I am an undergraduate student majoring in Chemical Engineering who plans to go to law school. My GPA is a 2.7 due to deflating engineering grades and I also have been battling an autoimmune disease that gives me anxiety and compromised mobility in my joints.
Testmasters is the course I plan to use for LSAT prep and hope to score 174-175 on my LSAT. I also plan to take the patent bar before I apply to law school. I have multiple experiences within my major such as an internship and multiple research assignments. And I want to find a law internship/job before going to law school for the experience. Will taking the patent bar help my chances? I would like to go to a T14 like Columbia or NYU.
I am a woman and black. Do I have a decent chance to get into a top law school? Does anyone have any advice on what I should do to make my application well-rounded and strong? Law school has always been a dream for me but, I am a little discouraged because of my GPA. Is it true you shouldn’t attend law school is if isn’t one of T14 because of potential longlasting debt?
With a 2.7 GPA, a top 14 law school would be unrealistic, even with a high LSAT score. The average GPA for these schools is around 3.8 with a 10% acceptance rate. Don’t be discouraged. Top grades at a lower tier law school is worth as much as decent grades at a top tier.
Even by engineering standards, a GPA under 3.0 is going to be a tough sell. Any chance it can go up? Your GPA makes a 170+ nearly essential for admissions to the top tier. Do you test really well?
Also, it’s not just about getting in- it’s about the terms of the offer. I know a black woman who is a current L2 at a T14. She applied with a 3.7 GPA, a 167 LSAT, 2 years of experience at a good law firm (she is also in the Air Force reserves, is fully bilingual and apparently interviewed well). She got offers from all but one of the top schools she applied to, most with decent financial aid (though the most generous still left her w/$35K/pa to finance).
The % of students going straight through from undergrad to law school is falling fast. Planning to work for 2 years in a relevant job is your best bet for trying to get into a top tier school. Find a patent law firm looking for ChemE students and get a job there (a summer internship is the usual first step). Discuss prepping for the Patent Bar exam with them as part of the interview process (they may be helpful).
“Top grades at a lower tier law school is worth as much as decent grades at a top tier.”
There is some truth to this. For example, a law review student at the University of Illinois may well be in a better employment position than someone in the bottom quarter at Northwestern. However, planning on not winding up among the 90% of the class that doesn’t finish in the top 10% is usually a bad plan, especially if you are paying for law school with student loan debt that cannot be discharged in bankruptcy.
Agree that a T14 law school is more or less out of reach with under a 3.0 even as an engineer. However, the good news is that patent lawyers with science/engineering backgrounds are in demand and your job prospects should be fine if you do well at a non-T14 law school.
Assuming that you actually score a 175 or so on the LSAT, yes you should apply. Splitters are always hard to predict, especially so when you add the URM factor. It’s not particularly hard to get fee waivers and your only potential loss is the time you spend on the applications. Don’t negotiate against yourself–apply.
That said, it’s a pretty good idea to get some work experience before law school. Northwestern in particular cares about prior work experience. More generally, law students increasingly have it (it’s not yet clear whether this is caused by law school admissions requirement changes, or whether it’s merely an effect of students needing to work more due to economic reasons) and you’ll be competing against them for jobs.
Everyone “hopes” to score a 17x, but most do not. Was your SAT 1400+? (A gross indicator of test-taking ability, as a low tester is no likely to ace the LSAT.)
Graduate first and take a gap year to prep for the LSAT and then apply. (Note, applying after graduation gives you another semester in which to bring up your GPA.
Agree with Demo. Get some work experience. Request application fee waivers and apply broadly; see what happens. HYS are out. Columbia loves high LSAT scores, but even if you got in, it would be at sticker. Better to attend a lower-ranked school with merit money. Let them pay you for that 175.
Yea my SAT was a 1400+ . You mean applying after i graduate college ? I’m not sure if my college allows classes to go towards my GPA after i graduate . i have to check that out. Thank you so much for the feed back.
