<p>We all agree that do do well for law school admisssions that a high GPA and LSAT score is in order. However, I'm thinking that even the top law schools must consider more than the 'numbers' for admissions.</p>
<p>What impact do extracurricular activities have in addition to your GPA and LSAT score? If I had a near perfect GPA and LSAT score, I would definitely have good chances of gaining admission into a top school (such as Stanford, UChicago, Harvard), right? If not, then EC's do play a larger role in admissions than we admit, right?</p>
<p>Unless your ECs are outstanding, I don't think they will have much of a role in admissions (except maybe at Yale because its acceptance rate is ~7%). I had hardly any ECs, but got a 175 on my LSAT, so I will be attending Columbia next year. Law school admissions is largely numbers-based, with the LSAT being much more important than your GPA. This can be good or bad, depending on your aptitude for the LSAT.</p>
<p>I think that this advice is misleading. Many law schools (e.g. Northwestern, Cornell) openly admit that they use a more wholistic process for admissions. I don't know of a single top law school that simply does a calculation using GPA and LSAT to make admissions determinations. Every top law school is going to read your personal statement. Every top law school is going to review your transcripts. Every top law school is going to take a look at your recommendations. </p>
<p>Every top law school every year rejects applicants with higher GPAs and LSATs in favor of accepting students with slightly lower scores and something interesting about their application. That's not to say that a great personal statement is going to make up for a very low LSAT score, or that a world class recommendation from a famous professor is going to make up for a low GPA, but it does mean that there is a lot of wiggle room in there. How much a particular school chooses to wiggle for a particular candidate is the real guessing game.</p>
<p>spanks- congrats on your columbia acceptance. Great job!!</p>
<p>sally- I'm hoping the schools do look at things beyond the lsat/gpa only. I was just looking at the Boalt application today. They're allowing up to 4 pages for a Personal statement. That kinda tells me that at least Boalt is considering more than just the lsat/gpa combo.</p>
<p>I had great extracurriculars, a great LSAT score, great recommendations, and seven years' work experience (three years while attending undergraduate school), but a really, really lousy undergraduate GPA. I got in, but into a less than spectacular school.</p>
<p>Most law schools: LSAT times GPA equals in or not.</p>
<p>Sally, many schools say they use a holistic process, but in reality, law school admissions is largely a numbers game. I'm not so sure every top school will read your application, as you say they do. At many schools there are numbers that are auto-admit and auto-reject, and I doubt all of these applications are read entirely (or at all). There may be some wiggle room, but you really have to be an extraordinary applicant to get into a school with sub-par numbers (if you're not a URM). Sure, it happens to a few outstanding applicants, but most of the people applying to law school, myself included, simply don't have anything extraordinary to differentiate their applications from the rest.</p>
<p>My guess is that the EC's and a more in depth review of the application may occur on those applicants that are not the auto-admit or reject. It may be a way to differentiate those kids with the 167-169 LSAT and 3.6+ GPA. It's gonna be the strength of the EC's and being an involved person which will differentiate which of these kids are going to get a T-14 acceptance .</p>
<p>I know the cycle isn't over yet, but just looking at LSN, it looks like gpa is playing a more important role this year. I've seen kids with 3.3 GPA's and 170 LSAT's not getting into georgetown. So to me it looks like gpa is getting a bit more respect in the admission process. But again, the higher the LSAT, the more wiggle room one has with GPA. Somehow I think the 3.2/174 student will do just fine.</p>
<p>With an LSAT score of 174 or higher, it's almost a forgone conclusion that you'll find a spot in a top 6 school even without too many EC's.<br>
somehow- I think the lower the LSAT score, the more impressive candidate you have to be.</p>
<p>So let's say someone has a 174 LSAT and a 3.4 GPA from majoring in Econ and minoring in Computer Science at an Ivy undergrad, but has fairly good ECs/work experience which includes founding a nonprofit at her school...would the ECs help then? (for a T14 LS)</p>
<p>EC's will only help, in my opinion, if there are two applicants with the same LSAT/GPA, and they are looking for a way to distinguish one above the other. That said, if you're in the "range" for a school, then EC's will help to a degree.</p>
<p>i'm currently a second year with a lsdas gpa of about 3.66 (and climbing :D) and have yet to take the lsat.</p>
<p>i'm looking for other ways to bolster my app besides my gpa and lsat preparation. what ec's should i be looking for? i was thinking of trying to get an internship at a law firm this summer. what else works? clubs or something?</p>
<p>
[quote]
An internship at a law firm really won't help at all
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</p>
<p>That's not exactly correct. Work experience is valuable, particularly full time, post-graduation work experience. The fact that the work experience is in a law firm likely wouldn't give you a leg up over anyone else with work experience, unless there is something particular about your work experience at a law firm that becomes part of your personal statement or otherwise becomes more than just an internship.</p>
<p>They know that a law firm intern is just going to photocopy, file, and do other menial tasks. They look at it the same as working the same amount of hours in retail or something like that. I'm not saying don't do it, just don't expect a boost from it. If anything, it may be a good experience to get some exposure to a law firm to see if it is really what you want to do.</p>