Law School admission potential, please give your input.

[Demosthenes49]

@Collins21

Simply put, I was asking whether or not you thought achieving 10points higher. than the median LSAT score can help eclipse a GPA deficit of .25.

The higher your LSAT the better. A high enough LSAT will compensate for a low GPA. That is an obvious answer to a not very useful question.

My first step of business is getting in, from there I can show my worth— be within the top 20% of my class. With being top 20% of the class, theoretically, the probability of me being apart of the 65% receiving employment would be exceptionally high… also being apart of the 20% getting into big firms rather possible. OR after getting in and achieving top 20% of the class, attempt to transfer to a higher ranked LS.

Everyone thinks they’re going to be in the top (usually it’s 10, but here you picked 20) % of the class. Turns out only 20% of such people are right. You have no idea whether you’ll be in the top of your law school class or not. No one does. Law school turns on a very specific skill that you have never used before: the ability to take law school exams. You’ll be up against people that have credentials mirroring your own and it will be a race to see who learns the skill best fastest. The calculation you therefore need to run is whether the likelihood of success in law school multiplied by the expected salary is greater or less than your projected debt.

I get that you have a low GPA not as a reflection of your ability but because you did something dumb when you were younger. You are not the first applicant I’ve seen with that problem. You’re also not the first applicant I’ve seen get screwed by majoring in something challenging. Law school admissions is a particularly stupid process turning on particularly silly criteria. But that’s the game you’re playing, like it or not.

And I’m also going to have to disagree with your opinion on no difference between Bioscience or Basketweaving for 2 reasons:

1. Your poor (missing) explanation of why you don’t believe it to make a difference, displaying your under appreciation for the question hence the under developed response.

1. There are admission committee's for a reason. The schools receive your entire course by course transcript for a reason, and they are very sophisticated on there interpretation... rather than receiving strictly just your GPA score and nothing else. Similarly to how the committee will interpret a GPA from your local community college versus ones GPA from Harvard differently. Admission isn't robotic.

Disliking my answer doesn’t make it untrue. Even those on this board who insist that adcoms care about major think they do so on the edges. It’s fair to ask me for my basis, though since I’m the one offering to help and you’re the one asking it behooves you to be a bit more polite.

My data comes from various places. Most importantly, the admissions data available at [url=http://lawschoolnumbers.com/]LSN[/url]. As you can see, applicants are clearly divided into bands corresponding across GPA/LSAT. This is a distribution not consistent with the weighing of other factors, including undergrad major, rigor, application essay, and so on. There is a bit of variance around the edges in which it is possible those things might fit. There is no direct evidence that they do.

You are correct that law schools receive your transcript but are mistaken in thinking they weigh GPAs differently. Law schools don’t weigh GPAs at all. That is handled by the LSAC through the LSDAS. That is the number they care about. Understanding a bit of law school economics helps explain this. For better or worse (worse, in my opinion), law students are driven by rankings. Particularly USNWR rankings. Law students are law schools’ customers and like all businesses, law schools go where the customers are. USNWR ranks on a variety of [url=http://www.usnews.com/education/best-graduate-schools/articles/law-schools-methodology]factors[/url]. As you can see, three of those factors are driven by applicants: median LSAT, median GPA, and selectivity. Since customers care about USNWR, and USNWR cares about median LSAT and GPA, that’s what law schools care about (they get selectivity by not accepting too many people). That’s why even if schools do care about things like undergrad major it will only be around the edges. The primary drivers of admissions acceptances are GPA/LSAT.

So, again, I suppose my question wasn’t/isn’t DO they weigh some majors’ GPAs differently… (bringing all aspects together now)… but rather HOW MUCH (which is obviously rhetorical) but do you think the combination of this slightly lenient GPA review and achieving TEN points higher than the median LSAT score (which are extremely pivotal points as I’m sure you know) would make it POSSIBLE for acceptance even though theres a -.25 differential from the MEDIAN GPA score.

You can throw various numbers in [url=http://www.lawschoolpredictor.com/wp-content/uploads/Law-School-Predictor-Full-Time-Programs.htm]here[/url] and see how you do. You will probably do better than that site suggests because its numbers are taken from the 2013 cycle. LSAT takers have gone down and so have most law schools’ standards.

And I didn’t see how me telling you why I wanted to go to LS would’ve helped you answer me question, nor did I think you cared.

I come to this board because I think law schools make their money by taking advantage of students. I also think students tend to have very unrealistic views of law practice. The former I deal with by making sure students both have the right information and know the right questions. The latter I deal with by trying to steer prospective students into internships where they can learn firsthand the difference between real law and TV law. So, of course I care why you want to go to law school. It’s a far more important question than chancing someone on the numbers.

@bluebayou: I’ve heard rumors of section stacking merit recipients but I’ve never seen any actual evidence.