Applying to Law School with only 4 semesters of undergrad grades Forum

[lpmahone]

I'm wondering if any of you guys know how the following will impact how my application is received. I'm in my second year of college, but I took a bunch of AP's in high school so I'm graduating next year (Spring 2020). I'm applying to law school in the fall, when I'll have 4 semesters of grades to submit in my application. I've known I wanted to go to law school and work in Big Law for a while now, and currently have a 3.97 GPA which will be anywhere from a 3.93-3.98 after this semester. I'm starting to study for the LSAT now and scored a 155 in my PT, but I'm not good with time constraints and I know my GPA is going to be the strength of my application. But how will the T14's weigh my 4 semesters versus most applicants 6 or 8 semesters of work? Will I have to overcompensate on my LSAT or personal statement to prove I'm ready for law school? (Btw If it helps I'm at a pretty decent undergrad college, Syracuse University.) Eager to hear your responses

[cavalier1138]

Slow down.

You're what? 19? The issue here isn't that you'll have too few semesters of grades. The issue is that if you can get a higher LSAT (think way higher than your diagnostic), you might actually get into a T13 and go next year. You'd be setting yourself up for a bad time going this young, and you'd benefit massively from taking a few years to work/live before coming back to law school, if that's still what you want by that time.

Students who matriculate to law school this young end up having a much harder time than their classmates securing employment, because they have no work experience, come across as young, and are viewed (rightly or wrongly) as immature. If you really want to work in biglaw, you'll be much better off if you have some more maturity/experience coming into law school. And you'll have the added benefit of living as an adult for a few years, which helps you figure out your priorities and teaches you extremely valuable life skills in the process.

[JHP]

Slow down.

You're what? 19? The issue here isn't that you'll have too few semesters of grades. The issue is that if you can get a higher LSAT (think way higher than your diagnostic), you might actually get into a T13 and go next year. You'd be setting yourself up for a bad time going this young, and you'd benefit massively from taking a few years to work/live before coming back to law school, if that's still what you want by that time.

Agree with this--I get that you might be eager to go to law school and get your dream started, but it seems like a huge decision to make right now with extremely little time to really get a sense of what you want and if you want to work before law school. It's not so much about your age, but time/experience--while others may "only" have 2 more years of college under their belt compared to you, that's still 2 more years of juggling tasks and projects, summer internships, and "growing up" that leads to making a huge decision about potentially taking on tens of thousands of dollars of debt.

Students who matriculate to law school this young end up having a much harder time than their classmates securing employment, because they have no work experience, come across as young, and are viewed (rightly or wrongly) as immature. If you really want to work in biglaw, you'll be much better off if you have some more maturity/experience coming into law school. And you'll have the added benefit of living as an adult for a few years, which helps you figure out your priorities and teaches you extremely valuable life skills in the process.

I'm not sure I agree with this sentiment--I found that most of my classmates who went straight through did just as well as peers who worked before law school. That being said, I do agree with working before law school especially since you are missing out on 2 more years of learning to refine your professional skills and your skills as a student.

That being said, if you are dead set on going to law school right now no matter what, I don't think your accelerated college experience will set you back. However, with such a strong GPA, I do wonder at you wanting to go ahead with PTs in the 150's--if you spend time working and simultaneously working on raising your LSAT score, you will be in a great place to get into some fantastic schools. Your current projected LSAT score is not safely in the T14 range. Another reason why maybe waiting at least one more year to apply may be a good consideration.

[QContinuum]

Students who matriculate to law school this young end up having a much harder time than their classmates securing employment, because they have no work experience, come across as young, and are viewed (rightly or wrongly) as immature. If you really want to work in biglaw, you'll be much better off if you have some more maturity/experience coming into law school. And you'll have the added benefit of living as an adult for a few years, which helps you figure out your priorities and teaches you extremely valuable life skills in the process.

I'm not sure I agree with this sentiment--I found that most of my classmates who went straight through did just as well as peers who worked before law school. That being said, I do agree with working before law school especially since you are missing out on 2 more years of learning to refine your professional skills and your skills as a student.

I think cavalier was commenting specifically on the employment prospects of folks like OP who're even younger than the typical K-JD. I agree that OP would find it harder at 2L OCI than older classmates with the same grades. Typical K-JDs graduate from college at 21/22 and will be 22/23 by the time 2L OCI rolls around. If OP graduates at 19 and is only 20 by the time 2L OCI rolls around, I could see that hurting their employment prospects. A lot of folks place (IMO undue) weight on being able to drink legally.

If OP will be at least 21 by the time 2L OCI rolls around, I don't think they will be at any disadvantage relative to the typical K-JD. No interviewer will draw lines between a 21-year-old K-JD and a 22/23-year-old K-JD.

(Although speaking of K-JDs, in my admittedly anecdotal experience, the K-JDs my year seemed to underperform somewhat relative to folks with at least some full-time WE. It wasn't huge but it was noticeable. Of course, this is anecdotal, and even a demonstrated correlation wouldn't be proof of causation - it could simply be that folks with full-time WE are more experienced/better at interviewing, and not due to employers actually placing any independent value on having prior WE.)