Hi,
I am a current undergraduate at Williams College thinking about law school. Compared to what the top law schools want my GPA of 3.5 seems low. Does the prestige of the undergraduate institution matter? I have not yet taken the LSAT, but I have a history of doing well on standardized tests (2300+ SAT). I think I have strong ecs as well. What range of law schools would be good to target? Do I have a chance at the top?
Come back when u have your LSAT score.
Let’s speculate that it’s in the 165-175 range
Come back when you have an actual score.
The two most important numbers in the whole process are your GPA and your LSAT score, and it’s almost impossible to guess how someone will do in the admissions process without both. So yes, the higher the GPA the better, but the LSAT score will make a very big difference as to where admission will be obtained.
Why don’t you talk to your pre-law office at Williams to see what is the past acceptance history for students at your GPA range (3.5) ? That will be more realistic than Internet forum.
From Williams website:
the prelaw office will tell the OP the exact same thing that we are telling the OP. ~95% of law school admissions is two numbers: GPA and LSAT. The OP only has one of them, so by definition, the OP has <50% of the data needed for informed advice.
With a 2300 SAT, the OP has the testing ability to clear 17x, but so do thousands of other students; yet they do not. For example, Harvard College is chock-full of high testers, but Harvard College students/grads only average a ~167 on the LSAT. I’d guess that Williams has a mean of 165/166.
But if OP wants to play some what-if games, OP can look on mylsn.
I think the logic is pretty straight forward. You’ll need high stats (GPA + LSAT) to get into top law schools, but since you haven’t been able to take care of the GPA part, either you adjust your “top law school” goal realistically, or shoot for top LSAT score and try to improve your GPA (if it is still possible).
^^exactly, which means that speaking to the Williams Colleges advisors is of no value…
OP: Your question cannot be answered without an actual LSAT score & your definition of what are the “top law schools”.
P.S. Assuming that you are not an URM, your GPA of 3.5 make admission to Yale, Stanford, Harvard, Chicago, NYU & Berkeley unlikely.
Nevertheless, there are still many outstanding law schools which are likely to accept you with an LSAT score above that particular law school’s median LSAT score.