<p>I am a 32+ yr old CS major from a topmost engineering school and also hold a MS degree in CS with many years of work ex. I am done with engineering and want to go to a top law school for more rewarding career. How important a factor is age in getting in harvard law; can i shoot for harvard?</p>
<p>My grades are above average; i will have interesting essay i am a minority and some basic social work i have done in my native country. i have not looked at lsats and i have heard they are harder than gmat, but i think i do well in standardized tests. Not sure how much preparation is needed though. my gmat is 740+.</p>
<p>The good news is that age is not a major factor for most law schools, and you would be a valued addition to the class in most cases w/ work experience. </p>
<p>Whether or not your minority status is taken into account is determined by your status as an “under represented minority”. you can search the internet to see if you qualify.</p>
<p>if you are not a URM, then admission will be determined primarily by your numbers. for harvard, you will need approx. 3.8 gpa and 170 to have a shot. if you have a 740+ you should be able to score at that level on the LSAT, unless your GMAT score was heavily biased towards quant.</p>
<p>I read that average age of enrolled students at HLS is 24, which may mean that average age of admits is 22-23. That is very young compared to what I would be at the time of admit. Age looks like a big hurdle to me.</p>
<p>I have about 8+ yrs of experience working at multiple comp sci and software jobs. I am not sure how I can leverage that in terms of experience for law. I have seen engineer just out of undergrad go into intellectual property law etc but selling my age and career path to adcom is a challenge.</p>
<p>I am an international from a developing country, so I am urm. I do not have much extra curricular except small stuff in undergrad.</p>
<p>Also: my quant/verbal gmat scores were perfectly balanced in percentile. I am east indian, and the grading scale and rigor is different than US universities (so a 3.2 out of 4 in our class belonged to the top 25% of the class). But i did MS in US with gpa ~3.5.</p>
<p>If you’re east Indian, then you aren’t a URM.</p>
<p>With a 3.2 GPA, Harvard isn’t going to happen (unless the LSAC calculates Indian grades differently). However, if you score above 170 on the LSAT, you could possibly get into some T14 schools.</p>
<p>Not sure I understand. First, not all indian colleges are the same. Some do not have a grading based system of performance evaluation. Some do. Mine did. But again grading was not out of 4.0 but to a different scale. Second, even within schools that grade, how tough the grading is depends upon the type of school system (top tier, second tier so on). Finally, even within a specific school system (which take in the same caliber of engineering students, and have similar rankings and quality of education), some schools grade more leniently than others.</p>
<p>In light of all these differences, a reasonable indicator of student performance in rank in the class. In my school if you simply scaled the gpa to 4.0 scale, then someone with a gpa of 3.2 will place in the top quarter of the class. I do not think that is true of a top 3 engineering school in usa.</p>
<p>the average age at matriculation is 24, you are right. but that doesn’t imply they WANT a class full of 24 year olds. there are less so-called "non traditional " applicants, and thus less found in the class at each law school.</p>
<p>gpa is standardized by lsac, you will have to ask there to see what your end result will be. it is not the most fair system, but they use your gpa regardless of your “school quality” or subject of study. this is also why law schools prefer LSAT over GPA, as it is a fully stanardized test. if you do well on the LSAT, you will make it into a great t-10 law school.</p>
<p>The site also lists highest enrolled age as 37. Considering 24 is the average and 22 can be the extreme low end of the average enrolled age, it is clear that 32+ candidates are a tiny majority (i suspect even less than 1% or so). Any place I can find out about the percentage?</p>
<p>Also, I came across this site [Law</a> School Probability Calculator](<a href=“http://www.hourumd.com/]Law”>http://www.hourumd.com/) where for lsat gpa combo of 176/3.5 (master degree gpa) it gives a acceptance rate of 30% for hls. Interesting.</p>
<p>Sorry to revive this old thread, but how reliable is this probability calculator for schools like HLS?</p>
<p>Even though posts suggested that 176/3.5 (MS) is too low for any shot at HLS, the probability calculator gives me a 30% chance for admit at HLS. Is it reasonable?</p>
<p>I suggest you do a little more reading about the process online and at the LSAC. The LSAC uses only the undergraduate GPA and LSAT score for standardization purposes for the Index Number that it prepares for law schools. Most schools use the Index Numbers. Index numbers can vary slightly depending on each school’s confidential weighting factors. The numbers will be on your LSAC reports confirming that your records have been forwarded to the law schools.</p>
<p>Index Numbers appear to be the primary factor to help sift through thousands of applications. If a school has 1000 applications with an Index number >3, they may not send applicants with index numbers <3 to the admissions committee. Since these numbers are the primary factors (with the URM wild card), the Law School Probability Calculator and lawschoolnumbers show them in their calculations. These numbers are also relevant to US News school rankings etc., so schools consider them heavily and appear to be reluctant to make exceptions that would drive their numbers down.</p>
<p>Since the Grad GPA isn’t used for the Index number, it becomes a soft factor. Your grad school transcript will be part of your LSAC admissions package, but it isn’t used for the Index number calculation.</p>
<p>But this is not a transparent, fixed and/or scientific process. You are free to submit as many applications as you wish. You can put your arguments about the quality of your program and your Grad GPA into your personal statement, and hope that they are persuasive to an admissions committee. You won’t be the only one with higher degrees, and certainly won’t be alone in trying to distinguish yourself from hundreds of others with sterling credentials.</p>