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MissChanandler

I think in this case I wouldn't retake. It's hard to predict scholarships especially for splitters, but I think you've set yourself up pretty well for UofMn. If this had been your first LSAT I'd say maybe try again, but since you've taken it so many times and you performed around your average, I'd focus on the rest of your app. I think that applying earlier definitely helps with scholarships. I'd have everything ready to go for when the applications open if I were you. A Why Minnesota essay would definitely be a good idea.

Tom_Tango

If you can do better, retake. No downside other than the time + registration fee.

NotMyName

You’re already above their 75th percentile. I wouldn’t recommend retaking.

rjkringler

Make sure to read the ABA 509 forms and the specifics on scholarship offerings. Minnesota is pretty stingy on scholarships compared to other schools in its ranking range.

Ohnoeshalpme

It does depend on how important UMinn is to you. It's a strong regional school, don't get me wrong, but there are some higher ranked schools that you could probably get in to if you went down the retake path. For the purposes of UMinn, retaking probably won't help you much. It might actually hurt, as you referenced above, because it shows a lack of interest. There is no way Minnesota's 75th is going to move up to a 169, at best they will see a 167 so you're already well above that mark. Being further above the 75th doesn't help all that much at a regional school because you're already destroying the competition. They want to be convinced that you are going to attend, that's the real battle that you need to be fighting if you genuinely want to go to Minnesota in particular. In terms of a holistic view of your application, if you feel that you are capable of a 173 then you should probably retake because that can get you into many T14 schools or heavy scholarship at Vandy/Wustl etc.

Tom_Tango

Honestly OP I think you are thinking about it way too much. You know you are capable of scoring better and it probably won't take up much of your time since you were averaging higher than your actual score. Why even consider settling on a lower score on record? Especially since you still have time to take it and apply relatively early.

"Perhaps I should be considering percentages as opposed to absolute values here?"
I think it's best to look at how much you actually have to take out or pay out of pocket.

blah blah

thanks for the responses everyone. I'm leaning against retaking, as no one has stated that an increase in a score will likely bump up scholly from the schools I'm interested in. Poll also isn't definitively in favor of retaking.

@rjkringler They seem to be slightly stingier relative to other schools in terms of % of students they give grants to (Minn's 15.6 to BU's 8.5 paying full price for example), but when it comes to the actual monetary amount, seems like Minnesota's 75th is well above other 75th's, at 40k, and they have the same median amount generally, 25k.

@Ohnoeshalpme I feel pretty set on Minneapolis or Boston. I'm certain I don't want to be working in NYC, as I did my undergrad there. I loved it, but I need an affordable studio and I'm way too much of a homebody to be paying out the ass for one in NYC; done with the shoebox, mattress-on-floor life. I feel like being uninterested in NYC makes Wustl/Vandy's higher ranking irrelevant and just makes it a matter of which region I'd like to work in. I prefer cold to hot weather, MPLS seems better culture wise compared to St. Louis and Charlotte. Thoughts?

@Tom_Tango I'm honestly burned out. Didn't see an increase from my third to fourth take and I'd just like to move on with my life, after spending over a year thinking about the lsat. I'd only take it if a decent amount of people thought ~2/3 points would have a non-trivial impact on chances of a 75th percentile scholly because that's a lot of money. Yeah it lowkey hurts my ego to feel like I'm "settling" but that's definitely a bad reason to re-take. I also am really uninterested in NYC (and DC, having visited) and I feel like the schools above Minn and outside/low T14 only have that to offer for me.

I only mentioned percentages because I don't know what their percentile breakdown for schollys were five years ago.

Ohnoeshalpme

@"blah blah" I agree with the culture argument. I have family that live in Minneapolis and so I've spent quite a bit of time there. The people are lovely and the industry there is surprisingly good to most people. They also have a high population of young people and tend to be a progressive forward-thinking bunch.

As far as what I know, the legal market still prefers T14 in Minneapolis, despite the strength of the University of Minnesota. If you look at the employment statistics of the graduating class, you'll see that about 25% of graduates get top legal jobs and some of those jobs fall outside Minnesota. So when considering a school like this, you have to consider the likely scenario that you will be working in an upper-mid level legal position, but not a top position. These are firms that pay above median, but don't pay six figures and don't have the same reputation as the top firms. The other large portion of graduates work in local clerkships or government positions. This makes up a little more than a third of all graduates. You can compare this to an average T14 and see decidedly better employment numbers in a considerably more competitive legal market. If you took above median grades from a T14 to Minneapolis you would be more likely to get hired than most Minnesota graduates. Obviously this is all speculation and hearsay, but I think the numbers do support the view.

If this type of employment satisfies your interests then Minnesota is a great school for you. If prestige and Big Law money is important to you then it's probably not a good school for you.

blah blah

@Ohnoeshalpme

Really appreciate the insight.

