<p>Do you think graduating in 3 years counts as anything?</p>
<p>A negative, and potentially a moderate one. You'll be applying to law school with only two years worth of grades, and the two easier ones at that. That's a very small sample size; expanding to include the more-in-depth third year of your undergraduate work provides them much more information about how predictive your transcript will be.</p>
<p>Other posters on this board -- including graduates of very prestigious law schools -- have suggested that maturity becomes a factor, too -- honestly, they're concerned enough about the 22-year-olds they're getting. Accelerating by a year (and honestly, many of those who accelerate by one year often seem as if they've accelerated by a lot more than that) only exacerbates this concern.</p>
<p>However, soft factors, either positive or negative, don't matter that much. So if the GPA and LSAT are solid, then by all means knock yourself out.</p>
<p>It also depends upon (a) how you did it and (b)when you apply to law school.</p>
<p>If you did it by going to a dual enrollment program in high school and apply to LS while you are still an undergraduate...um...it's going to REALLY hurt you. </p>
<p>If you did it by going to summer school every year and have 5 years of WE before applying to LS, it won't matter one iota.</p>
<p>My kid has a few friends who went to good colleges and graduated early based on APs. They went to LS directly. Among the top 14, they found UPenn to be the one which looked most favorably on their apps. This may be because UPenn allows its own UGs to submatriculate.</p>
<p>I'm most likely not going to be going to law school straight after college -- 6-7 years of non-stop work seems like suicide to me. I would probably work at least a few years first, and may not even go to law school. It depends on how I feel and whether I think I can get into a T14 law school. But the important thing to gather from this is that even if I graduate in 3 years, all of the grades from those 3 years will be sent to law schools since I'm not applying directly afterwards. I guess it makes sense to not rush, but even if I do that and take 4 classes every semester I'll still be able to graduate a half-year early due to IB credits.</p>
<p>bluedevilmike, I was wondering... even if applicants who plan to graduate in three years do so and only have two year's worth of grades to show law schools, how would those two years be the two easier years? If one comes into college with a year or over's worth of credits, he/she is still required to meet all the requirements of their degree program. They would just be taking upper-level courses sooner, where they would have started with introductory level and core courses, AP or IB or whatnot knocked those out for them, so the student must move on to higher-level virtually a year earlier. I didn't really understand how this could be easier work, less work to show, no doubt, but no easier.</p>
<p>What I do think is a more important factor to be considered by any student thinking about doing this is, "Will you be able to accomplish all that you must to get where you want to on an accelerated scale?" Can you receive the kind of score that you want on the LSAT, when you will have to buckle down and study a year earlier than the normal time frame? Will you be able to have strong soft factors when you have less time than others? Etc. It's something to consider, but not be deterred by if you really feel you can do it. Personally, I don't think age is a matter of great importance unless we're talking about a teenager applying to law school, 21-22 seem about the same to me, but that is just my opinion.</p>
<p>I plan to graduate in 3 years but I'm also planning to work before going back for law school, so yeah, it's definitely possible for some people.</p>
<p>1.) I should have clarified that taking a year (or more) off solves all ills.</p>
<p>2.) Again, soft factors -- including accelerating -- aren't that big a deal.</p>
<p>3.) I meant of your three years, the two that they're seeing are the easy ones.</p>
<p>what if you have taken 18 credits each semester for those 2 years, and summer courses, so that you are only one semester behind everyone else, instead of a whole year. would they still look down at you for graduating in 3 years and applying immediatly to law school?</p>