<p>I'd really appreciate some feedback, positive or negative. </p>
<p>I'm a URM(Black) and graduated from Stanford with a B.A. in International Relations in June.
Good start right? But here's the kicker: I graduated with a 2.6 Gpa. Now, I plan on adding to the additional info section a good explanation for my low GPA and the withdrawals on my transcript. I had a chronic illness throughout my sophmore yr- until graduating which significantly impacted my performance. I have this on record at Stanford with the office of accessible education so law schools can verify this if they please. I was able to graduate while still being at a disadvantage medically. But since then I have been treated to the point where I am no longer in need of medical accommodations/treatment. So now that I'm back to my full capacity I plan on making the killing that I should have made academically in undergrad during law school. I hope to illustrate this all in my additional info section. </p>
<p>Now with the negative being said, here are the positives:
I was President of Both the Stanford UNICEF Organization and Black Student Union. And I served as a research fellow at the school of social sciences. My resume has good work experience.
My personal statement and letter of recs are stellar.
I hope to get my LSAT score to a 170-175 (I just started studying, I have 6 months to prepare).
I am interviewing for a position as an entry-level negotiator at a local law firm on Thursday, if I get the job I will work there until law school apps are due, which will give me 6 months there. </p>
<p>I know I know, Harvard, Yale, and my own alma mater Stanford are probably out of the question but what do you guys think about those and the top 14 chances wise? </p>
<p>We can better answer that question when we have your actual LSAT score. </p>
<p>Your ECs will not matter. (They only really matter when you do things that are bigger than your own university (e.g. National debate champion, varsity athlete, found and run a non-profit) or make good fodder for a personal statement.</p>
<p>What will matter is your LSAT, GPA, minority status, and alma mater, roughly in that order. (As always, I will not engage in the affirmative action debate but do encourage those with questions to look up the statistics.) Ifbyou get at least a 170 on the LSAT, I would be very surprised if you did not get at least one T14 acceptance, and would not be shocked if you got some merit money.</p>
<p>I would personally be quite surprised if a student with a 2.6 GPA got a T14 acceptance. I agree that at least a 172 would be necessary to make applying worth it, and I would apply widely within the top 25; if you got at least a 175, then I think your chances would be stronger.</p>
<p>Since you’re a super splitter, you’re going to want over a 175 for anything T14. A 2.81/176 split got into GULC and NU (on the above thread), and, although unlikely, your softs might help you a tad if you blanket the T14 with apps. Apply to the T20. Spend the next 6 months studying religiously for the LSAT. Use TLS as a great resource. Study 4-5 hours a day. You’re out of luck for HYS and CCN, but If you pull off a 176-180 then you’ll have a shot at the rest of the T14. </p>
<p>Back in 2004, I got into a T20 with a GPA that wasn’t much higher than that an a 98th percentile LSAT score. (Yes, it helped that my GPA was in engineering school - 80% of my class got below a 3.2.) I am assuming that it’s much easier to get into the T20 now than it was then, and I’m not a minority. </p>
<p>If you break a 170 on the LSAT, you’re in at a T14 with scholarship money. No two ways about it.</p>
<p>The last statistics I saw on affirmative action for African-Americans stated that only about twenty to thirty African-American students have the stats to get into a T14, and the T14 takes the minority students whose stats would put them in the first, second, and third tiers. If these statistics have radically changed, please say so, but otherwise, the OP is in at a T14 with money if he breaks a 170 on the LSAT.</p>
<p>Could you cite the source for those statistics? " … only about twenty to thirty African-American students have the stats to get into a T14" - I would really like to know where that figure came from.</p>
<p>I’d still say little chance at T14, no money whatsoever. <a href=“Search | MyLSN.info”>http://mylsn.info/xeox7g/</a> There’s the data for AA applicants with 170’s-180’s, 2.4-2.8 GPA. No acceptances at T14 (excluding the one I posted about earlier to NU). </p>
<p>Find the 2006 US Commission on Civil Rights report on affirmative action in law schools.</p>
<p>I’m confused, Victory: it’s not that there was a 100% rejection rate for African-American students with GPAs between a 2.4 and a 2.8, LSAT 170+; it just appeared as if no one who meets those criteria applied. Is that not the correct reading of the data?</p>
<p>If I input LSAT 172-180, GPA 2.5-4.0, you see that there are only a handful of African-American students who applied to any of the T14 schools <em>in that data set</em>, but we know that approximately 13% of each school is African-American, i.e. between twenty and fifty students per law school. So how do you reconcile those two conflicting numbers, except by saying that the data you present are woefully inadequate?</p>
<p>^^actually, there is only one applicant in that search; the applicant (2.76/171) was accepted at NU and rejected at the others in the T14. So the success rate of a sample of 1 = 100%! (But the applicant notes that s/he had a addendum discussing a withdrawal from undergrad due to “health and family problems”. Dunno if that factored into any adcoms’ thinking…)</p>
<p>BlueBayou: that one person did apply to Northwestern and several others schools, but many of the T14 schools had zero applicants meeting the criteria. If I’m reading the data correctly, that student also received substantial merit aid at many schools, even NU and a full ride at GW. </p>
<p>That person also received his 2.76 from a “large state” school, not Stanford. </p>
<p>I was referring to the link provided by Victory (in post #???). In that link the person rejected (1 in the Re column) from several of the T14 is the same one that was accepted to NU. Thus, a sample of 1 (who applied broadly, and snagged a T14).</p>
<p>“Large state school” could be Cal, Michigan, UVa, Podunk State or somewhere in between. But at this point, that will matter not. The OP is so far below any of the T14’s 25th, that whatever plus factor that might be gained from attending S, is infinitesimal. It will come down to LSAT+URM+recs.</p>
<p>Blue: all but about thirty AA applicants, nationwide, are out of T14 range. The T14 accepts AA students whose stats put them as far down as #150 in USNews. </p>
<p>The OP is in, with money, at a T14 if he an get a good LSAT score. Whatever the merits of affirmative action, that is the way it operates. My sample size, incidentally, is a heck of a lot larger than one self-reported student. </p>
<p>I don’t mean to sound harsh, but that gpa with a ‘soft’ humanities major such as International Relations is pretty terrible. Even if OP breaks 170+ on LSAT and barely manages to get into a lower T14 (likely with very little scholly money), you need to remember that lower T14 law degree is a big gamble in this economic climate.</p>
<p>Basically, you need to rank at least in the upper half of your class, coming out of a lower T14, to stand a reasonable shot at attaining sought-after legal positions. And, let me tell you, law school is going to be a much tougher nut to crack in term of scoring a high gpa, compared to doing the same at the undergrad level, majoring in a soft humanities major. There are lots of very driven, smart people at T14 schools gunning for biglaw, clerkships, etc and they know that their grades are critical for such employment opps.</p>
<p>Do you have what it takes to score 170+ on LSAT, then go on to face much tougher academic competition / grading / curriculum at a T14 law school (compared to undergrad) and still come out with a competitive GPA? That is the question you need to ask yourself. </p>
<p>“The OP is so far below any of the T14’s 25th, that whatever plus factor that might be gained from attending S, is infinitesimal. It will come down to LSAT+URM+recs.”</p>
<p>And my point was that one of those factors is overwhelming, and you can’t really compare Stanford with most large state schools. It doesn’t matter that his GPA is below the 25th of the T14: that is true of almost all minority acceptances. </p>