<p>And actually, there is a pre-law major at my school. I believe it is poli sci and some English and Philosophy classes. It is ultimately a professional degree combined with a ton of majors put together. So while it may not be a major that stands alone, it is a major you can get a degree for here. I chose not to pursue it because if I did not get into the law schools I want to attend, then I’d have a pretty much useless degree.</p>
<p>Another thing. I just wanted to say thank you to everyone for your helpful answers. It means a lot to me. I have an appointment with my school’s pre-law advisor in a few days, and I plan on asking her advice on all of this as well.</p>
<p>Don’t mean to speak for sybbie, but it might make sense to look for full-time work experience instead of a master’s program. Master’s GPA won’t help at all, and I don’t think the degree itself will change your law school prospects more than a year of good experience might. Would also give you a chance to save up some money for law school, both because of actually working and not paying even the half tuition.</p>
<p>True.
I’m a little bit worried about my student loans though. They go into repayment after 6 months of being out of school. Normally, this wouldn’t matter, but I don’t think I can handle paying off my loans when I’m in law school. I don’t know if I can put them back into in-school deferment once I’m in law school. I also don’t know if my right-out-of-college job will pay enough to pay off 9 months of student loan fees.</p>
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<p>While you school has a “pre-law” major, it is really not a genuine major nor does it do anything to prep you for law school. Does your career service office have a law school advisor? this is the person you need to see. they will tell you the median LSAT for your school the number of students from your school who applied to certain schools, their LSAT/GPA and where they were accepted</p>
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<p>Hi Mike,</p>
<p>This is exactly what I mean, instead of going to grad school for a masters and accumulating more debt, Op would be better served either working to accumulate some $ for law school or committing to TFA or Americorps. If your fiance will still be in undergrad, you will need the $ to help offset some of your expenses (the cost of law school applications/ testing/ releasing your stuff from LDSAD/admitted student days add up quickly).</p>
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<p>Your loans would go into deferment once you go back to school. Also keep in mind that there is a cap on the amount of $ you can borrow through the stafford loan program. Depending on the amount of undergrad debt, you may not waant to borrow more to pursue a masters that is not going to help you. Although you can borrow your whole cost of attendance for law school, you have to be credit worthy to do so.</p>
<p>Talk to a financial aid counselor about your loans. They can help more than we can.</p>
<p>Some law schools may give you a large scholarship for the 4.0 plus a very strong LSAT score. Look into that as well.</p>
<p>I’ve spent my entire undergrad career becoming credit worthy, which is why I’m not worried about financing my legal education. I have a meeting with the school’s law advisor already. And while it isn’t a genuine major, it is, in fact, an available major. And it is separate and distinctly different from my major, which was the point of me bringing that up. And I’m not sure what I’m doing about the masters program yet. That’s part of what I was planning on talking to my pre-law advisor about. This post was mainly to ask the basic question that’s now been answered. </p>
<p>“Some law schools may give you a large scholarship for the 4.0 plus a very strong LSAT score. Look into that as well.”
- That’s one of the things I’m hoping for and part of the reason I’m studying so hard for the LSAT. Even if I don’t get into Columbia, NYU, or Yale, I have safety schools. They just are in the 2nd tier. I’m hoping that, if I do well on the LSAT, they might offer me scholarships. If they don’t, that is fine.
But either way, thanks for bringing this point up. It is a good thing to know, and that’s definitely one of my goals with this entire process.</p>
<p>Over all, I’m just figuring it out step by step. Taking that year off to work full time could be a good option. I just really need to talk to my advisers about that. My main thing here was figuring out if I should even TRY for a t14 school given my statistics. Since I know I still have a chance with my LSAT, I’m going to figure out what to do for that year. I appreciate everyone’s advice, and I assure you it is helpful.</p>
<p>“I’ve spent my entire undergrad career becoming credit worthy, which is why I’m not worried about financing my legal education.”</p>
<p>please, please realize – a key issue you should be considering as part of the decision about going to law school is not whether you will be able to get the loans you’ll need to go to law school, but rather what position that enormous debt load will leave you in especially given what is now a declining legal market for young lawyers. there are plenty of threads here discussing these issues – just be sure to educate yourself about the issues.</p>
<p>Part of becoming credit worthy is learning what is and is not a good investment. Trust me. If I got accepted to, say, Yale, but had absolutely no grants or scholarships to cover it, I would definitely plan to go to a lower level school that might be willing to offer me more money. If I had the stats to get into Yale, then I would hope a lower level school might accept me and offer a scholarship. In that condition, I would absolutely take the smart route despite wanting a t14. I’m not going to put myself in 150k of debt without any thought. I simply mean that, if I get accepted and have some scholarships to my name, I would be willing to borrow some of the money to go, depending on how much I needed to borrow. I’ve spent four years paying bills and managing different methods of building credit, and I won’t blow it on an unsafe decision.</p>
<p>The key will be your LSAT score. Until there’s a real score in hand, all this discussion is moot. We can get a preliminary sense of this by getting a solid projection, probably by using both a diagnostic LSAT and by drudging up your old SAT scores.</p>
<p>One of the financial aid issues is using up your grace periods. If you take time off between undergrad and law school, your six month grace period on your UG loans might be used up, as in, you defer your UG school loans while in law school, but will have to start paying back the UG loans immediately after law school.</p>
<p>Perhaps, but I don’t know the terms of your loans, and there are other issues involved as well.</p>
<p>It isn’t moot because I was just asking IF I get a certain score, can I do this. I feel like it would have been a better suited question if I had just skipped the “if” statement and said I already had the score, and we wouldn’t be having all this discussion about how we just don’t know until we know what I am capable of getting. It doesn’t matter right now what I am capable of getting. It matters, to me, what I can get accepted to if I have a certain score. That is all. And, honestly, at this point, I think I am just going to go ahead and take the lsat this june and, depending on the score, make decisions following that. Til then, I will simply be investing time and energy in studying. And that is another reason I don’t want to take a year off. My grace periods are necessary for my transition out of school. I don’t want to waste them.</p>
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<p>This is what most people do. We usually don’t believe them, since they tend to claim outlandish things and their post history belies their age. You’ve gotten a good contingency discussion as a result of being honest.</p>
<p>Yeah, I mean, I do find all your responses helpful. I just had to know if it was worth trying, you know? I like to have realistic goals.
