3.25 & 157 Forum

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deafeningsilence

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3.25 & 157

Post by deafeningsilence » Tue Mar 12, 2019 9:41 pm

I'm scoring a solid 151 on my practices. I'm running out of time. When I go home and answer all the unanswered questions my score adjusted for extra time is a 157. I'm hoping (and praying) I can get the timing down, but all things considered, I really think I will. I think I can get into a Tier 4 school fairly easily, which I'm perfectly happy with (please correct me if I'm wrong). Is it possible to get into a Tier 3 with a higher LSAT score?

What are my chances of getting into:

TIER 4:
Florida State University- in state
Tulane- out of state
Emory- Out of state
Georgia State- out of state

or

any tier 3?

Anonguy715

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Re: 3.25 & 157

Post by Anonguy715 » Wed Mar 13, 2019 11:46 am

These are very different schools, I don't think they should be all lumped into a single tier. How are you defining Tier 4?

With a 3.25 and 157 you're out at Emory. You have an outside shot at FSU and Tulane. You have a shot at GSU. But, that's assuming you get a 157, which you haven't actually done in the required time. If you score a 151 on the LSAT and apply with that, you're out at all 4. Additionally, a lot of people score a bit below their PTs on the actual exam. I don't know how generous these schools are with scholarships, but at your numbers I doubt you'd be getting much help, if any.

Why these schools? Do you want to practice in NOLA, GA, or FL? Why are you applying now? Can you delay your application for a year to study for the LSAT? These schools are not worth going to at sticker price, to be blunt.

nixy

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Re: 3.25 & 157

Post by nixy » Wed Mar 13, 2019 12:07 pm

Yeah, none of those are Tier 4 schools - they’re bottom of Tier 1/top of Tier 2 (to the extent those labels are meaningful, which isn’t very).

deafeningsilence

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Re: 3.25 & 157

Post by deafeningsilence » Wed Mar 13, 2019 2:53 pm

I've been studying for 6 months already. I think the most I'm capable of is a 160 or a little higher. I found this to explain the Tier structure, but it looks like it's inaccurate. :

http://outsidethelawschoolscam.blogspot ... hools.html

I don't plan on going into BigLaw. Either smaller firms or private practice. I live in the South Florida area and FSU and UF are probably the best schools in state. For what it's worth if you have a degree from either Nova, or FIU you look competitive down here due to the lack of good law schools in the area. Most people that practice down here are from there. The outlier locals are from UM and Barry. But the Nova and FIU have a good reputation in the area. I was considering the other schools becuase I would like to live in any of those areas after graduation. And FSU because I thought it was a good school and I would be paying in-state tuition.

Thanks for any help. I appreciate you're kindest honesty.

Anonguy715

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Re: 3.25 & 157

Post by Anonguy715 » Wed Mar 13, 2019 3:11 pm

deafeningsilence wrote:I've been studying for 6 months already. I think the most I'm capable of is a 160 or a little higher. I found this to explain the Tier structure, but it looks like it's inaccurate. :

http://outsidethelawschoolscam.blogspot ... hools.html

I don't plan on going into BigLaw. Either smaller firms or private practice. I live in the South Florida area and FSU and UF are probably the best schools in state. For what it's worth if you have a degree from either Nova, or FIU you look competitive down here due to the lack of good law schools in the area. Most people that practice down here are from there. The outlier locals are from UM and Barry. But the Nova and FIU have a good reputation in the area. I was considering the other schools becuase I would like to live in any of those areas after graduation. And FSU because I thought it was a good school and I would be paying in-state tuition.

Thanks for any help. I appreciate you're kindest honesty.
First off, I think you need to be a little more careful with the sources you are checking. Sites like the one you linked are often a personal sounding board for a former law student who went to a school outside the T13, took out big loans, and then couldn't get their unrealistic job outcome expectation.

At this level of school, you should attend somewhere close to the location in which you'd like to practice. If you want Atlanta, then Emory, UGA, GSU would be your options (in that order) outside the T13. If you want to practice in Florida, you'd consider UF, FSU, UM. Very few schools have national reach. A small crowd also have true regional reach. Most have local/state reach. You basically want to go to the best school for your region that you can, as cheaply as possible.

Even if you don't think you can pull your LSAT up that much higher, I would still encourage you to try. PTing a 151 and PTing a 160 is an immense difference as far as your target schools are concerned. I would also like to reiterate that none of these schools are worth attending at sticker cost, or even on a small scholarship. You said you'd like to work for a small firm in the South. Working as a junior associate making 45-65k a year makes it impossible to pay off 200k in loans, and that doesn't even take into account any debt you have from undergrad.