I actually do need a scholarship. I always dreamed of going to top tier but I know it’s unlikely with my GPA and I’m also broke lol. i put myself through college. I’ve also considered Syracuse and Yeshiva university. But i will give it a shot at alreast to one of the top14
Hi everyone I also was wondering about transferring To a top tier law school from a lower tier law school. is that a good idea. does anyone have any feedback for that?
OP, until you have an actual LSAT score, no one can really advise you on what you should do. However, as a general rule, attending a low tier school with a plan to transfer to a T14 or going into serious debt to attend a second tier school like Syracuse or Cardozo is a bad idea. The reason for this that transferring from Syracuse to Cornell or landing a big law job out of Cardozo that will enable you to pay off six figures of debt requires that you end up with 1L grades that put you at or near the top of the class. As a simple matter of math, the odds are very much against this happening. Also, I agree with the other posters that a year or two of work before law school is a good idea.
No, what I meant was do not apply during your senior fall. Wait until after you graduate undergrad to apply to LS. That way you have the final semester wiht hopefully, several A’s.
“Thats scary. My life feels like one big joke at this point.”
Not trying to scare you and no need to feel that your life is a joke. But you need to be aware of the risks associated with taking on a large amount of debt - particularly if you attend a lower tier law school. At this point, you should do everything you can to maximize your LSAT score. If you ace it, maybe you can get into a splitter friendly T 14. Even if you don’t, you can probably parlay a high LSAT score into a free ride (or close to it) at a lesser school. Good luck.
Oh please. There are successful graduates of Syracuse law school, Alabama, even lowly old UCLA. Those who are in the top 10% of their state law schools get jobs, good jobs, in their states, for their senators and reps, for corporations. The other 70-90% also get job if they look for them, work hard, are willing to live somewhere other than NYC.
A friend is a patent lawyer. She earned her law degree at a school ranked above 100. She attended at night while working full time and as a single mother to 4 kids. She’s obviously very smart and works insane hours to make it all work.
@twoinanddone: It’s possible to get a good job out of Cooley. That doesn’t make going a good idea. The question isn’t possibility, it’s probability. Specifically, it’s the cost of attendance weighed against the probability of obtaining a job that will enable you to pay the cost of attendance as a reasonable portion of your earnings over a reasonable time.
Also, UCLA (#16) is a substantially better school than Syracuse (#88) or Alabama (#27). Its job prospects reflect that.
But if the employment numbers were so bad at law schools ranked 15+, no one would go to them and yet people DO go to them, and do fine. My sister was a partner at a Wall Street firm and she went to a school ranked in the 100+ (same school as the patent attorney I mentioned above). A classmate of mine transferred to that school and I just voted for him to be retained as a judge. He’s not making a fortune, but honestly he wasn’t a very bright guy. He has a good job that suits him.
A guy I know who went to Georgetown Law (Yale undergrad) spent a couple years at a big firm and didn’t like it so started his own firm and does small civil rights cases, is into local politics, and makes very little about 10 years out. I think he could have done the same thing coming out of any law school. (But he did have choices)
I’ve worked with Harvard grads, Yale grads, and lots of grads from lower ranked schools. Those Harvard and Yale lawyers were doing the same job I was with my degree from a school ranked ~45. We were all reporting to someone who’d graduated from Wyoming.
The OP has little hope of getting into a T-14 because of her gpa, but I think can still have a very good career graduating from another school and may be better financially going to a mid-ranked state school. The patent bar will open up many opportunities.
OP, they are both saying the same thing: what matters is making sure that your realistic income can service however much debt you accumulate. Look beyond T14- but look wisely. Look at overall cost, look at placement into the kinds of jobs and regions that you are interested in for you.
For now, work on applying for summer internships for next year at firms with a strong IP / Patent Law team. That will both let you see if you actually like that kind of law, and help you start networking / getting info on firms that might hire you out of college (not unusual to get a hire offer after a summer internship). Graduate from college, and get a job with a law firm. Year 1 get really good at your job, network madly, and on the side work on the patent bar if you want to. Year 2, study for the LSAT, make your application list and send them in.