Your location says Memphis. I think I saw a documentary film by John Grisham a while back about a big firm in your town…
Five years.
We’re a bit off the track of this thread by now, but I thought a few caveats to this advice might be useful. What Q.N. Jones did not mention is that, having gone to Harvard, she is eligible for loan assistance that for many non-profit jobs will effectively cover all of her loans.
Also, the “get good grades, you’ll be fine” is quite an understatement. At a good school, this means don’t be in the bottom 25%–easy enough. At a more regional school, this means be in the top 25%–not easy at all.
In sum, be comforted that your choice of legal job means you don’t have to score a 180 to get what you want. But a higher LSAT score means more and better clinical opportunities, less debt (either because of scholarships or loan repayment), and a safety net in case you’re not among the 5% who gets an A in a given class. I haven’t met anyone that couldn’t at least increase his or her logic games score through sheer force of will (i.e. hours upon hours of practice). It is worth the effort.
No, I am not eligible for this, because the job I want is not “primarily” legal.
Who in the world thinks “get good grades” means “don’t be in the bottom quarter of your class”? No one. I didn’t say “getting good grades is easy.” I’m saying, there are ways to make up for a low LSAT score.
There are almost no scholarships available for law school out there, unless you are a member of a minority group. Even with a top score, non-minorities are lucky to get offered scholarships that cover a mere fraction of the total cost of their schooling.
Improving your LSAT score is a good thing. I never tried to argue against it. But without divulging what her supposedly terrible score actually is, there’s no way to give her good advice. I’ve known plenty of overachievers who called a 160 “terrible,” when in fact a 160 will get you into a top 25 school if you have the other accomplishments they look for. And I have known people who had to deal with getting a 150, but managed to get into a halfway decent school, work hard, and become wildly successful anyway.
My point ultimately is, a top LSAT score is not a must for everyone. I didn’t say life would be easy without one. But life in law school isn’t easy for people with top scores either.
Fair enough, but that’s a pretty relevant aspect of your advice. For those that want to do primarily legal work, loan repayment is a big deal and an important aspect of choosing a school.
Ok. Just making sure that “get good grades and you’ll be fine” was seen in its appropriate context. It is the equivalent of saying to an amateur writer, “just get published and you’ll be fine” or to an aspiring politician, “just get elected and you’ll be fine.” As you know, getting good grades in law school is difficult and odds are you won’t get good grades.
This is just false. Many schools, including top schools, offer merit-based scholarships. It’s really just Harvard, Stanford, and Yale that do not.
We agree here. It isn’t a must. But what is true is that a higher score will, without exception, be better for the reasons I outlined. It will always be worth a very significant investment in time and money to obtain.
Everyone who goes to law school worries about repaying their loans. And it is much easier to pay down in-state tuition than it is to pay down Ivy League tuition. Low income protection programs at top schools cover only certain jobs. If you don’t want one of those jobs, or want to go back to school, or become disabled and can’t work, LIPP won’t be there for you. And if you go to an Ivy League school, you will have private loans, and there are almost no protections for you with those. You don’t pay, you get sued.
And, incidentally, though most people go to law school wanting to be a lawyer–I did–there’s a high dropout rate from the profession. Of the 1990 Harvard class, by 2000, over 25% were no longer working as lawyers. From what I’ve seen of my class, the attrition rate is similar.
Keep total debt as low as possible, I say, to avoid being shackled to a profession you might not want in 5-10 years. Or might not be able to do in 5-10 years. Anyone who counts on LIPP to save them from high student debt is a fool who just hasn’t thought ahead.
Odds don’t have anything to do with it. If you work your ass off, and you’re smart, you have a relatively high likelihood of getting good grades. This is not a coin flip we’re talking about.
You can say that, but I know a lot of lawyers who went to a wide variety of schools. Very few got scholarships, and those that did, got small scholarships–except for the black attorneys. All of these people are exceedingly bright. Most got top scores on the LSAT and excellent undergrad grades. It is common knowledge amongst attorneys that scholarships for law school are few and far between. Only blacks and Hispanics expect to be able to get a large portion of their education paid for.
For example, I applied to 10 schools. Harvard was the only one that was top 3. The rest were top 25. I got offered one scholarship from Duke, for approximately 20% of what it would have cost me to go there. And clearly I was one of the most desirable applicants out there that year, because of where I ended up.
The only exception to this rule that I have met are people who got excellent scores and grades and got full scholarships from bottom tier schools.
I would like to ask–what experience do you have with law school and/or the real world of lawyering? Obviously, you teach LSAT prep, so you have taken the test. But did you go to law school? Ever practice? Work in a law school? But I’m tired of hijacking this thread, so I think I’m done.
