ED to Georgetown Evening Program with 2.9? Forum

[rgwen]

Nothing to lose by giving it a shot, but still would appreciate any feedback/advice:

-2.9 UG: BSEE, Electrical Engineering & BA, English from top 25 LAC (two degrees awarded different years and listed separately, but GPA was listed cumulatively)
-3.4 MBA from a small school in Switzerland
-3.85 MPA from top Ivy

-4 years active duty military officer in competitive area
-3 years reservist (still in)
-4 years VP Investment Banking at top firm (GS/MS/JPM)

-GT accepts LSAT/GMAT/GRE...last I took was GMAT which is now expired (scored 690...something like 97th percentile verbal and 80ish math). Not a rockstar with tests so imagine I'd be similar at around 90-94th percentile

-Rec would be from Dean of MPA

-Fully funded via GI Bill/yellow Ribbon

-White male 32

Goal is to return to the public sector while doing the program. Would be targeting Department of State or similar, but could also transfer to DC office of current firm or self fund for a period of time. I suspect my profile would be fairly competitive outside of my UG GPA and am wondering if its a nonstarter. Not interested in full time programs.

[albanach]

Nothing to lose by giving it a shot, but still would appreciate any feedback/advice:

My advice would be to go meet an admissions officer in person. Obviously you have a lot of strong selling points that would make your application attractive. I'd be surprised if, given it's DC, they haven't had similar applications in the past.

[totesTheGoat]

I agree with albanach. You have enough interesting stuff going on with your resume that you should probably get advice straight from the horse's mouth. I think you should also get a not-yet-expired score of some sort (LSAT vastly preferred) so that you and the admissions counselor know exactly what you're working with.

I'll also add my blanket warning to never go to night school if you plan on working a full time career-track job during law school. You will regret it. If you can cut down to 20-30 hours per week, great! (although you may as well just go to school full time if you're working less than 30 hours)

[rgwen]

Thanks both for the replies. A couple follow ups:

-GT doesn't appear to allow pre-interview meetings due to the large applicant pool. Any advice on how to navigate that? Is this just a networking exercise?

-Understood in the working while studying point. I actually did the MPA evenings/weekends while in banking/reserves so know it can be tough. Of course, a JD would likely be tougher. I'm hoping to mitigate by getting on a flexible schedule which seems pretty doable in government jobs. Basically I'd target working 7-5 M-Th (same days as GT classes) and then use Fridays for coursework.

-Agree it would be better to have a submittable score available. Any gut feelings on what I'd need to squeeze by? Also, if I'm already lowering their stats with GPA would doing a test they don't really report (GRE/GMAT) make sense if I know I won't be above 95 percentile? I don't think they'll question if I can do the work based on my experience, but I also don't think they'd want me to drag down two metrics which is used to compete against the other t14.

-I'm open to either this cycle or next. Any advice on just getting a score and going for it this cycle? Would that negatively affect next cycle? In other words is it better to take the time to get a better score and apply next cycle or fine to be a reapplicat. Only considering the test here...all other aspects of the application would be solid either/both cycles.

[totesTheGoat]

-GT doesn't appear to allow pre-interview meetings due to the large applicant pool. Any advice on how to navigate that? Is this just a networking exercise?

I'd personally email an admissions counselor and ask if you could have an in-face meeting with them to discuss the best way to proceed with your application. Mention that you're considering possibly doing ED.

Understood in the working while studying point. I actually did the MPA evenings/weekends while in banking/reserves so know it can be tough. Of course, a JD would likely be tougher. I'm hoping to mitigate by getting on a flexible schedule which seems pretty doable in government jobs. Basically I'd target working 7-5 M-Th (same days as GT classes) and then use Fridays for coursework.

Some people take to the grind better than others, but evening law school is designed primarily for people doing 25-30 hours/week of low-effort work. I know a few people who made it through evening law school while keeping their full-time career-path jobs, and the only ones who didn't regret it were working for the government, so that's in your favor.

Personally, I changed things around after 2 years because there's no way I could've done 4 years of that. Leaving the house every day at 6:30am and getting back home at 10:00pm, often with work or school tasks needing some attention, wasn't very conducive to success. Ideally, I would tread water M-Th, catch up on work stuff on Friday evenings, veg out Friday night and Saturday morning, and study the rest of the weekend. Realistically, I'd veg out/do chores/take care of family commitments most of the weekend and half-ass prepare for classes on Sunday evening. Granted, I worked in jobs that followed me home after I left the office. I was working a strict 40 hour schedule for jobs that really required 45 or 50 hours.

Also, keep in mind that law school is competitive, and you're at a competitive disadvantage if you only have 3 days a week to study.

I'm open to either this cycle or next. Any advice on just getting a score and going for it this cycle? Would that negatively affect next cycle? In other words is it better to take the time to get a better score and apply next cycle or fine to be a reapplicat. Only considering the test here...all other aspects of the application would be solid either/both cycles.

I don't see any issue with going for it this cycle. I don't know what all the deadlines are, but even if you don't have very much time to prep for the LSAT, it's not like you're trying to get scholarship money. You just need a binary yes/no answer. I can't think of any way it would affect your next cycle if you didn't get a great score this cycle. Most schools look only at the top score.

[rgwen]

Totes,

Thanks for your quick and detailed response...apologies for the delay on my end as I was out of town this weekend. I'm certainly going to be reaching out to GT to try and set up a meeting as that sounds like the most direct way to really feel out where I stand. If you had to put your finger in the air on what I'd need to hit on the LSAT, what would you say? Or is my profile just a bit too out there to really make a reasonable guess? From surfing the forum it looks like people generally suggest that the intangibles like military, grad school, and career can bump the GPA numbers by a tenth etc. By that logic (?), should I look to LSAT scores of GT acceptances around the 3.2 GPA mark?

One more thing which may be outside of your expertise...I just saw on the TLS school profile that the acceptance rate to the part time program is actually 5%. With that said, the stats of those accepted to the PT program are significantly lower than full time. Is this the result of so many people below T14 stats hoping to break in through GT PT and then transfer to FT? Or is the program actually that competitive?

[rgwen]

Is it true that I need five posts to PM and now have four?

[QContinuum]

Is it true that I need five posts to PM and now have four?

Correct, yes.

[rgwen]

Thanks for humoring me QContinuum - looks like I've now reached five!