According to LSN, I have no chance

Bamboosprout

I just explored LSN, and found that no one with my numbers has ever gotten into my first dream school, and only less than 10% have gotten into my second dream score (UChic, UPenn). I don't know what to think about this. They're also not on the LSAC official guide either. Should I even bother ED with a school that has never accepted a student with my stats, or put it somewhere more realistic?

BinghamtonDave

There is a difference between “no one on lsn has ever gotten in with my numbers” and “a school that has never accepted a student with my stats.”

With that being said and without knowing your numbers: plan for a retake of the LSAT. You can increase your chances of admission with a higher lsat score.

tekken1225

Just curious, what is your dream school you want to go to?

eRetaker

I am assuming this is Columbia's ED program? @Bamboosprout if completing an additional app will not take significantly more time then by all means you should apply for your reaches just so that you won't have regrets. However, if the application fees and general time to complete the applications will take away from you perfecting your essays/apps for your actual target schools, then yeah I would say don't bother. Ultimately you would have to make the decision as to whether it's worth it. Alternatively you can just sit one more cycle and retake your LSAT to completely boost your chances. After all, a higher LSAT will matter infinitely more than a ED app will.

samantha.ashley92

Apparently, Penn really loves their ED applicants. I read you're like 900% more likely to get in ED than regular applicants. I wouldn't give up hope, but you should probably retake the LSAT if those schools are really important to you.

_oshun1_

If you want to pay sticker for law school and be $300k+ in debt then apply ED. LSN isn’t a list of all applicants, it’s just whoever chooses to apply. I’m sure there are a lot of random stats you can plug in which have no reports on LSN ie a 4.0 and 180 or a 4.0 and a 150 or maybe a 3.0 and 171 idk. If you don’t want to retake the lsat and your lsat isn’t at or above the median then there’s no reason to worry about what’s on LSN.

Tom_Tango

LSN is self-reported so not everyone is reporting their numbers nor is there any way of verifying its accuracy. Sure most of the numbers may be real but there are probably also people bullshitting numbers on there.

I would use the medians and percentiles to get a good sense of where you actually fall among the students who are attending.
Don't use LSN as your compass for this process..

studyingandrestudying

Apply anyway. LSN doesn't see the applications and it's only the people who participate, not all applicants. Follow your dreams and don't give up.

Bamboosprout

@BinghamtonDave

Yeah, I'm going to prepare to retake, but the thing is, I have a 3.0GPA (I know others have had lower and gotten into top schools), and according to LSN, only two people have gotten into UChic with any LSAT score, and both were special circumstances.

@tekken1225

UChic

@retaker2014

The reason why ED is such an important topic for my top schools is because historically and statistically, ED increases admissions chance at my top schools by about 700%. Not Columbia, btw. I was talking about UChic and UPenn.

@"samantha.ashley92"

The difficult thing is, both my top schools are pro-ED. I just don't know which I should apply to. I prefer UChic, of course, but even with a 7x boost, if my chances are 0 to begin with, that wouldn't help much, right. UPenn, however, I have an actual chance with. Hahahahaha. But at the same time, I'm a dreamer, so I want to believe I have a non-zero chance, and maybe the ED can help me boost it to something meaningful.

@"surfy surf"

UChic and UPenn ED doesn't affect your scholarship chances or anything related to money. Thanks, I try not to let the numbers define my actions, but I also have to try to be pragmatic.

@Tom_Tango

Thanks for the positive vibes, my friend. Hahaha, I think the medians tell me to not bother trying. But I'm a dreamer, so I'll keep grinding.

@lsatplaylist

I think we would get along well. Please keep serenading me with words that I like to hear.

Leah M B

Yeah unfortunately, Chicago is basically the pickiest for GPA of any law school. You can ED there if you want, but I think your chances would likely still be slim. Penn would be safer.

And no, ED doesn't necessarily affect your scholarship. But for many applicants, if there is no specified guaranteed scholarship with ED, they will award you $0 in scholarship (or very little). The schools have all the leverage when you ED because it is binding. So they can say $0 in scholarship and won't negotiate, but you would still be committed to going. You should really only ED at a school that doesn't have a guaranteed ED scholarship if you are ok with paying full sticker, because that is a very very common result.

Here's a look at all ED applicants and their scholarship results. Chicago does seem to be slightly more generous with scholarships, but most others report $0 except for the schools that guarantee an ED scholarship (Berkeley, NU, WUSTL...)

http://mylsn.info/8knisq/

eRetaker

@Bamboosprout Oh thanks for clarifying! I thought you were saying both Chicago and Penn were your second dream schools for some reason lol. It looks like either way you won't be qualifying for much merit aid being admitted ED or RD, so I would actually recommend you ED if they are indeed your dream schools. This is something that you may consider. ED Chicago once your LSAT score comes back improved and you will get your decision by mid to late December. If you get deferred or denied, then you can ED Penn Round 2 (deadline is Jan 7). So essentially you would be ED'ing both schools without violating either contracts. Now, this next part is obviously going to be subjective and my own opinion, but if I were you I wouldn't apply for Chicago and just ED Penn round 1. In 2017, the lowest GPA in the class for Chicago had a 3.13 while Penn is significantly more splitter friendly (esp for ED as you say). If you check through LSN you can see that Penn essentially builds its class medians with splitters and reverse splitters whereas Chicago seems to have some sort of unwritten GPA floor. Hope this information helps a little bit, but I do think you have a decent shot at Penn with a 170+ ED round 1.

ED timelines:
https://www.law.uchicago.edu/apply-early
https://www.law.upenn.edu/admissions/jd/how-to-apply.php

Uchicago Class profile:
https://www.law.uchicago.edu/files/Admissions Profile Card 2017-18.pdf

Bamboosprout

@"Leah M B" said:

Oh wow. Thanks for the info. That was very informative. I didn't think about the MBT in the circumstances that I chose to ED. I was being way too naive. @"surfy surf" , thanks for bringing up this issue.

@eRetaker said:

You genius, you. I always had this idea in the back of my mind, to ED for two schools in one cycle, but never formulated my thoughts about it enough to ask the right questions. That was very thought provoking, and I like your personal suggestion even more. I think I really needed to hear that articulated like the way you just did. I think I'll very likely take your advice, and go for the ED1 of Penn, unless I do a retake and get a 180 or something.

Thank you all for your suggestions and insight!