But the question isn’t whether one should minimize debt. Of course that’s so. The question is how to balance the benefit of going to a more expensive school against the risk of debt. It’s a difficult question to answer. But a critical part of the answer–because it changes the risk calculations–is loan repayment. I think we can probably agree on that much at least, even if we disagree on the value of going to a better school.
Well, we can agree to disagree here. I’ve gotten very good grades, but I have no illusions about how much luck is involved. I know people that worked just as hard, and are just as smart or smarter, that didn’t get good grades. There is a huge element of randomness inherent in the way exams are conducted and graded.
I attend a top law school, have worked in admissions, and before this I taught classes and advised law school applicants. I was offered merit scholarships at all of the schools that I applied to ranked below mine, with the amount generally increasing the further down the ranks they got. That is fairly standard these days, and is true for almost everyone else I know in law school. The conventional wisdom on this is simply wrong, whether because it is outdated or simply never was the case.
But aside from our dueling anecdotes, it is certainly the case that most schools offer merit scholarships, which I believe was the point being challenged. Since this is an easily verified empirical fact, the only room for opinion is how easy it is to get them.
I think all you need to do is show her the last 4-5 posts in this thread and ask her, “If these are a couple of the more ‘normal’ type of folks you’ll be studying/working with - are you still sure you want to go to law school?” 
I am academic scholarship at a law school in Long Island which is 1st in the 3rd tier (if you can’t figure out which one that is, I doubt your google skills). I am on academic scholarship that covers 90% of tuition, and I am a white jewish woman. My school doesn’t exactly have a shortage in that regard.
Actually, I started out with a 75% tuition waiver, but when I finished 1L year in the top 11% of my class, they upped it (kind of a retention bonus). Officially, I’m a "Dean’s Scholar and get first crack at the CLE events and other campus schmoozing opportunities.
I have virtually no debt and several big firm interviews. The top 5% of my class all has offers from tippy top firms.
All is not lost, padawan.
PS my LSAT was 159.
Exactly. We’re all hard-headed and argumentative. Heck, I’m like that, but couldn’t stand being around other people like that, so I got out. But, put me in a room (or a thread) with another lawyer, and my ugly side comes out again.
I think Richard and I are both sorry to have turned this thread into a pissy little argument.
My score is legitimately terrible – I got a 147. I’m also sensative to the types who complain about a 160. That was what I was shooting for and hoping I would get. So back to the drawing board.
Good advice on the prosecutor post though – I will do that!
For folks who get under a 150, yeah, you should pretty much invest in some LSAT prep and retest. I know a lot of people who are terrible test-takers who have gotten a lot out of Kaplan and Princeton Review classes for tests like LSAT and GRE. They’re really expensive, though. Like $1000+, I think. My sister asked for it for Christmas from our parents (for the GRE), so there’s an idea.
Spoons is right about taking lots of old LSAT exams.
Another thing: the most well-adjusted folks I knew in law school worked for a year or two (or more) before they went. I don’t know what your situation is, but it can be a good strategy to wait a year or two, work, use some of your salary on test prep, get a better score, and then apply. If you’re still in college, keep your mind open to the options.
Good luck!
Eleven points lower? We are talking about a range from 120-169. The advice I got from various advisers and former lawyers was to retake the test if you think you can do better or if you score below a 150.
The first time I took it I got a 150 (I hate it that people here are squeamish about revealing their scores.) I took it again a year later and got a 157.
In practice tests I was getting around a 160. My arguments and games scores stay pretty consistent, but my reading comprehension (RC) fluctuates. It really depends on how interesting the passage is. It’s as if I can’t force my brain to retain information, it will only remember information on certain topics. The September test was especially brutal as it had two RC sections. An RC section at the end of the test is rough as it is especially hard to comprehend what Irish soil tells us about Irish history after two plus hours of the LSAT.
I took a local prep course I found out about from taking a free class. The class made things about 100% more clearer, so I figured I needed the help. I was stubborn at first, as I haven’t yet encountered anything I couldn’t ace on my own., but I eventually decided it was worth it.
In retrospect the only thing I might have done differently would have been to start studying earlier and maybe use the prep course more efficiently. I’m not sure how much that would increase my score though.
I just took the test in September and if I start reading another LSAT question I get nauseous. My advice is to learn to love it and then forget about it.
If Pepper Bear doesn’t do this soon I just might. I’ll be applying to law school within the month looking to be a prosecutor.
I am about to hit up the offices of a few former prosecutors in my school. I suggest Pepper Bear do the same thing if she is going to college.
Thank you everyone for adding your thoughts. I just wanted to point out that based on the advice here Pepper Bear did start a new thread on what she should do to become a prosecutor so if folks are interested they can check out that thread.
Thanks again! Now I just have to convince Pepper Bear to sign up here for good… 
Otter