Can you expand on your comment that upper-mid level legal positions don't pay six figures? I'm looking at lstreports (https://www.lstreports.com/schools/minnesota/sals/) and see that 52 percent of 2016 grads went into the private sector, and of the 31 percent that reported their salary, it looks like the median salary is 110,000. NALP in their 2016 buying power index stated that the median salary at law firms in MPLS is 115,000. (https://www.nalp.org/class_of_2016_buying_power_index).

Granted, almost half the graduating class went into public and I guess we don't know how much of that is because they couldn't get a job in the private sector. I don't know whether that's a thing.

But at any rate, from nalp's numbers, apparently $83,295 has the same buying power in MPLS as $180,000 does in NYC. That's wild, but I believe it given nice studios for 1.5k a month are a thing there. So while 150k in loans is still 150k in loans, at least I can live ok in a nice city. (I don't have any UG debt.) And I don't care about prestige, though it does hurt when my mom asks me if they have Uber there.

I'm sure that the legal market there would prefer T14 over UoMn, but I imagine T14 grads coming back to MPLS represents a really small group. I agree that if someone had above-average grades at a T14 and is from Minnesota, then they'd get jobs over UofMn grads easy. But given that I'm not from there, don't look I'm from there, I feel like I'd be on my own getting in touch with firms in MPLS and trying to convince them that, despite going to school, let's say, in St. Louis, and having no ties to MPLS, that I want to work in MPLS for the summer or something.

Leah M B

Hi there - as far as the LSAT goes, I really don't think you need to re-take if you're set on going to those schools. You're already a few points above median, and a score in the low 170s could tell those schools that they are back ups for you, which isn't true. As it is, you seem like a very good candidate.

That said, as a splitter, you'll really need to keep your options open. I would recommend applying to a lot of schools, even if just for the scholarship offer to negotiate with your favorite schools. A very solid scholarship offer at WUSTL could help in negotiating with MN.

And agreed that instead of percentages or value, you should be keeping in mind how much you are comfortable taking out in loans. For example, I set my goal scholarships for each school with my eye on keeping loans under $100k.

So do you have specific goals set for immediately after law school? Are you wanting biglaw? Or just a specific salary? It is unfortunately the case that jobs right of law school tend to be bi-modal where you are making either in the $140k-160k range in biglaw or closer to $60k-70k. There are a few sprinkled in between, which is where the medians come from. But that doesn't mean it's an average or even very common. Just that half of jobs are below that and half are above, which seems to be very true. If you are wanting that 6 figure biglaw salary to start out, then I highly recommend focusing on those stats in researching schools. It might not hurt to call the schools you are most interested in and see if you can chat with someone in career services about the types of jobs students go into, and the likelihood of landing biglaw in MN. BU and BC both have vastly better stats on biglaw job placement, so that is something to consider.

Ohnoeshalpme

@"blah blah" I agree that it might be hard to get connections without some local roots or a feeder school. My logic in terms of the upper-mid level not making six figures was based off the required employment disclosures from the ABA:

http://www.abarequireddisclosures.org/EmploymentOutcomes.aspx

In the report you can see the exact number of graduates that were employed in 100+ attorney firms. These jobs makes up 19% of the graduates. Outside of the larger firms, I'm assuming it's rare to find anyone paying this much to associates in Minneapolis. The second thing that I will point out, is that we don't know what percentage of these jobs actually were taken in Minneapolis. As you can see in the report, 9 students passed the bar in New York, most of whom probably were among the 100+ firm graduates. So the number of graduates getting jobs at the larger firms in Minneapolis may be lower than 15%. This data suggests that the majority of the graduates go into mid-sized to smaller-sized firms that are considered "good" employment but are very likely not paying six figures to undergrads. This is based off of some individual salary reports at mid sized firms and the data from glassdoor and salary.com. Here you can see that most attorneys in MN report a salary around 60k with the average being around 97k. This is taking into account attorneys at all levels of experience so it's reasonable to assume that the majority of first-year associates are somewhere closer to 60k than 100k.

Obviously there is some self-selection bias here, as we don't know which students chose to work in public service who might have been able to get top legal jobs, so I assumed that all those students who received federal level clerkships would have been able to get top jobs in MN. This analysis puts the number of students in a position to make 6 figure jobs at about 25%.

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@Ohnoeshalpme

@"Leah M B"

thanks guys! I don't have any strong feelings about big law and I feel that the COL in Minneapolis makes big law/six figures off the bat less of a do-or-die thing. The 25th percentile is 70k, which is not bad at all for me. So yeah, I'm probably more focused on an acceptable salary than anything else. I imagine my feelings might change once December comes around. I'll definitely be applying pretty broadly.

samantha.ashley92

I think that taking a look at the job market in Boston is important if you're looking at BC, plan on living in Boston post-graduation, and you don't want to work for the government. BC students are going to be competing for jobs with BU and Harvard students. Just something I've been thinking about.

blah blah

@"samantha.ashley92" yeah the unemployment % of BU and BC scare me a bit, which is why I prefer Minny over Boston. I guess Harvard competition is a thing, but there are only so many of them and some of them will head off to D.C.