How your soft helps admission?

Philip-1

Hi! I may not be a typical LSAT student at least in terms of age. I graduated from college in 2002 (Mechanical Engineering) and received a Master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering in 2005 and Ph.D. in Bioengineering in 2010. Then I spent two years as a postdoctoral researcher in neuroscience and then I worked as an assistant professor at a state University for two years. Before it gets too late, I wanted to try something else other than academia, so I left academia and got a government job two years ago. So I am an engineer and scientist by training, and I have published more than 30 peer-reviewed scientific journal papers.

My experience in the government over the past 2 years has motivated me to go to law school. It’s been a while that I took a test since my graduate school and I was quite nervous and I think I significantly underperformed on the June LSAT last Monday than my usual PTs. Do you think if my background (PhD in engineering, research paper publications, grant funding and student teaching/mentoring history, work experiences as a university professor and in government) could be considered as a strong soft in law school applications? Also, if any of you have a similar background or have seen similar cases, I will appreciate if you could please share your stories how your work experiences or soft helped your law school admissions. Because of my current job, I'd like to go to part-time programs in the DC areas. Thanks!

7sagelsatstudent180

If your gpa is respectable and your LSAT in the mid 160's you probably won't have any issues getting into Georgetown or GW part-time.

Pacifico

STEM PhDs are a very good soft and I'm sure your WE is as well. I would definitely retake if you don't hit your target score. Your GPA will likely be looked upon slightly more favorably than pretty much every other major, especially if you didn't go to a bad UG school. That won't be as big a boost as the PhD most likely but every little bit counts. As KB says about pretty much every soft, "it is a feather on the scale". Your LSAT and uGPA are the lead weights. Make that LSAT count!

Pacifico

And yes you should have no problem with GW at a ~165, GULC with a ~168 if I had to guess without knowing any other specifics.

David Busis

Philip,

I think your experience and publications should give you a boost. I'd expect you to outperform many people with a similar academic index (LSAT + GPA).

Nicole Hopkins

@"Philip-1" said:
Do you think if my background (PhD in engineering, research paper publications, grant funding and student teaching/mentoring history, work experiences as a university professor and in government) could be considered as a strong soft in law school applications?

Sure! Super unique, strong indicator of hard work, STEM bg good for certain practice areas, etc. Sounds great.