caruiz93

I am an undergrad attending a small school that isnt really well known for good academics. I messed around in high school but ive learned from that and now i am trying to make the step up to a good law school. I am a history major and i am shooting for 3.5 GPA or above ( currently 3.6) and i know that LSAT scores are important as well. I work 30-40 hours a week at a restaurant and volunteer at a museum, at a reading clinic for a middle school, and occasionally for a non-profit that advocates for latino community inclusion. I am aiming for ideally ivy league but realistically somewhere at least good and well regarded like st. louis university or marquette. What else should i be doing to improve my law school application? I do not want to be wasting energy on volunteer projects/ EC's that law schools will not even care about.

lawkid

Unless you're planning on doing TFA, Peace Corps, or gunning for a prestigious scholarship (think Rhodes, Marshall), nothing else matters.

GPA/LSAT are king.

wwlink

Go get yourself a nobel prize

frazzled1

How far along are you as an undergrad? The LSAT is weighted more heavily than any other admissions factor, but your GPA is still important. As an undergrad, the best thing you can do for yourself is maximize your GPA and prep sufficiently to post a strong LSAT score. For most T14 schools, 3.5-3.6 is around the 25th percentile for admitted students. It's at the 75th percentile for Marquette, and below the median of 3.7 for WUSTL. So if there's time, boosting your current GPA will improve your chances significantly at the kind or law schools you're interested in.

I suggest reading up on law school admissions and employment prospects on some of the other boards out there, as well as searching through past posts here. You mention Marquette - I don't know anything about the law school, but certainly investigate how well its grads are doing professionally in the type of law you'd like to practice.