Howdy,

I am a senior business major with aspirations of attending Law School.

-I have a 3.51 GPA in Mays.
-I scored a 155 (64 percentile) on my first LSAT this past June.

I **** the bed BADLY on this LSAT though. I was pretty well prepared, however I had a meltdown under the pressure of test day. Because I underperformed, I plan to take it again this October. A 160 minimum should be well within reach, assuming I don't pull a Bertolet on my 2nd try.

I'm just wondering if anybody has had experience with this process recently, mainly for in-state law schools. I have looked up various Law School averages and admission rates, but they don't help very much. What are my chances for SMU, Houston, Baylor, Tech, etc. Also, is there anything I could do/should know about the application process? I'm basically just looking for any wisdom the board has to offer!

Thanks!

lsac.org website has a good chart for each school that displays the applicants LSA/GPA that got accepted.

IMO, your scores give you a pretty solid shot at South Texas, Texas Wesleyan, and St. Mary's.

UH, SMU, Baylor will be a little more difficult to get into but not completely impossible. I am heading into my second year of law school. I graduated from Mays in 2010 and your scores are better than mine.

Talk to Karen Severn in OPSA (Office of Professional School Advising). She's the premier pre-law advisor in the state and her job is to get Ags into law school. She will give you honest advice and also help. Call (979) 847-8938 and schedule an appointment IMMEDIATELY. Her email is ksevern@tamu.edu.

Appreciate it guys!

I had a 3.2 GPA and only scored a little higher than you on the LSAT. And I'll be a 2L at UT in the fall. I took the LSAC median and 25th/75th percentile information so seriously and knew every school's ranking by heart. Trust me, write a good PS, get really good letter of recs, and you can get a school in the top 100.

Thanks, tcfitz3!

I am always ready to let folks know where they stand at various schools. There is a lot of gunk on the internet that is less than accurate. The stuff at www.lsac.org is correct---- for the folks who applied for Fall 2012 admission. Since then, the number of applicants nation wide has gone down, and many schools are admitting fewer, but it's really a buyer's market right now.

Shoot me an email at ksevern@tamu.edu or call 979-847-8938 to schedule an appointment. Texas A&M is number 21 in the nation in providing law school applicants, so law schools love Aggies!

Karen Severn

quote:

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Talk to Karen Severn in OPSA (Office of Professional School Advising). She's the premier pre-law advisor in the state and her job is to get Ags into law school. She will give you honest advice and also help. Call (979) 847-8938 and schedule an appointment IMMEDIATELY. Her email is ksevern@tamu.edu.

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+1. She is a miracle worker.

Double post

[This message has been edited by GregZeppelin (edited 8/14/2013 1:12a).]

If you take any advice from anyone about law school take this advice: work in the legal field, preferably at a law firm for at least a year before applying to law school. So many kids go into with absolutely no idea what legal work actually consists of on a day-to-day basis, and end up pidgeonholing themselves into a career that they hate.

Law school isn't going anywhere, take a year find some work at a firm and then decide if the law is right for you. It's a hell of a gamble to throw down six figures for a degree without knowing what it's actually going to get you.

+ a bazillion for GregZeppelin

Other than that, if you really think you can do better, OP, then retake! I improved 3 points on my 2nd try, and that equated to 10 percentile points.

If you retake the LSAT, they will only report the score you tell them to. In years past they would get all your scores, but at least now you can send the best of your scores.

But as I said, Karen Severn is your best source of advice for how Ags do in applying to various schools. Get an appointment with her IMMEDIATELY.

Karen is definitely a great resource; she can help you figure out what your odds of getting in are, inform you about scholarship opportunities, and just serve as a general guide to the whole application process.

If you're retaking the LSAT, I highly recommend Kaplan's LSAT book. I worked my way through that and felt very well prepared—although if logic games are your weak spot, I'd definitely recommend getting a book specifically to deal with that section.

All that being said, GregZeppelin makes an excellent point. People like to tell horror stories about law school, but where they really kill you is once you enter the work force as an associate. It all comes down to billable hours. Most firms have an official requirement around 1800-1900 billable hours—but then there's the unwritten expectation that you'll be billing several hundred hours more. This gives an excellent breakdown of what that actually means on a day-to-day basis: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:gIFM_gWsEFgJ:www.annaivey.com/system/files/Billable_Hour.pdf+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

Law school is a stimulating experience; you'll learn to think and write incredibly well. But do be sure that you're working towards a goal you actually want to reach.