Preparing to apply for law school in last two years of undergrad...

<p>Will transfer to a T60 undergrad university in the fall as a History major. Expect my major to be 3.5 by the time junior year is over.</p>

<p>Looking forward to applying to law schools at the beginning of senior year and taking the LSAT around that time as well. I made a 1820 on the SAT without any studying, so I expect with proper preparation I could make a 170 on the LSAT. I also aced introduction to logic, which I was told helps a lot.</p>

<p>What else can I do in this time? Should i join the pre-law organization? Will volunteering help? Should I shadow a lawyer? Work in a law office in the summer or as a receptionist kind of job? </p>

<p>Also, i'm looking at mostly schools in Texas...Do I have a shot at UT? Any advice on what I should look for?</p>

<p>Any advice would be appreciated, thanks!</p>

<p>Work in a law firm if you can - not so much for admission purposes but to be exposed to the practice of law. It would be great to know you want to practice law before you go to law school.</p>

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<p>This may happen, but is not exactly very likely. Your SAT score is somewhere around the 80th percentile. The groups taking the SAT are those people who never get into college, don’t go, don’t finish, and don’t have their act together enough to apply to law school.</p>

<p>A 170 on the LSAT is in the 98th or 99th percentile, and the people taking the LSAT are all college graduates who have their acts together enough to take the test. The drop-outs, the kids who went to community college, and the like aren’t part of that second group.</p>

<p>It is possible to make that jump, but is certainly not a given.</p>

<p>Get a real LSAT score (or at least some practice LSAT scores) and then we can talk about going to law school. Until then it’s too variable.</p>

<p>The usual extrapolation for SAT scores is (M+V)/21+101, with the assumption of minimal studing for the SAT and serious studying for the LSAT. That puts you on track for roughly a 158, but of course there’s lots of variation in the precision of this formula.</p>

<p>Demos is right. Real scores matter; imaginary ones don’t.</p>

<p>BLuedevil- Interesting. Just ran my sons test scores and the formula supplied was exact! I’m amazed.</p>

<p>Interesting - that formula predicted my D’s initial LSAT perfectly. She did one retake and scored 7 points higher. BDM’s post is spot on.</p>

<p>Agree with Demo and BlueDevilMike regarding the fact that you should take an actual LSAT before asking for advice. I will also add that, unless in the most dire of circumstances, should you let your GPA take a hit so you can study for the LSAT.</p>

<p>Explaining my comments a bit further: first, my native language is irony. A lot of what I was doing was (somewhat facetiously) modelling LSAT thinking. One of the many types of assumptions/flaws is ‘representativeness’ - as in, can you compare two groups to each other, based on a previous test, study, etc.? The group of SAT test-takers is not representative of the group of LSAT takers.</p>

<p>Moreover, I think people really underestimate the pyramid problem: as you get further along in any endeavour (academics, athletics, the corporate world), the bottom of the pyramid keeps getting chopped off, leaving a smaller pyramid. (You could also think of the left-hand side of a bell curve that continues to disappear.) Ergo, you work harder and harder to stay in the same respective place on the pyramid, and sometimes, you’re in the part that gets chopped off. When people point out things like, “70% of incoming freshmen expect to be in the top 10% of the class,” it’s not because students are delusional about their own abilities compared to the rest of the population; they just aren’t comparing their abilities to the rest of a highly selective group.</p>

<p>Oh, yeah, LSAT and chances. Take the LSAT, keep your GPA as high as possible, then come back for your chances at law schools.</p>

<p>You have a good shot at UT-Austin if you actually score a 170…</p>

<p>Far too many people are imagining themselves with a certain gpa and lsat scores without having achieved either. Like the previous poster, come back with real scores and ask for advice. Also, there are far more populous law school forums than this one. Top-law-schools and lawschoolnumbers.com offer better resources.</p>

<p>Thanks for the advice guys. I’ve decided that I will take the LSAT in October, beginning of my junior year and gauge where I’m at!</p>