International Student Forum

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Sannanna

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International Student

Post by Sannanna » Thu Jan 24, 2019 10:10 am

International (non resident alien):

23, F, Business major with finance specialisation
Above average rating (could write an addendum explaining I scored in the top 10% of my class but idk probably won't)
175 LSAT
2 years at Goldman Sachs
Passed CFA level 1
5+ years of volunteering (local organisations)
A little bit of diversity maybe (grew up in the middle East before moving to South Asia, and have travelled to 10+ countries)

That's about it, been pretty hard to understand how cycles fare for international applicants, and I don't want to waste too much money on apps, so any input would be appreciated !

albanach

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Re: International Student

Post by albanach » Thu Jan 24, 2019 10:36 am

Sannanna wrote:International (non resident alien):

23, F, Business major with finance specialisation
Above average rating (could write an addendum explaining I scored in the top 10% of my class but idk probably won't)
175 LSAT
2 years at Goldman Sachs
Passed CFA level 1
5+ years of volunteering (local organisations)
A little bit of diversity maybe (grew up in the middle East before moving to South Asia, and have travelled to 10+ countries)

That's about it, been pretty hard to understand how cycles fare for international applicants, and I don't want to waste too much money on apps, so any input would be appreciated !
There should be plenty of information available by searching the threads on here.

Some schools take very few international students, others take several. For typical admits, schools only care about GPA and LSAT. Your other softs don't make much difference in the admissions world - not to say schools won't like them, they'll help separate you from others in the event of a tie.

For you, unless you have a GPA from a US accredited institution, you probably won't have a reportable GPA. How did you do in college? If it was assessed by the English model, did you receive a 2:1 or better? If it was another model, were you near the top of your class? See if you can find others by searching past posts who had similar credentials and find out how they were assessed by LSAC.

Schools care about GPA and LSAT because they heavily impact their ranking by US News. Without a GPA you would think that only the LSAT would count and that's true to an extent. However the ranking is also influenced by employment at graduation. Would you have work authorization in the US? If so, that would be hugely beneficial, as schools don't have to worry about you being unemployed because of immigration rules.

If you do have a reportable US GPA, then you're going to be assessed similarly to everyone else, just with an added burden re. employment authorization. Plug your numbers into MyLSN and treat their results as being slightly over-optimistic to account for the lack of work authorization.

Finally, I'm presuming you have a way to pay for school. It's expensive!

QContinuum

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Re: International Student

Post by QContinuum » Thu Jan 24, 2019 3:36 pm

+1 to everything albanach said above.
albanach wrote:Finally, I'm presuming you have a way to pay for school. It's expensive!
To this point, I want to stress that most U.S.-citizen law students finance law school by taking out federal student loans. These loans are not available to non-U.S. citizens, and private loans have significantly worse interest rates and other terms.

Even students fortunate enough to land a full-tuition scholarship usually still have to take out student loans to finance cost of living for 3 years, not to mention ancillary expenses like textbooks and a laptop and travel back home for holidays. Health insurance is another cost; the U.S., unlike other developed countries, is unique in not having a public healthcare system.

L'orDuCommun

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Re: International Student

Post by L'orDuCommun » Fri Jan 25, 2019 8:34 am

Interest rates on private loans aren't necessarily worse, and they often don't have any extra fees or come with incentives (e.g. 1% of principal back with GPA > 3.0). The real issue, however, for an international student is that, to my knowledge, all private lenders require a credit worthy co-signer who's a US citizen (or at least a permanent resident).

Auxilio

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Re: International Student

Post by Auxilio » Fri Jan 25, 2019 4:59 pm

The main downside of private loans is the lack of flexibility (no IBR etc.). I was an international student and got private loans (and I think this is important) from my home country. Any private loan from the US is probably going to want an American cosign. But I was able to get pretty favourable loans from a Canadian bank (most in my name, a second smaller one cosigned by parent) with about 3% interest and no fees.

The nice thing about private loans is you can pitch them on the school--walking in with stats that 75% of students make 190k the first year out is a nice fact. Whereas government (and generic private) loans are based on the general default rate.

Also a couple schools will offer international students loans directly (top of mind is Harvard and I think one other T13).

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nixy

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Re: International Student

Post by nixy » Fri Jan 25, 2019 10:39 pm

albanach wrote:
For you, unless you have a GPA from a US accredited institution, you probably won't have a reportable GPA. How did you do in college? If it was assessed by the English model, did you receive a 2:1 or better? If it was another model, were you near the top of your class? See if you can find others by searching past posts who had similar credentials and find out how they were assessed by LSAC.
Didn’t the OP already say they have an above average rating (ie no reportable GPA)?

albanach

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Re: International Student

Post by albanach » Sat Jan 26, 2019 8:20 pm

nixy wrote:
albanach wrote:
For you, unless you have a GPA from a US accredited institution, you probably won't have a reportable GPA. How did you do in college? If it was assessed by the English model, did you receive a 2:1 or better? If it was another model, were you near the top of your class? See if you can find others by searching past posts who had similar credentials and find out how they were assessed by LSAC.
Didn’t the OP already say they have an above average rating (ie no reportable GPA)?
I missed that, must have read too quickly.

I covered both scenarios in my response. OP can pay attention to the relevant bits - e.g. Score highly on the LSAT and be prepared to have a harder time if they don't have work authorization.

Sannanna

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Re: International Student

Post by Sannanna » Fri Feb 15, 2019 11:59 am

Thank you, but as mentioned in my original post, I already have a reportable score of 175.

So barring work authorization uncertainty, do you think this is good enough to receive some decent scholarships in the t14?

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