I’m currently halfway through my sophomore year at Boston College as an econ major. Due to some major health issues and family issues, my grades in my freshman year were really bad-- I have a 2.89 as of now. Is law school even still an option with my grades?
Assuming you apply to law school as a senior, that still gives you 2 more years (plus summers if necessary) to pull up that GPA over 3.0 and hopefully much higher.
http://www.bls.gov/ooh/legal/lawyers.htm
Are you sure you want to go into law? A very weak job market for law school grads.
A law school worth going to is likely not an option. Sorry, but do the math: even with a 4.0 every period from now onwards, your GPA won’t be within top-20 range.
what was your ACT/SAT score?
With a 17x and a few years of work experience, you will have a shot at the bottom of the T14, so I strongly disagree with Happy. The fact is that you need two numbers for LS, and once you are below the median for one of them, GPA in this case, statistically, it doesn’t matter how much below median you are. The only things that matter to law schools are what they have to report to USNews, and that is GPA. So if you are below median in one, you need to be above median in the other.
That being said, a low GPA gives cause for concern that you will not be able to compete the program. So yeah, two years of nearly all A’s can dispel that concern. Then you just need to ace the LSAT, get some work experience, write a killer essay, and Northwestern and Cornell and Georgetown would give you serious consideration. However, that might mean full pay, which is never recommended for anything other than HYS, unless your parents are wealthy.
@bluebayou, that’s fine- we’re each certainly entitled to our different perspectives, and you make good points. But a 3.58-ish GPA, which is the most it can be even if every single grade starting now is an A, would require an amazing LSAT score that is extremely unlikely to be obtained by anyone (it would be better than I could do).
Admittedly it has been years, but 3.35 & 795 LSAT got me Boalt, Stanford & Michigan. I honestly have no idea what current breakdowns are.
795 LSAT??? It has been quite a few years!
1973, dude! What’s the scale now?
IMO, A 3.5+17x will definitely get some strong looks from the bottom of the T14. Work experience, plus great recs and essays can do the trick.
For example, a quarter of Northwestern’s students have a <3.56. Cornell’s bottom quartile is 3.62, while GULC’s is a 3.47!
@AboutTheSame Let’s just say that a 175 is very high.
@bluebayou, you’re correct, but there’s no margin for error from now on with the OP’s path to law school then. Going from a 2.89 GPA to (1) a 4.0 in pretty much every single class, (2) a near-perfect LSAT score, (3) amazing recommendations and (4) amazing work experience. How likely are all 4 things to happen (to anyone)?
^Agreed, Happy. It all starts with A’s, and lots of 'em.
If the OP is that hungry for LS, s/he can give it a shot. But what I failed to ask earlier was the OP’s test scores. If the OP is s developmental admit to BC, with <2000 scores, the likelihood of a 17x is rather low. OTOH, if the OP has ~2100/33 scores, the OP has the innate ability to score 17x with lotsa test practice.
Recs are pretty easy to come by, once the OP starts acing small, seminar style classes at BC. “Amazing work experience” not necessary. For the most part, anything will do for Northwestern; regardless, it is easy to volunteer at the local legal aid society while studying for the LSAT during a gap year (assuming the 'rents will help out with $$).
Geez, I guess if you can’t get into a T14 law school, you shouldn’t go… Right now I am sitting in a continuing ed program in a hotel ballroom and I would bet less than 10% of the attendees went to a T14 school while I bet 90% make a very, very good living. Law school applications are down. That means more availability for you. Certainly you need to get that gpa above a 3.0. Take an LSAT prep course and get that LSAT as high as possible. Yes, you can still get into law school. Think long and hard if that is what you really want to do for a career and if it is, then go for it.
@MoneyGoesToGTown, the audience at your program shouldn’t be used to measure the success of law graduates.
It’s inherently a higher-status group than most non-top law school alumni.
For one, as posted above, there are twice as many law graduates as there are law jobs–so 1/2 of the law graduates of course wouldn’t be at a CLE program since they aren’t practicing.
Of the remainder who did get legal jobs, most wouldn’t be at a continuing ed program in a hotel ballroom since the don’t want to use scarce funds to pay for it; CLEs can be obtained much more inexpensively (or for free) online.
So I’m glad that your continuing ed program is full of well-heeled lawyers, but they’re not the reality of most law school alumni these days.,
@HappyAlumnus Your comment above began with “A law school worth going to…” The question, though, is whether this guy should even consider going. In my opinion, a law degree is a path to a law license. A law license is, as one of my law school professors told us, a license to print money. If you have the drive and determination to succeed, a law license can give you a way to make money that is exclusive to only those with that license. Now, if you went to Boston College, have a 3.3 GPA and your dream is to do mergers and acquisitions at some NYC firm then you need to wake up because that dream is not likely to happen.
True, it is a bad time to be a lawyer. States are offering forms to do easy divorces while some lawyers advertise $50-$100 divorces. Same with estate planners and wills. Same with corporate formations. Tort deform is killing personal injury lawyers. Criminal justice reform is coming and what will that mean for practitioners? But for those with intelligence, with desire, with work ethic, and for those willing to relocate if necessary, the practice of law can be lucrative.
@MoneyGoesToGTown, I graduated from a #2-ranked law school, work 60+ hours a week, have even moved to different countries for work, and I’ve found law to be a solid career. It’s a steady paycheck and allows a comfortable life. But you can make a lot more money in other fields (doing a few business deals, or being on the business side in a very profitable sector of the economy, for example), often requiring fewer hours at the office–ask my non-lawyer relatives who are in other lines of work.
The OP can go to a law school somewhere when the time comes. Perhaps it will be somewhere like Northwestern or Georgetown if everything from now on goes perfectly, but more likely it will be a law school that will put the OP in a much more difficult starting point. If I had the choice between a good (or lower) but not great law school or another career, I’d pick the other career. There are just too many obstacles if you come from a mid-ranked law school.
Someone with test scores of X and grades of Y can typically get into a much more prominent business school than a law school, opening doors to a greater starting point in a business career than a legal career, so I’d try an MBA or the like if my grades were good but not great. For example, plenty of people I know who aren’t geniuses went to Columbia or NYU for business school; they wouldn’t have had a chance at Columbia or NYU law schools.