International Law Admissions

stacy
Sat, 10 Sep 2011 21:45:33 +0000

Your GPA is adequate for any law school in the country. But your LSAT score is more important than anything else–than a letter from a Lord, than your GPA, than your school newspaper, etc. So start studying. Take a baseline test, so you know what you need to work on.
What do you really want to do in “international law”? Do you really know what training is required? Do you speak the languages/have the cultural fluency needed for the parts of the world in which you want to work? I think people often think this is an interesting field and don’t understand the kind of jobs that are available, how scarce they are, and how a law degree isn’t always the best way of getting there. Most attorneys who do “international law” are helping large companies operate internationally.
You have no way of knowing if the places you’re “humbly looking at” are appropriate until you get your LSAT score. The school I went to had a TWO-POINT spread between its 25th and 75th percentile the year I went. And even the 25th percentile among students that year was above the 90th percentile of all test-takers. And it’s gotten more competitive since then (I applied in fall 2005…geez it makes me feel old to type that). So your LSAT score can take a school from a likely admit to a huge reach.
But even if you get a perfect score, you won’t get into Princeton. They don’t have a law school ;)