<p>Hi,
I was wondering if you all could provide some insight towards my chances of Law School acceptances. I've actually been thinking about corporate finance but am also very interested in law and would like to keep my options open. Anyway, my stats are as follows:</p>
<p>GPA: 3.59 from the University of Waterloo (Canada)
LSAT: 175
Work Experience: 3 months @ Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) with Reference letter; 3 months @ uncle's private law practice with Reference letter</p>
<p>I was planning on applying to the Top 20 law schools in the US with 1. UPenn 2. Columbia 3. Cornell being my top three choices. Thanks.</p>
<p>Your message doesn't say when you plan to apply. If you haven't already at least registered with the LSDAS, you probably can't get into one of these schools for next fall. It's not impossible, but not likely either. If you are talking about applying in the next cycle, to enter in the fall of 2006, you have an excellent chance. </p>
<p>However, letters of reference from professors will be needed too. (They are much more important than the work experience you cite.)</p>
<p>With the exception of Harvard, Stanford and Yale (which are ridiculously selective), I think you have a good shot at the top 20. Even H,S and Y are possibilities. </p>
<p>A 3.6 GPA in the Canadian system (especially from an excellent university like Waterloo), is very respected because they have ZERO grade inflation and your 175 on the LSAT is going to open many eyes. </p>
<p>If you have family in Toronto, don't forget to look into the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. It is has decent Law school and is a mere 4 hours drive from Toronto.</p>
<p>Thanks for the info. I have one more question. Is it reprehensible of me to want to possibly go into corporate finance after law school if I decide not to practice law? I'm not sure if this has been discussed, but I'm wondering if corporations recruit law school grads for positions other than corporate law or will I have to pursue an MBA? Thanks again.</p>
<p>A lot of law schools have joint JD/MBA programs. You save about a year--in 4 years you get both degrees. While there are businesses which recruit on law school campuses trying to fill other positions, I SUSPECT--I'm not sure, but I think--they are interested in people who are in the track getting both degrees. You might be able to convince one or more of them to give you an interview, but unless you are a <em>star</em>, I think most of those companies will offer jobs to those applicants who are getting both degrees.</p>
<p>If you really aren't sure right now which you want to pursue, you might want to apply to one of the schools where you have to apply to both programs simultaneously. In other words, there are universities where you submit an appliction to the Business School and another application to the Law School and then, if you are accepted at both, you work out a program leading to both degrees. But if you knew which you really wanted, you could choose before the deposits were due. It would just give you a bit more time to decide.</p>
<p>At most of the few schools I know about, you do a year of law first when you get into the joint degree program. After you finish the first year, you start to take business school courses too. So, if at the end of that first year, you decided law wasn't for you, you could just head to the business school and not complete the requirements for a law degree. </p>
<p>While some lawyers do end up in corp fin without a MBA, the path is often to go work for a big law firm which does that kind of work from the legal side, and then get a job offer from a client.</p>
<p>My understanding is that to get into a MBA program in MOST cases, you must have business experience. There are at least some schools where, because you apply to BOTH programs, you are not going to get into the MBA program without work experience, even if you get into law school. The work experience listed in your original post is probably not sufficient to get into a good MBA program anyway. </p>
<p>With those numbers, I wouldn't look anywhere outside the very top schools, which I would define as Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Chicago, Columbia, NYU, Michigan, and UVA. </p>
<p>The only reason to go to Penn before those schools, in my opinion, is if you decided to do a joint JD/MBA, since their business school (Wharton), is top-notch. </p>
<p>I would therefore decide first if you want to do the joint degree, and then decide where you want to attend.</p>
<p>I had a roommate who went the JD/MBA route, and he said it was really brutal. He did the famously-tough first year of law school, followed by the famously-tough first year of business school, and spent the last two years with a heavier-than-average course load for either a law student of a business school student. There were only a handful of courses where you received credit for both degrees.</p>