The LSAT is a learnable test. Work your way up to a 160+ and you will put yourself into an exponentially better situation. I'm not an expect on the Florida market, but looking at UF, FSU, and UM, pulling a 160 would be very, very good for you. Florida is the highest ranked of the three and has a 75th percentile LSAT of 160. The other two are right there as well. Even with your low GPA, bringing your LSAT up to a 163 (very doable if you stay dedicated) would put you in line for a large scholarship to one of these schools.

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deafeningsilence

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Re: 3.25 & 157

Post by deafeningsilence » Thu Mar 14, 2019 3:20 pm

Anonguy715 wrote:
deafeningsilence wrote:I've been studying for 6 months already. I think the most I'm capable of is a 160 or a little higher. I found this to explain the Tier structure, but it looks like it's inaccurate. :

http://outsidethelawschoolscam.blogspot ... hools.html

I don't plan on going into BigLaw. Either smaller firms or private practice. I live in the South Florida area and FSU and UF are probably the best schools in state. For what it's worth if you have a degree from either Nova, or FIU you look competitive down here due to the lack of good law schools in the area. Most people that practice down here are from there. The outlier locals are from UM and Barry. But the Nova and FIU have a good reputation in the area. I was considering the other schools becuase I would like to live in any of those areas after graduation. And FSU because I thought it was a good school and I would be paying in-state tuition.

Thanks for any help. I appreciate you're kindest honesty.
First off, I think you need to be a little more careful with the sources you are checking. Sites like the one you linked are often a personal sounding board for a former law student who went to a school outside the T13, took out big loans, and then couldn't get their unrealistic job outcome expectation.

At this level of school, you should attend somewhere close to the location in which you'd like to practice. If you want Atlanta, then Emory, UGA, GSU would be your options (in that order) outside the T13. If you want to practice in Florida, you'd consider UF, FSU, UM. Very few schools have national reach. A small crowd also have true regional reach. Most have local/state reach. You basically want to go to the best school for your region that you can, as cheaply as possible.

Even if you don't think you can pull your LSAT up that much higher, I would still encourage you to try. PTing a 151 and PTing a 160 is an immense difference as far as your target schools are concerned. I would also like to reiterate that none of these schools are worth attending at sticker cost, or even on a small scholarship. You said you'd like to work for a small firm in the South. Working as a junior associate making 45-65k a year makes it impossible to pay off 200k in loans, and that doesn't even take into account any debt you have from undergrad.

The LSAT is a learnable test. Work your way up to a 160+ and you will put yourself into an exponentially better situation. I'm not an expect on the Florida market, but looking at UF, FSU, and UM, pulling a 160 would be very, very good for you. Florida is the highest ranked of the three and has a 75th percentile LSAT of 160. The other two are right there as well. Even with your low GPA, bringing your LSAT up to a 163 (very doable if you stay dedicated) would put you in line for a large scholarship to one of these schools.
Thanks for your reply. I appreciate it. I couldn't find any relevant info on what the Tier structure was. I assumed it was assigning law schools into categories and that it had something to do with its rank. If you have a link to a site where I can get more information on it, I'd appreciate it.

Thanks again.

QContinuum

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Re: 3.25 & 157

Post by QContinuum » Thu Mar 14, 2019 4:40 pm

deafeningsilence wrote:Thanks for your reply. I appreciate it. I couldn't find any relevant info on what the Tier structure was. I assumed it was assigning law schools into categories and that it had something to do with its rank. If you have a link to a site where I can get more information on it, I'd appreciate it.

Thanks again.
The "tier" structure is a rough categorization based on US News and World Report's law school rankings. Schools ranked 1-50 are "Tier 1" or "T1," those ranked 51-100 are T2, 101-150 are T3, 151 and below (to the end of the ranked schools) are T4, and then we have the unranked law schools.

Within the T1, the first thirteen schools (1-13) and first nineteen (1-19) are known as the "T13"/"T20" and are generally the only schools from which a BigLaw (or better) outcome can be reasonably expected. There are sharp "cliffs" in placement power between the T13 and the T20, and between the T20 and the rest of the T1.

The "T13" are the only truly national law schools, with the "T20" being "super regionals" (i.e., placing well within a larger multi-state region). Outside of the T20, law schools place locally, so one should only attend law school in the city/state where they want to work post-graduation. Since law schools place locally outside the T20, it makes much less sense to compare schools against each other, so the precise rankings matter much less (aside from the general observations that T1s are mostly better than T2s, and T3/T4/unranked law schools should generally be avoided due to very weak placement power, even locally).

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