Hello, I am a current freshman in a top 20 university coming off a bad semester. I anticipate a 3.38 GPA from 13 credits. Obviously this is somewhat salvageable, but I am in a unique situation; I already have an undergrad GPA from taking high school classes at a community college. I transferred 30 AP credits and earned 33 CC credits with a 3.5 GPA (I was aiming for pre-med reqs and completed Calc III as well as a year of Gen Chem and Physics).
At this point, even with a high LSAT score (which no-one can really bank on), I think I can kiss my HYPS law school chances goodbye. I wanted to apply for competitive national fellowships and scholarships, but I probably have no shot at those now either.
Factors: (Race/ethnicity (+), current honors program classes harder than major (+), guaranteed funded research (+), an internship and leadership positions already lined up for next semester, summer, and fall semester (+)
Competitive Internships and programs after 2017 based on current GPA probably unattainable (-)
Am I being pessimistic or realistic? I could probably make it into ~a~ law school, but this is a tough job market for lawyers and I don’t intend on being an attorney. I can take my post-grad aspirations elsewhere, but it would be useful to know if this avenue is closed off to me so that I can best direct my classes and extracurriculars to what will be relevant. After all, grad school isn’t for everyone.
What do you really want to do?
@whitespace Something public policy related. I think being an elected official at some level of government would be the end goal, but there’s a lot of stepping stones between now and then (and many ways to get there). If all possibilities were open to me, I’d start out with a fellowship or law school, then take a teaching job, do non-profit work, or stay in academia for a while.
Princeton doesn’t have a law school anyway . . . so no HYPS.
You may get a high LSAT score. It’s a matter of practice. Start practicing now. If you really want to do public interest, it’s imperative that you attend a school with a great loan-forgiveness program. Start there in researching which schools you want to attend. The list will be small. If a school’s main focus is corporate, but they do public interest, they may welcome you because you are focused on the area where fewer of their applicants want to go. In other words, the public-interest-heavy schools might have a lot more competition for their seats. A corporate-heavy school with a PI arm might be looking for students with really strong PI chops.
- Raise your grades over the coming semesters;
- Find internships and work in your public interest field or parallel fields;
- Do this for awhile after undergrad, building a resume and expertise;
- Practice your LSATs until you know you can score above 172;
- Apply to your list of schools that offer loan-forgiveness for government and public interest work.
With that sort of focus and scoring well on the LSAT I’d be surprised if you didn’t achieve your goal.
You should not however build up debt in just any law school that will accept you, and then go into government work. A lower level school with lower price, okay that’s fine, if you can find that.
Best of luck.
@Dustyfeathers Thank you. Could you clarify your response a bit? You said, “With that sort of focus and scoring well on the LSAT I’d be surprised if you didn’t achieve your goal.” Do you mean my ultimate career goal, getting into HYS level law schools, or any law school in general?
I’m not sure that I understand your concern: your 3.38/3.5 GPA, you think, prevents you from going to HYS? My cumulative GPA as a freshman in college was about a 3.5 (both semesters together) and I ended up with a 3.8+ and went to H. If I did it, you can do it.
If you don’t want to be an attorney, don’t go to law school. If you want to do public policy work, go get a MPP.
@HappyAlumnus Thank you VERY much. I was mainly worried about the CC GPA limiting me.
@Demosthenes49 A law degree is a good foundation for an eventual career in politics, but is certainly not the only or maybe even best preparation. An MPP is definitely an option, but so is a law degree. At this point in time, I think that I would like to attend law school.
Keep your options open.
Look into Teach For America, as I’m sure they recruit at our campus. If selected senior year, it’d help with top law schools admissions and real life effects of policy .
Bring those grades up. You will need lotsbif A/A-'s to make a top law school possible, so hit the ground running in January.
@themain123: Lots of politicians are lawyers, but most lawyers aren’t politicians. There’s a reason for that. Law school teaches you the theory behind being a lawyer. It’s both extremely expensive and useless as anything else. Law school doesn’t even teach you how to practice law; you learn that on the job. It provides precisely no skills for going into politics.
I meant getting into a top 14 law school and then going into public service of government work. I would not get an MPP unless it was cheap or free. There are many ways to get into politics without a JD or any other masters degree, if you’re concerned about expenses. Start in a government job in DC and work your way up. There’s a job-listing website for government jobs. Many are entry level.
But a JD is a great way to go for PI or government work if you go to a school with loan forgiveness, because law school teaches a great way to think. If you decide to go this route, however, I’d take some business or corporate classes too, economics. Because those are important skills to have if you go into government work. Another approach is to take a JD at a top law school and work in a big corporate firm for 2 years (to pay off loans) also provides great insight into business. IMO a good understanding of business and the economy are really important for running government well. Many attorneys who intend to work in government or public interest work or academics have also worked in corporate law firms. It’s an important skill set.
My understanding, correct me if I’m wrong, is that your CC and AP GPA will not count toward the GPA sent to schools.
If you managed a 4.0 on your last undergrad semester, you could essentially pull a 3.7
@Jpgranier No, “Every grade you earn before your first bachelor’s degree is awarded will be included… High school classes at a community college for credit [count].”
(http://abovethelaw.com/career-files/how-lsac-recalculates-your-gpa-for-law-school-admissions/)
The only reason I brought up AP was because 1/2 of my Associates Degree (that I’m not using, lol) belongs to 30 credits of transfer AP credit. The other 33 are from classes I took my senior year, and those have the 3.5 GPA.
They will count the CC GPA and my current undergrad GPA, a good GPA will be harder to attain from now on.
Thank you everyone, you have helped me reevaluate my options. I just realized I have my current university’s law school to fall back on if law school admissions go very poorly for me. Its ranking hovers around 20. I will apply for the Rhodes, Teach for America or Fulbrights (other equiv.) to defer law school anyways hopefully.