<p>There's more activity over here and I thought I could use a parent's perspective for a reality check. </p>
<p>Stats:</p>
<ul>
<li>3.8 GPA, difficult, quantitative double major (not engineering), top school (HYPSM)</li>
<li>Fellowship to study in the UK, will earn 1-year masters degree (NOT Rhodes or Marshall)</li>
<li>URM</li>
<li>Interesting "story" and extracurriculars</li>
<li>LSAT: 167 (need to retake)</li>
</ul>
<p>I really, really want to go to Yale. What would you suggest? Is this possible? How high do you think my LSAT would need to be?</p>
<p>My long-term career goal is to be a law professor.</p>
<p>I am not an expert so take the following as my humble opinion</p>
<p>While it is not impossible to get into Yale with your current LSAT, you are presently well below their 25%ile. The rest of your profile may well be very interesting and worthwhile, but it will have to be VERY interesting and worthwhile to overcome your LSAT. You will probably need to break 170 and ideally hit Yale’s median (or certainly higher) to have a reasonable chance.</p>
<p>Many very smart and successful law professors have come from the bottom 99.9%ile of law schools.</p>
<p>I disagree. While work experience is a soft factor and without a LSAT score in the range for a given law school, a candidate has little change regardless of soft factors, work experience can be a significant reason why one student is admitted to a given law school while another is rejected. Particularly where a law student has significant work experience (let’s say five years or more), GPA matters less and that student begins to look like someone who brings a different perspective to the classroom when compared to the majority of just-graduating-from-college applicants. </p>
<p>Please remember that at most law of the top law schools, the school is not going to give a huge boost to a candidate with an LSAT score one point higher than another candidate. Unless a candidate has a truly remarkable LSAT score well above the 75th percentile for a given law school, canidates will largely be gouped together in a pile of qualified candidates (though there may be several piles and gradients within the pool). Once a candidate finds him or herself within the pool, it will be the so-called soft factors that differentiate one candidate from another. </p>
<p>If a candidate has meaningful full-time post-college work experience, writes an impressive presonal statement that perhaps brings that work experience into focus and obtains outstanding recommendations from colleagues, clients and/or superiors from work, that candidate’s admissions package is going to look pretty darn impressive. Again, this assumes that this candidate’s LSAT scores are well within the range for a given law school and, typically, that the candidate’s undergraduate GPA is also well within the range.</p>
<p>I disagree somewhat. From what I’ve oberserved–purely anecdotal, I admit–it takes about 5 years of work experience to make any real impact on admissions outcomes. Experience in the Peace Corps, TFA, or similar programs is an exception to this. It does boost the odds. </p>
<p>However, working for two years in the private sector really seems not to matter much at all UNLESS the work experience is unusual. </p>
<p>I’ve seen a LOT of my kid’s friends take a couple of years off to work, in many cases hoping that it will boost them from the ranks of CCN to YHS. It doesn’t work.</p>
<p>PS: Oops! On rereading Sally’s post, I see she did say 5 years or more. Mea culpa! I just want to emphasize that.</p>
<p>Let’s face it- most kids right out of college do not get life altering experiences from one or two years on a job. But for “kids” thrown into certain work situations- they prove themselves and grow up at a much quicker pace than most other recent college grads.
Some of those work experiences can include military, child protective service worker, teaching, EMT or other types of jobs that show maturity, good judgement, strength and courage from day one. </p>
<p>I think law school admission people have read through enough BS (and I don’t mean bachelor of science) applications that they might be able to spot those that have truly gained the maturity and wisdom that certain work/life experiences provides. They may also show themselves to be a more valuable member to the law school class than another applicant with a 170 LSAT and a more mundane background.</p>
<p>3.8/167/URM/top school and interesting background.
With a good application, you’ll probably get into a few T-14’s. Maybe not HYS- but you’ll do fine.
And I think there is more to life than Yale LS- so you’ll be a happier camper if you broaden your goals to more than Yale.</p>