Should I apply to a T14?

Most patent lawyers didn’t go to T14 schools. It is definitely a little harder to get into top law schools with an engineering degree due to the grading. However, regardless of the law school, there are also good opportunities for that combination in technically related litigation, and as a staff lawyer or manager in corporations or government.

http://lawschoolnumbers.com/ may help with assessing how realistic each law school is for admission.

https://www.lstreports.com/national/ may help with how well graduates of each law school do in finding law jobs.

With a BSCE, you will likely get a law job even without a degree from a T14 school.

No one has argued otherwise. (critical reading skills?)

I already covered this: “The question isn’t possibility, it’s probability.” Yes, people can go to bad schools and do fine, but most who do, don’t. It’s not about whether any person at a bad school can survive it, it’s a question of the odds of doing so. Bad schools generally have bad outcomes. Why should the OP not try for a T-14? She’s already not admitted, so what’s the worst that can happen? They don’t admit her twice?

If you take a year or two off you could gather some experience as an intern or as a paralegal to make yourself more attractive, but with a 2.7 a T14 is going to be a bit of a reach. However, you can always try and transfer! I’ve heard of someone with a low GPA going to an unranked college for the first year, making excellent grades, and then transferring to UT Law (it’s ranked #15)

A 2.7 will be an impossibility at a T14 unless one has donated millions to that school and has videos of the Dean performing illegal and immoral acts. Planning to transfer is ALWAYS a bad idea.

@potentialsplitt : While your GPA of 2.7 is an obvious obstacle to being admitted to a T-14 law school, it is not impossible with an above median LSAT score due to your STEM major & likely status as a patent agent once you pass the patent bar.

Northwestern University School of Law has admitted at least a few STEM majors with GPAs in the 2.7 range.

My concern, however, is your explanation for your low GPA involving illness & anxiety. I think that this may affect your chances of admission in a negative manner for any T-14 law school.

And a school ranked 20th or 30th or even 100th is a ‘bad’ law school? That’s where we disagree. I think people graduating from schools ranked outside the T-14 aren’t attending ‘bad’ law schools. Those who graduate from U of Minnesota find jobs, most often in Minnesota. Those ranked higher in the class usually have more options, but the rest don’t become garbage collectors, they become lawyers.

Nobody said UMN was a “bad” law school, but even a state flagship has its problems not seen by the top schools:
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2018/05/23/law-school-reckoning-university-of-minnesota-wants-more-money-to-stay-selective
As noted above, the most important part of law school is getting a job after graduation, and law is a prestige-driven profession. It’s easier to get a job when you graduate from a top school. All law school applicants ought to look at the resources listed in #21, as well as the ABA required employment disclosures for each law school considered. For example, while UMN’s employment numbers look pretty good on the ABA form, they also hired 9 of their own graduates for “bar passage required” jobs, a type of chicanery intended to inflate employment statistics.

https://www.lstreports.com/schools/minnesota/jobs indicates that 80.5% of 2017 graduates from University of Minnesota law school “were known to be employed in long-term, full-time legal jobs”.