I have decided I want to go to law school next year and I have a few questions. I had a good GPA in college around 3.65 or 3.75 (I can’t remember) but I didn’t go to the best college (Western IL University) and half my credits are from a junior college. I have taken a few practice LSAT’s and scored between 162-167. I have since taking the practice tests focused on the games section and feel I can increase my score a few points. With my college experience and assuming I score similar on a real LSAT, can I expect to get in a good school? How about University of IL? Would UC- Berkeley be totally out of reach?
I have been out of school for 3 years, so I am unsure how to get recommendation letters from professors. Do I call them? Write them? E-mail them?
With respect to your questions, it may matter what you’ve been doing since school…working and you’re cool. Taking time off orunemplyed maybe not so much. However, your grades and potential LSAT score should get you in to almost all schools Mind you I am sure that some law schools will lower their estimations of your grades due to the junior college thing, but if you can get that kind of LSAT score, you’ll be in like Flynn.
Back in the day, I had like a 3.6 w/ honors from a state school and an LSAT score in the high 160s. I got into every law school I applied to including Stanford ( a top 10) and U.C. Boulder (a top 20 at the time). However, with my high LSAT score, I got offered a full scholarship to a lower mid tier school. I took and and have NO student loans, but I regret not seeing how I’d do in a “real” school as law school was ridiculously easy after the first year.
I can’t remember how I knew which was the “experimental” section Homer, but I knew it was a logic section that had to do with questions like "If 7 people live in an apartment building and Joan lives 3 stories above Fred…) there were two of these sections so it was clear to me that one didn’t count.
You can increase your score significantly by practice, practice, practice. And timing yourself. At least when I wrote it, timing was key - futz over one question, and you run out of time for the others.
Oh no. And even the fact that there is a duplicated section doesn’t mean you can relax because you don’t know which is the real one and which is the dummy.
That would be too easy and defeat the purpose of seeing if the questions “work.”
Law school admissions are a bit of a crapshoot. I don’t think it matters that you were laid off or terminated from your job. I’m not sure you even have to tell them that much.
As for recommendations, this is a total Think Out Loud, but I suppose you could email a professor for a recommendation, but given that you have been out of school for a little while now, I wonder if you could submit at least one of the references from an employer, assuming this employer actually knew and liked you. Unless you have kept in contact with a professor or TA, I don’t know how much a “Homer was in my class and he got an A” letter would matter. You might consider a call to admissions and ask about this.
The one recommendation I know I can get is from my internship. They really liked me and even offered me a job. So I know I can get a good recommendation from them. The director there even told me if I ever needed a recommendation for anything to ask him, so I got one covered. But, I know most schools want a minimum of one recommendation from a professor. And I didn’t maintain contact with any of my professors, so I have no idea if they will remember me and what they could say. Hell, I can’t even remember their names. Will the lack of a good/knowledgeable recommendation from a professor hurt me a lot?
When asking for recommendations who do the writers address the letter to? Do they need to write letters to each specific school? How long should I give the writers to write the letters? Is a month and half good?
You will probably not have any problem getting into U of I if you can do as well on the LSAT as you are in practice. Do try to apply early as most schools are on a rolling admissions program. I don’t think that recs and job experience carry as much weight as some people would like them to, mostly it is grades and LSAT. If you have some extraordinary experience or story, that will help you. This is a difficult time to apply, what with the economy and all, but I feel confident your numbers will get you in U of I. As to Berkley, it never hurts to try, but at schools like that admission is as much voodoo and luck as anything else.
Should I send copies of my letters of recommendation to the school or through this service? Will it matter which way the school receives the letters? How important are the letters?
How many schools should I apply to? One book suggested 9 schools, which seems like a lot? I was think of applying to 7 schools.
Berkeley
U of IL
U of Iowa
U of Minnesota
and three other schools to be determined.
Of course all these could change with a bad LSAT score.
Unless you’re going to use specific letters for different schools (from alumni, for example, or other people specifically connected to each different school), just use the LSDAS. There’s no way to get around using it - might as well use it for all it’s worth.
I’m applying to seven schools this fall, pending getting my recommendations done this semester. Application fees are pretty disgusting, and nine schools seems like a lot to me, too.
Well, I just found out my GPA is not as high as I thought. It is a 3.755 form my school of graduation, but when I factor in my junior clooge grades it is only a 3.42. Is this going to hurt me a lot? Do I still have a chance at the schools listed?
I wouldn’t, even if it were possible. Although the incremental effort of sending additional applications is less than it was in my day (1989, when you still did separate forms on paper), it’s still an expense if nothing else - no need to give Harvard whatever their application fee is if you bomb the LSAT.
Now then - here’s the Conventional Wisdom from former admissions officers at my law school, NYU: with a few exceptions in close cases, nothing counts other than undergraduate college, grades and LSAT score, and the most important is the last one. The year I applied, NYU got over 7,000 applications; there is simply no way to plow through that number and actually care about the contents of essays or recommendations. So the LSAT is god. I doubt it’s changed much since then.
Getting into law school isn’t that difficult. I heard that your LSAT score is the most important thing. Get it over 160 and you should be o.k. I only had a 165 and a GPA of 3.1 and I got in. I didn’t really care for it, so now I’m finishing my M.A. in History. Be certain you want to go, it is an expensive choice to have second thoughts about. Good luck.
FWIW, I had around a 3.2 and 166 LSAT and was a resident of California for admission purposes and was placed on the bottom 20% of the waitlist for California residents at Boalt Hall, Berkeley’s law school. Obviously, I did not get in. This was for the class of '99 so YMMV.
Good luck, but, IMHO, there’s a lot better things to spend $60k on than law school. Please work at least one year in a legal setting before you decide to attend. I think that every lawyer you speak to will give you this same advice, but it really can’t be said enough.