Should I retake?

Comments

• 2 Likes

  Seeking Perfection Alum Member

  January 2019 4428 karma

  It sounds realistic. However, it is certainly worth a retake.

  I'm not sure what funding would be like for your joint degree, but scholarship chances go up with your LSAT score. The good news is you may be able to negotiate even if you retake the test later in the cycle. There is no reason it has to be in a few weeks.

  Unless you trust the PSLF repayment system a lot more than me, then you probably are going to want to minimize debt as someone interested in doing public interest work.

  Additionally, if you care about scholarships you should also apply to Washington University in St. Louis (WUSTL) for a fair shot at a full tuition scholarship especially if you can squeeze out a couple more points on the LSAT.
• 4 Likes

  MandarinOtter Alum Member

  March 2019 39 karma

  Thanks @"Seeking Perfection"! I retook in January and scored a 174, and I'm over the moon! I think I have a real shot at T14 schools, and a fair shot at T6 too! Maybe even a realistic shot at HYS?
• 1 Like

  KeepCalm Alum Member

  March 2019 807 karma

  Congratulations!
• 1 Like

  Seeking Perfection Alum Member

  March 2019 4428 karma

  @raymond_r_fang said:
  Thanks @"Seeking Perfection"! I retook in January and scored a 174, and I'm over the moon! I think I have a real shot at T14 schools, and a fair shot at T6 too! Maybe even a realistic shot at HYS?

  Congratulations!

  It sounds like you should have a shot at every school including HYS, though those are hard to predict.

  Perhaps more importantly you ought to have a shot at some pretty nice scholarships at Top 14 schools. I wouldn't be surprised if your decision comes down to something like full ride or near full ride at Michigan, Virginia, Penn, Duke, or Northwestern vs. Acceptance with an excellent LRAP at Harvard, Stanford, or Yale.

  You might have to wait until next cycle if you want a shot at the top CCN scholarships, but especially with your academic experience and public interest goals, NYUs named scholarships could definitely be an option.
• MandarinOtter Alum Member

  March 2019 39 karma

  @"Seeking Perfection"

  Thanks! I will be waiting until October 2019 to apply, so I can have the summer to write out my personal statement. I'm hoping for HYS, but I would be beyond thrilled to get in to NYU or Berkeley with good scholarships.

  Any advice on the number of schools I should apply to with my stats? I don't want to spend too much money on application fees, but I was thinking to blanket the top 9 minus Chicago (I don't want to go back there....), plus UCLA and UC Irvine, for 10 schools total -- which is still $~800 in application fees.
• Princess Alum Member

  March 2019 821 karma

  Wow! Congratulations on your score. Could you share some tips with us on how you went from 160s to 170s. If I was in your spot, I would not settle one bit. Get the scholarship money haha! I talked with other 7sagers as well and they really did recommend the writing personal statement help from 7sage. Maybe you can consider that service as well and work in the meantime for your resume as well. I'm so excited for you and I hope you get into the best of the best
• MandarinOtter Alum Member

  March 2019 39 karma

  Thank you @Princess!

  The September 2018 exam was disclosed, so a big part of my study strategy for retaking was knowing what I missed the first time around. It turned out to my surprise that Logical Reasoning was by far my worst section, so I spent most of my retake study time working on that.

  I will say another huge benefit to retaking, for me, was being prepared for all the little details of test day. I took both tests at the same location, which was a hotel ballroom. I self-studied aside from 7sage, so I had no idea what to expect on exam day the first time, including things like:

  1. Arriving at 8am, and not starting the exam until almost 10:30am because so many people needed to be checked-in and seated
  2. Needing to use the restroom during the exam (and having to run out to the bathroom during one of the sections)
  3. Being hungry because the exam didn't end until almost 3pm
  4. Having to use my analog watch to keep time on sections, and the "official" clock was far away (I used my phone timer while practicing)
  5. Noises in and around the testing room (hotel staff outside were cleaning and chatting and such)
  6. Endurance - going 8am-3pm is exhausting!!!

  Little things like monitoring my water and liquid intake the morning of the exam (drink as little as possible so I wouldn't need to use the bathroom), eating a huge breakfast and bringing a ton of snacks to eat during the break so I wouldn't be hungry, practice test-taking using my analog watch, and doing practice tests in noisy-ish environments all helped!

