Would it hurt?????

foxtrotcharlie3

I am a non-traditional student, meaning nearly 40. I am retired, so working is not a big deal with a pension. I took my first LSAT and did not score what I wanted to due to a major injury the day before. I did not score high enough to make the lowest score accepted from last year's pickings of the preferred school I need to get in to (I have small school aged kids that need to stay put). Anyway, does it hurt to submit an application with strong softs (military, big resume, PS, LOR's, etc) and retake the LSAT later this year as a contingency? If I am refused to the preferred school this year, would the school use the refusal against me next year if I reapply with a higher LSAT?

jdawg113

no. If you get accepted and retake in Feb you can use it to try and get $$, if you are waitlisted you could use it to help take u off w/ $. if you are rejected, well you can try to have them reconsider but thats not the most common... if going for a June retake I'm not too sure if it'll do anything for this cycle.
and no if you are rejected, retake and reapply next cycle your previous rejection will not affect you

seglen512

@jdawg113 I was told by my advisor that getting rejected from a school and then reapplying next cycle is a bad move. He said the only way they will seriously consider my application again is if something significant has changed, like a Masters or something. But when I asked my friends this they thought I should get a second opinion. I'm hearing a lot of conflicting arguments for this. Where did you get your info?

ddakjiking

@seglen512
Jdawgs and I get a lot of our information from another popular internet forum Top Law Schools or TLS for short. There's a lot of students at or applying to top schools like the T-14 who post and share their experiences with the LSAT/admission/law school. The general gist is that reapplying to the same school the next cycle will *not*be affected by the outcome of the previous year.

What's important is that you apply with a good LSAT....because in the end, schools just want your LSAT/GPA numbers so they can report that to USNWR and maintain their rank.

seglen512

Still confused, still getting contradicting answers. @jdawg113 says it doesn't matter and licknee10 says it does?

ddakjiking

My bad. I meant *will not be affected*

jdawg113

@seglen512 as I don't know if reapplying with nothing changing is a good move (granted when you think about it, if you were rejected b4 whats the worse that happens? rejected again? nothing new, best thing? you get accepted... yay) but if you take theLSAT, get a score you're eh with, but apply anyway and get rejected so you retake, get higher and reapply... well a change in LSAT is significant change. I doubt a masters would really add too much to the equation IMO or at least to be considered a significant change. If you took, got a score was rejected. held off a cycle and reapplied again, no idea what would happen, but chances are a rejection is in the cards and even if not it would probably be too much money to reasonably attend(since I would doubt any scholarship$)
tl;dr if you really want to go to a school u got rejected from, retake, score higher, reapply