<p>Hello,</p>
<p>I'm about to be a junior this fall and am planning on applying to law school. I'm curious about various opinions on my situation as there are some circumstances that I have to explain when I do apply to law school. First of all, I transferred universities after my freshmen year. I was unhappy with the first one I went to and dealt with some depression but made good enough grades to get into a university that is ranked slightly higher (both are top 50). During my second semester of my freshmen year I received an F in a second semester arabic course. The previous semester I had received a B. I was a Middle Eastern Studies major interested in working for the state department but have since become a philosophy major. My grades have improved drastically since I arrived at my current university and I should still have a decent LSAC GPA. However, I'm wondering how this grade will affect me because I was having a rough freshmen year and saw a counselor in addition to transferring out to another school of comparable prestige and difficulty where my grades improved dramatically the very next semester. I've been on an upward swing where my gpa improved both semesters during my sophomore year. I haven't taken the LSAT yet but I'm planning on taking a prep course and have started reading through an LSAT book and will probably take it next June. Assuming I make a good LSAT score, how will this grade affect my application to top law schools as well as the middle 40-100 schools? I can explain the grade and I feel I shouldn't be judged too harshly considering it was arabic and my circumstances. Also, how should I go about explaining it? Any advice? Thanks so much.</p>