  And thanks for the tip on the 7sage personal statement help - I may pay up for the $10 course and go from there!
• Seeking Perfection Alum Member

  March 2019 4428 karma

  @MandarinOtter said:
  @"Seeking Perfection"
  
  Thanks! I will be waiting until October 2019 to apply, so I can have the summer to write out my personal statement. I'm hoping for HYS, but I would be beyond thrilled to get in to NYU or Berkeley with good scholarships.

  Any advice on the number of schools I should apply to with my stats? I don't want to spend too much money on application fees, but I was thinking to blanket the top 9 minus Chicago (I don't want to go back there....), plus UCLA and UC Irvine, for 10 schools total -- which is still $~800 in application fees.

  With that score and GPA you should get merit based application fee waivers at pretty much every school below HYS which don't give them out. There is still an LSAC fee each time, but it is $30 or $35. The school fee is the bulk of it.

  They generally send the fee waivers automatically, but sometimes it helps to ask for them. You can probably do that near the end of the summer, but research it a little. Googling law school application fee waivers and reading any old tls threads or reddit posts would probably be a good start.

  I would apply to all the top 14 if I were you except maybe Cornell and Georgetown since both are a little less likely to give full tuition scholarships. Even if you don't want to go to Chicago you should still apply there for the negotiating leverage. Especially if you have ties, they are probably more likely to let you in and maybe give you a scholarship than comparable schools(since they will think they have a better shot of you actually attending). You could then ask pretty much any school other than HYS to match.

  Your making a $150,000+ decision here so while you want to keep fees down you definitely don't want to give up any potential leverage.

  There are optional essays that you should probably do over summer too. I know Michigan for example really cares about the optional essays. The NYU scholarships I mentioned also have optional essays. So did Stanford. Yale famously has the short(I think 250 word essay).

  I would also recommend getting your recommenders lined up ahead of time and asking them before summer. One of mine took longer than expected which delayed my applications and sometimes being early which you clearly can helps.
• MandarinOtter Alum Member

  March 2019 edited March 2019 39 karma

  With that score and GPA you should get merit based application fee waivers at pretty much every school below HYS which don't give them out. There is still an LSAC fee each time, but it is $30 or $35. The school fee is the bulk of it.

  @"Seeking Perfection"

  I didn't know about merit based application fee waivers - thanks for the tip! In that case, I think I will apply to the T14 (minus Cornell and Georgetown), since that will add up to around $700 if I can get school fee waivers everywhere outside HYS. And that's a good point about possibly being able to use Chicago for negotiations, I didn't consider that!

  I'll spend this summer working on my law school personal statement and essays, and checking in with recommenders - I luckily already have 1-2 academic and 1 professional recommender lined up (they have offered to write letters for me when I've mention I'm going to apply to law schools this fall).

  If everything goes well over the summer I should be able to submit all my applications in October.

  If I can ask you one more question, kind internet stranger, on the note of applying for a concurrent JD at law schools at other institutions while enrolled in a PhD. I'm probably going to take a leave of absence from the PhD to do the JD. Do I need to explain/justify in the law school application's personal statement or in an addendum why I am applying for a JD while enrolled in a PhD (i.e. how I see the two degrees fitting together)? I'm worried applying while enrolled in a PhD program might raise some eyebrows among admissions committees if I don't explicitly explain how I see the two degrees working together.
• hawaiihi Free Trial Member

  March 2019 973 karma

  @MandarinOtter said:

  If I can ask you one more question, kind internet stranger, on the note of applying for a concurrent JD at law schools at other institutions while enrolled in a PhD. I'm probably going to take a leave of absence from the PhD to do the JD. Do I need to explain/justify in the law school application's personal statement or in an addendum why I am applying for a JD while enrolled in a PhD (i.e. how I see the two degrees fitting together)? I'm worried applying while enrolled in a PhD program might raise some eyebrows among admissions committees if I don't explicitly explain how I see the two degrees working together.

  Congratulations! You're more than eligible to apply to top schools like HYS.

  And yes, I would absolutely say it's necessary to make a cohesive case for how your two degrees will work together. You want your application to tell a story about yourself, and if you don't explain the PhD, it will be glaringly apparent that it's missing. Also, since you often to need to apply for approval to do a joint program, you need to show them that you're capable of succeeding in both at the same time. And above all, if you tell this "story" well, it could very well strengthen your application. Good luck!
• MandarinOtter Alum Member

  March 2019 39 karma

  @hawaiihi

  Thanks for your advice, that makes a lot of sense! I will need to spend time over the summer writing a clear and compelling narrative for how I see the two degrees fitting together; it's all in my head, I just need to get it on paper!