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Old 01-26-2008, 02:58 PM   #1
Junior Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2006
Threads: 36
Posts: 49
1 More Year Undergrad or Teach for America?

I'm in an interesting position, and was hoping you might be able to give me some advice about which route to take before heading off to law school. To give a little background of myself:

-3rd year student at Arizona State (Full National Merit Scholarship)
-4.0 GPA, Classics Major
-730/730 SATs (800 SAT II Writing, 780 SAT II US History)
-Extras: Employed by local middle school as a tutor, twice a week for 8 hrs
-Tutor college kids in Latin, Greek, and work in Honors College Writing Center
-Co-Founder of Classics Club on campus
-Teach a private latin class to 7 high schoolers in the area (employed by the parents of these kids)
- Worked at a golf course in the prop shop in the area during the summers
- Also volunteered as a soccer referee in spare time.
- LSAT practice tests have been in the 170-175 range, so i hear i might expect a little lower than that on the actual test.

So here is my dilemma: I could graduate this year (after 6 semesters), and I am confident from my meetings and interviews that I could get selected for Teach For America, do that for two years, and then apply to law schools. The other option is to defer my graduation for a year (since i have 22,000 in scholarship money coming anyway), continue to take classes and prep for LSATs, and just apply for law school straight out of undergrad.

What I'm wondering is what kind of a candidate would I be for law schools straight out of undergrad. I've heard they really only look at GPA and LSATs, but are my extracurriculars sufficient to be competitive at some top schools? Would going to do Teach For America be a bigtime hook in applying, since some top schools have a relationship w/ the TfA program? And yes, I know I shouldn't just do TfA to get into law school, and I wouldn't be at all (after all, I wouldn't spend so much time teaching and tutoring in my undergrad if I wasn't attracted to it), but its not a bad thing to keep an eye on the future. To put it frankly, staying in school the extra year is the much easier path in my mind, as i am already situated here, it will give me more free time to prep for LSATs than would TfA, I'd obviously start Law School a year earlier, etc etc. If anyone has any suggestions or just helpful advice, I'd love to hear it. Thanks!

- Oh, and if I stayed in school, I would need to look again for something to do over the summer that would boost my resume...any suggestions?
JPArsenal87 is offline  
Old 03-06-2008, 07:29 PM   #2
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Join Date: Apr 2007
Threads: 13
Posts: 186
bump...I'm wondering the same thing.
AmandaisaGator is offline  
Old 03-06-2008, 09:12 PM   #3
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Join Date: Mar 2008
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Posts: 4
Frankly you need to have some fun.

Your scores are pretty damn good and I would just try to go to law school ASAP. You would be competitive almost anywhere.

Also you do not need to study years on end for the LSAT. Especially if you are already in the 175 range.
matthanuf06 is offline  
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