I’m a final year B.A. LL.B (Honours) student from India, with an aggregate GPA of 3.15/4 (my university’s highest ever is 3.67 in my course). I’ve always heard that universities give a lot of weightage to grades and ECs both. My ECs and internships are outstanding, and I am on a determined (and highly likely) track to win the best outgoing student award when I graduate next year. I am also confident that my grades will increase in my last two semesters (I am applying for a Master’s in the 2026-2027 cycle as I will graduate in 2027).
My ECs include a total of 7 leadership positions (across debate, literary, operations, and tennis teams), founded a legal society specific to my specialisation subject, multiple moot, mediation and debate wins, research publications, and acceptances to reputed international academic conferences as well as leadership conferences. I also have community involvement, having represented my country at the UNCSW and being an active leader in my community (an ethno-religious minority in my country). I am also confident in my personal statement, scholarship essays, and recommendations (which I know will be stellar). Almost all of my ECs are extremely relevant and directly connected to my exact field of specialisation. The subjects that are directly related to my intended specialisation I have performed well in, and my professors will attest to the same.
Despite this, I can’t help but wonder whether my marks will be a hindrance. My university’s exams are rote-learning based, rather than open book application-based exams. While I have always scored high/the highest in my cohort in my practical or research based papers, the same can’t be said for my examination based ones, where I have barely passed some subjects (I haven’t failed any).
Please tell me honestly: Should I apply despite my marks, using the rest of my achievements to balance it out? I’m targeting only four universities (NYU, UCLA, USC, UCI).
All of those are very expensive schools; can you afford $80,000 a year for these schools?
If that is your true GPA, and converted accurately, then you will have a problem. These are elite law schools. These are competitive schools.They look at your GPA and your LSAT scores.
When are you planning to take your LSAT?
Once you receive your law degree, where do you plan to practice?
There is no shortage of attorneys in the US. You can’t assume that you can stay in the US even with an American law degree.
What is your endgame, to practice in the US? Assuming you can jump through the immigration/visa hurdles, most law firms are looking for JD’s vs a foreign LLB plus US LLM unless you are a seasoned practitioner and the firm needs your expertise/access to clients. Most if not all of the international LLMs I knew from UC Berkeley Law were seasoned lawyers and jurists who were there to burnish their qualifications. A non US LLB plus US LLM, is not a hack for an entry level job in the US that requires a JD.
Curious whether you are also applying to the UK, where LLMs are generally cheaper for internationals and possibly more useful for an Indian applicant given they generally have more of an international law component than US ones. Assuming you are planning to return to India on completion? (While I don’t claim this is my area of expertise, you only get one year of OPT after an LLM degree in the US, and many employers still prefer hiring domestic students to those on OPT. Furthermore, applications have surged for law school in the US in the last couple of years, implying plenty of domestic job applicants in the next few years.) So another question is how useful an overseas LLM is to getting work in India and which countries those are seen as most valuable from.
I’m not an expert but my understanding is that you can’t take the bar with an LLM unless you are already a lawyer in your home country and even then most states don’t allow it. The people I knew with an LLM used it to supplement their career path which was law adjacent.
Why are you applying to get an LLM? What is the career goal?
I’m thinking this is based on OP’s home country (and many British-based education systems), where the path is BA-LLB and then sometimes followed by LLM (obviously need to pass the bar exams/required training to practice). Very different to the US route of general undergrad followed by JD.
This doesn’t bode particularly well for competitive admissions in the US unfortunately, where many applicants will have both stellar grades and excellent ECs.