Explaining a 22-28 point increase? Also, diversity statement?

prisonmike

Situation: 4 LSAT's: 137, 143, 141, 165.

Reason: Didn't study correctly, did undergrad with multiple internships and jobs. For the 137 I was part time in family law legal assistant, other part time internship at the PD's office, plus course load. GPA was 3.20 but CAS 3.0 (I repeated Bio and Chem, school doesn't count initial fail, CAS does.)

165: Graduated, own my business so I gave myself time by hiring an additional assistant to deal with day to day ops and concentrated on 7Sage and most importantly PTs.

My worry is that the schools would think this is just luck and that a similar situation could happen in law school, especially with the workload. On my personal statement, I plan to cover about challenges in starting my business and the lessons learned, I will also talk about learning from experience and delegating which would ideally tie to lessons learned in undergrad with the insane load I had. And also make it clear to them that I will hire someone to take care of operations to relieve me from the responsibilities of my business during law school.

But I'm not sure if an Addendum is warranted if I should just incorporate that into the personal statement.

Edit: Removed Diversity statement question that was clearly answered in the admissions course that I hadn't seen.

Selene Steelman

As a former admissions officer, I think a jump in scores like this would warrant an explanation in an addendum. Your addendum should be short and factual. "The first 3 times I took the LSAT, I was part time in family law legal assistant, other part time internship at the PD's office, plus course load. When I took my most recent test, I had graduated and was running my own business. I feel that my [Month YEAR] result best reflects my potential to succeed in law school." Good luck!

Logician

Another thing to ease your mind, if you're scoring in the range of your first 3 PT's it would be almost impossible to luck into a 165. People who are familiar with the LSAT know this. So don't worry, just write an addendum as you were advised above. Good luck!

studyingandrestudying

Good job sticking with it. You've done so well.