<p>I'm a first year criminology student and I've just finished my first semester, I ended up with 2 B's and a C because I had a family situation happen in the middle of the semester that extremely affected me and I've been so down lately cause I cannot stop thinking about if I've ruined my chances for law school? My ultimate dream to achieve would be Yale law, and I know that's almost impossible but if I got all A's for the rest of my 4 years and I kept up with my community program (restorative justice, basically helping convicted youth and facilitating meetings between them and victim) and get a killer LSAT score would I still have ruined my chances for being considered because of my first term marks?</p>
<p>Why do you want to become a lawyer? Why Yale LS? Are you a copious reader and writer? Were you one of your High school’s best students? Do you know what the top 17 Law Schools are? Did you know such a list even exists? Do you know the majors of successful applicants to those schools? Do you know that Criminology is considered quite a light major academically? Do you know the job placement stats of graduates of schools not on that list? Do you know the % of LS grads who don’t work in law 5 years after graduation from most US law schools?</p>
<p>I’m trying to force you to re-think your “Yale Law School” or bust mentality. There are many paths forward, few of them include law school. Fewer include a top-17 law school. Please consider this as you re-focus, crank out as best you can in the most rigorous major you can do well in. Remove from your mind this gigantic burden and steel yourself to maximize your undergraduate experience. If you’re melting now, law school in general probably is not for you. Good luck to you.</p>