main point question and come back in RC because it was my weakness. I think you could try flagging your first five questions and coming back in addition to your warm ups.

SMU salary medians 72, 90, 180k with 86% reporting. Those are much, much better numbers. I honestly wasn't expecting such strong numbers from them.

68.9% employed by firms.

250-500 person firms 8.5%

500+ 23.5%. Those are fantastic big law numbers

91.9% are in-state, even more dramatic than FSU, but Texas has a huge legal market. They also have more grads in the South Atlantic region excluding Florida then FSU does. 3.2% to 2.9% which tells me that it might still be a stronger degree in DC, VA, NC, and GA than FSU's.

If you really want to go Big Law and don't have a strong preference between TX and FL I'm going to revise my opinion and say try and negotiate that SMU financial aid but, unless FSU really ups their offer, take the scholarship at SMU. Your salary numbers will make up the difference over time, and maybe right away. Certainly the 75th median starting salaries are well more than the 50k a year difference. Even the median and 25th are 20k a year and 12k a year different respectively if the worst case happens and you can't go Big Law.

So at FSU the median salaries were 60, 70, and 80k but only 1/3rd of graduates reported salaries. That makes a meaningful conclusion hard to guess. 47.4% of grads were employed by firms. 6.1% of grads were in firms of 250-500 and 4.9% in the largest 500+ employee firms. 81.5% were in state and 88.4% in the South Atlantic region with no other region accounting for more than 2.3% of grads. That tells me that if you want to practice outside the southeast, and to a lesser extent even outside Florida you shouldn't go to FSU, but that it's a great school in Florida.

@ We really need more information to give good advice. We lack information about what sort of debt load you would incur and even more importantly, we don't know what "sorta higher ranked" and "lower ranked" mean. Are you choosing between a top 30 program and a sub-100 program or a top 35 and a top 50? How much money will you be left paying at the higher school with the substantial scholarship? I appreciate your desire to protect your privacy, but we really can't give any good advice without that information.

I will say as a general rule that if you aren't going big law you should prioritize employability and less debt.

You might check out Above the Law's rankings which focus on employability and debt far more than US news.

Yes, the competition during this cycle is closely connected to COVID. Surges in graduate education always happen during economic downturn and when you factor in all the time spent at home thinking about what changes to make that is only exacerbated.

Will it settle down. Eventually, but no one can tell you what next cycle will look like or how much of the increased competitiveness will remain.

Retake or enter. That really depends on your financial situation and goals. I would retake until I get a good scholarship. If you have good savings and no debt maybe you'd make a different decision. SMU is a good school. Their employment numbers are very strong. Getting in with a 151 in this cycle is impressive. Can you improve enough to make it worth it next year? Did you have a bad test? What are you PTing?

I don't know what you're paying, but @ makes great points. If you're already getting great scholarship money at FSU in the most competitive cycle ever then you're a strong candidate for even more if you wait. If you don't want to wait then FSU is still the better move.

I was similar. Averaging 176 on PTs and got a 173 on my first take. I retook, felt really good about the second take, and got a 174. My goal was 177. It was a good decision for me, and I think I'll retake again, but I've been so burnt out by this cycle I don't want to think about doing it again right now. For what it's worth, extreme splitter that's been rejected at 9 schools, waitlisted at 3, (one in the teens, one in the 20's, one in the low 30's) and still waiting to hear from freaking Minnesota.