Either way, I plan on taking a practice LSAT tonight/tomorrow depending on how my time is. After that, I am going to order the 10 actual tests package from LSAC. I’m ready to figure out what I’m capable of before landing on decisions from this point. At least I know I have a chance to go all the way if I do well enough.</p>
<p>BlueDevilMike: you forget that they all claim to have 179s or 180s. :)</p>
<p>Kaitlyn: you seem to have a very level head. But that is not a substitute for experience, and those of us who have been down the road want to make sure you can avoid the pitfalls. </p>
<p>The side discussion should be helpful in terms of stressing to you how challenging it is to bet a super-high LSAT score. The more you study, the more you will improve, but you might have to study a few hours a day for six months to get the score you want.</p>
<p>I know it’s going to be difficult. And I don’t overestimate my abilities. I have a long list of schools I’m interested in if I can’t obtain the LSAT scores I’m hoping for. In all honesty, the T14 goal is sort of a dream right now. I understand it’s hard and expensive, and it’s nearly impossible for me to get given everything. But I’m going to aim high and hope for the best, and if I don’t get as far as I would dream to, I know I have some great schools to fall back on. For example, I’m incredibly in love with a school 2 hours from my fiance’s college. That being said, if I choose to go there, I will probably enroll the semester after graduation and stay in their available on-campus housing for law students (which is oddly affordable) and just go see him on the weekends until he graduates. I could handle that. I just couldn’t handle being at, say, NYU and being on the other side of the country from him… as I’m sure is understandable. It accepts anyone with at least a 158, and offers scholarships to those with at least a 161. It has a great academic atmosphere, and a graduate employment rate of 85%, which I consider to be pretty good. I’m aiming there too, and I would be more than happy there. I really appreaciate the help, as I’ve said more than once. And I don’t mean to appear ungrateful, if I have, about the side conversation. I just want it to be clear that that was the sole question I had. Even so, I appreciate the side advice, as I’ve come to ask the questions you’ve all answered throughout this process. I’m anxious to take a practice LSAT now, though, because I just want to see where I stand right now. Tomorrow I plan on taking one. Then I can be a little bit more focused, I think. For now, I’m kind of everywhere.</p>
<p>@bluedevilmike: I’m quite interested in responding to you and will at length when I get some free time.</p>
<p>@kaitlyn: “It accepts anyone with at least a 158, and offers scholarships to those with at least a 161. It has a great academic atmosphere, and a graduate employment rate of 85%, which I consider to be pretty good.”</p>
<p>If you name this school we can analyze it. It is undoubtedly not as rosy as they make you think.</p>
<p>As one example, Emory Law reports 95% employment here:
[Emory</a> Law: More Than Practice: 2010 Employment Statistics](<a href=“Career Center | Emory University School of Law | Atlanta, GA”>Career Center | Emory University School of Law | Atlanta, GA)</p>
<p>Law School Transparency argues that the correct number is somewhere between 58-69%.
[LST</a> Score Reports](<a href=“6 Keys to a Stellar Law School Resume - Professional Resume Writers”>6 Keys to a Stellar Law School Resume - Professional Resume Writers)</p>
<p>Emory famously had only one recruiter show up to OCI a few years ago, so I think you an guess which number I suspect to be true.
[Emory</a> Law Student Lament: Above the Law](<a href=“http://abovethelaw.com/2010/07/emory-law-student-lament-we-don’t-need-donuts-we-need-jobs/]Emory”>Emory Law Student Lament: 'We don’t need donuts, we need jobs.' - Above the Law)</p>
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<p>And this is Emory, which is an excellent school at a nationally reputable university populated by very smart folks.</p>
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<p>Addendum: USN seems to be reporting that Emory has a 52% employment rate at graduation, which sounds intuitively correct to me. That’s a FAR cry from 95%.
<a href=“http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-law-schools/emory-university-03039[/url]”>http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-law-schools/emory-university-03039</a></p>
<p>This schools employment rate isn’t at grad, its 9 months after. Honestly, I’m just going to go ahead and talk to my law advisor about all this. I’m not looking to be employed in big law. I’d be happy to be working in family + juvenile law. I’d be happy if a school let me get a joint degree in social work. I’d be happy to be employed 9 months after graduation. And at this point, I’m trying to consider whether I want to go in debt to finance a t14 whether or not I get in. I’m beginning to think it might be smarter to try to do well on the lsat and to try to get scholarships to fund my legal education. That way, whether I’m employed in law or not, I tried and I’m not in debt. I know it may not seem I’m capable of doing well on the lsat given my major, but I’m going to leave that up to me, not anyone’s theory of how well I can do.</p>
<p>Because keep in mind that being employed at graduation is pretty successful. But being employed 9 months after is pretty good too. It is certainly better than not being employed at all. In this job market, I will take being employed 9 months after graduation over total unemployment any day.</p>