Top Law Schools

Hi all,

Just wanted to get some feedback as I begin applying to schools.

I expect to apply to Stanford, Columbia (hidden fee waiver), Chicago, NYU, Berkeley, UCLA. I can scrape together the funds to apply to a few others. I'm a California native with a preference to stay in-state. Haven't decided yet whether or not to apply to Yale/Harvard. Law school predictor has me denied to both.

Softs are pretty strong. Two years of heavy involvement with a research program that led to 2 publications and shaped my career aspirations (the subject matter of my PS). Worked part-time all throughout college. Working now part-time at a law firm.

Law school predictor has me at 'Consider' for Stanford/Chicago/NYU/UCLA, 'Weak Consider' for Columbia, and 'Admit' for Berkeley. Does that seem accurate? My top choice is Stanford.

Thanks for reading.

darkgrayclouds wrote:Hi all,

Just wanted to get some feedback as I begin applying to schools.

I expect to apply to Stanford, Columbia (hidden fee waiver), Chicago, NYU, Berkeley, UCLA. I can scrape together the funds to apply to a few others. I'm a California native with a preference to stay in-state. Haven't decided yet whether or not to apply to Yale/Harvard. Law school predictor has me denied to both.

Softs are pretty strong. Two years of heavy involvement with a research program that led to 2 publications and shaped my career aspirations (the subject matter of my PS). Worked part-time all throughout college. Working now part-time at a law firm.

Law school predictor has me at 'Consider' for Stanford/Chicago/NYU/UCLA, 'Weak Consider' for Columbia, and 'Admit' for Berkeley. Does that seem accurate? My top choice is Stanford.

Thanks for reading.

LSP is not reliable with respect to urm's. Try http://www.lawschoolnumbers.com and even that may not be entirely accurate. Berkeley likes high gpa's and de-emphasizes the LSAT. Stanford is pretty unpredictable as is Yale. I'd apply to the entire t14 if you can afford it.

expand your list of schools.

even if you won't go, a couple are likely to give you $ that you can leverage elsewhere. i'd bet you'll get berkeley for sure...other than that it's hard to say with any degree of certainty -- it will be something good, but one school may decide yes and another lower ranked school may decide no...might as well apply broadly. even if you have to pay the full fee (which you can get a fee waiver for if you're proactive) it's still worth applying relatively broadly.

You will go to Berkeley.

You should blanket the full T14. An MX applicant with a 3.9x GPA and a 160+ LSAT will at least get a serious look anywhere, even at HYS. You should get multiple T14 acceptances, though I can't tell you where exactly. URM admissions are slightly unpredictable, so the only way to know is to apply to the whole T14 and see what you get.

Make sure your PS and apps are stellar and spotless.