I am currently an Undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and I am wondering what LSAT I should target for UNC-Chapel Hill, UT-Austin, and Villanova Law Schools.
Here is an overview of my profile.
I am a Political Science Major with a Political Economy/Philosophy Certificate
I have a 3.75 GPA going into my second semester of Junior year.
Internships:
Office Intern in the Wisconsin State Senate
Campaign Intern for the Democratic Party of Wisconsin
Private Law Firm Internship (Got the internship only because my Dad is a Judge so I doubt it will help)
Extracurriculars:
Media Analyst at the School Newspaper
Leadership position within my Social Fraternity
Member of Pre-Law Society
Member of Pre-Law Fraternity
I have obtained my two letters of recommendations by Political Science professors.
Thank you for any advice!
I have obviously looked at the 25/75 LSAT Percentiles for these schools so I am more looking for any personal experience students have with these schools or the Law School application process.
That’s all you need to know. Above both (GPA+LSAT) medians = great chance of admission with merit money. Above one median = good chance of admission. Below both medians…not a good place to be.
But gotta ask, why those schools? Go for a 17x and aim higher.
Bluebayou is right.
Your law internship will help: maybe not for admissions but it will help in law firm interviews. Nobody will know or care how you got it. But don’t tell people that you got it because your father is a judge, clearly.
Obviously I will keep that under wraps. Thank you for your response!
To be honest, I am just worried about the LSAT. I have studied but people talk about how difficult it is.
Take a gap year. Graduate (hopefully with more A’s), and they prep for the LSAT in the fall. With several months of hard work, it’s a very learnable test.
Good luck.
Just in general interest, yes it is (very learnable) for some, but l’ve been struck by the many who never improved their initial score despite hours and months of re-studying and re-prep. One individual took the full-blown month-long (I believe it was Princeton) classroom review in Austin and improved her score by a point. She spent a lot of bread too. And was floored.
You have a pretty strong GPA and very solid EC’s for a K-JD. Law school admissions is, in some ways, more clear cut than undergraduate admissions. There is a finely calibrated hierarchy of law schools and initial legal career options vary based on how highly rated a law school you attend. The reason why folks are recommending you become familiar with the LSAT is that if you had a strong LSAT score you would have a pretty wide range of law school options open to you in terms of admissions and also because merit scholarships or tuition discounts are readily available to strong applicants. For example, my daughter was offered a $42K/year scholarship to go to U.Wisconsin Madison (your current undergrad school). Your GPA Is high enough and your EC’s strong enough that with a very strong LSAT score you’d have a lot of options. I can’t weigh in on whether the LSAT can be learned or not but there is no doubt in my mind that the ROI of studying for the LSAT is very, very high indeed and that 1 point either way can make a big difference whether your objective is getting into the highest rated school you can or maximizing scholarships
Although your ECs are a bit weak, it doesn’t matter for law school admissions. All that really matters is a law school applicant’s LSAT score & undergraduate GPA & URM status.