<p>I will be applying for Law School this fall. I graduated this past May (taking a year off to work/start my own business). </p>
<p>My unique situation is this: My first 2 years of college went very poorly, and I earned a ~2.0 GPA over 54 credits. I then transferred universities (from a top 50 to a top 60, slightly less rigorous) and achieved a 3.63 over 57 credits. I transferred 21 credits from one of the top ranked universities in the world (international) from studying abroad as well. </p>
<p>I am consistently hitting 170-174 on practice LSAT's, and am working to bump it even higher. Assuming I'm able to hit ~172 on the actual LSAT (in October), what schools should I be looking at? </p>
<p>Would Georgetown, Vanderbilt, or Washington University- St Louis even consider me? I have a potential reference from a current Law professor at Vanderbilt. I have worked to start my own company throughout college, and am working in the meantime before Law School (for what it's worth)</p>
<p>I plan on attaching an addendum explaining the poor GPA during my first two years, is there anything else I can do to improve my outlook?</p>
<p>Take it all for what it’s worth, though - and that isn’t much. I was averaging 177 on my practice tests and ended up with a 169 on test day. Some people average 169 and end up with a 177. You could reasonably be anywhere in there.</p>
<p>Starting your own business will help, but not very much. The upward grade trend will help, but not very much. What you really need is a good LSAT score, and then you can probably hit those schools.</p>
<p>And, just so you know, the schools you specified won’t care too much about the upward grade trend. It’s mostly just GPA and LSAT.</p>
<p>Nope, not unique at all. Thousands upon thousands of college kids struggle in thier first year or two for all kinds of reasons, and then get it together in the last two years. </p>
<p>Adcoms don’t care. And why should they since there are thousands of other students that aced their first two years and their last two?</p>
<p>Studying abroad is nice, and becoming pretty standard nowadays, but doesn’t negate C’s. Starting your own business is a nice as well, but doesn’t outweigh a low gpa (unless you are business partners with Mark Zuckerman).</p>
<p>I guess what I meant by “unique” is that my GPA is from two different schools. The LSAC reports a GPA from the graduating institution right next to the cumulative GPA. So my cumulative would be around 2.9, and next to it will be my graduating institution’s 3.63</p>
<p>Still not a unique situation, because plenty of students transfer schools. You LSDAS gpa, which the law schools will use will be an average of all grades received from all schools, not simply the school that you graduated from. You will be evaluated based on your overall gpa.</p>
<p>you will be considered a splitter. Splitters are hard to predict.</p>
<p>fair enough. so is a reference from a current law professor (personal acquaintance, not professional/academic… would be more of a character ref.) considered a strong plus? I’d ideally want to go to Vandy or WashU. I see WashU favors LSAT more than GPA, and I’m “green” on mylsn.info for both… but as you said, I’m a splitter :/</p>
<p>For the most part, law schools only want to see professional and academic recommendations, preferably the latter, but if you’re several years out of school the former are acceptable.</p>
<p>Look at those charts I posted - you’ll see there are huge green areas and huge red areas. There’s some marginal areas in between. Unless you’re in one of those areas, or you’re a felon or an olympic medalist, your numbers are the only things that will matter.</p>
<p>Law school applications are plummeting, even at the highest levels.</p>
<p>I think many of the leading law schools–especially Penn, UVA, Michigan, Duke, Georgetown, Cornell–would jump at the opportunity to snatch up a 170-180 LSAT-scorer, simply to keep their ranges respectable.</p>
<p>^ While that may be true the same goes for GPA. They want students with both a high gpa and lsat score, which is why the OP’s splitter situation is hard to predict.</p>
<p>"The leading law schools medians range from the 95th to 99th percentile. "</p>
<p>Yes in BOTH GPA and LSAT.</p>
<p>Just because anyone can get a high gpa doesn’t mean law schools admissions will be like “oh well you have a 1.4 gpa and a 175 lsat. Admit.” HELL NO they want someone with both so they can keep their rankings up.</p>