3.2 gpa, 172 lsat, applying late Forum

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nottoothrilled

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3.2 gpa, 172 lsat, applying late

Post by nottoothrilled » Sat Aug 11, 2018 10:53 pm

GPA: a lofty 3.2
LSAT: an unsneezable 172

Transcript is all over the place - by my calculations, with the way the LSAC calculates GPA, I should be playing with around a 3.2 by the end of december. My plan is to submit apps the second I can get my transcript out. I doubt there will be enough time to have the transcript in the system before the holidays, so let's assume that I'll officially have my apps out in January (if my assumption is wildly inaccurate I would love a correction).

What schools should I aim for? Ideally, I'd like to have a smattering of schools that are "you may get in but it'll cost you" and "you have a good chance of getting in with some money". My running list of schools I have right now are:

NYU, Columbia, Northwestern, Georgetown, GWU, WUSTL, Vanderbilt, USC, UCLA, UC Irvine.

Additional notes:
- I understand applying this late for Fall 2019 admissions locks me out of a lot of money/admissions. I know attending even a top tier school at full price can effectively be saying that you want to retire at the ripe old age of 154. I'm still sending these apps out whether you like it or not.

- As a follow up, I definitely want to mitigate the costs as much as possible and understand that attending a lower tier law school can be an extremely risky option when combined with hundreds of thousands in student loans. However, if I could attend School Y with a decent scholarship, I would much rather attend School Y next year rather than waiting an additional year to attend School Y with a marginally higher scholarship.

- I'm not just applying late due to GPA; don't want to go into details (although maybe some of you smart cookies can guess), but let's assume I have good reasons

- Since I'm applying so late, the November retake option exists. I am a bit meh about my score - I was averaging around 173-175 on tests, with the occasional stroke of brilliance with 178+ and the occasional oops with 168-170. I know testing day brings all kinds of challenges and nerves and such, but I feel like I might be able to eke out a few more points.

Having hopefully preempted most of the standard questions, here are the things I hope to get some advice on:

1. What are my chances at these schools? I've run my numbers through mylsn, and I know most people can't really offer much more than that, but are there any strategies I can use to elevate my applications to these places? I would also appreciate anecdotes from recent cycles with these numbers, just because they will (hopefully) make me feel better.

2. I think most of my schools are in 2-3 geographic clumps, with a few scattered in - are there any schools I'm not considering that I should?

3. Is retaking worth it? I know the general mantra is "higher lsat score = better law school", but (to my admittedly untrained and completely inexperienced eye) it seems like at a certain point, there are diminishing returns, especially with my GPA. Like if a school with a median of 170 is going to accept me with a 3.2 and a 172 (hypothetically), would they be really THAT much more thrilled to have me with a 3.2 and a 175? Or is the benefit more that getting a 175 might potentially unlock chances at schools with medians of 172-173

If you're going to roast me for one of the many invariably clueless and incomprehensibly stupid things I've undoubtedly said in this post (I'm sure an experienced forum trawler can come up with a list of my many unforgivable sins), please be as mean as possible - these aren't tears of sadness, I'm just sweating from my eyes.

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