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I've had diabetes for 20 years - type I since I was 4 - and diabetic neuropathy in both wrists has lead to 4 years of carpal tunnel and chronic pain. Is this going to be weighted as anything? This has had a tremendous impact on my recent life. Most significantly, chronic pain has made me a clone of House. I'm a bitter, sardonic person who isolates myself from anyone who causes me extreme pain. It's honestly the first TV show with a character I could identify strongly with.

I expect a decent LSAT (I was preptesting 170+ but expect a low 160 to low 170 on the dec LSAT), without accommodations to avoid them treating my score as less significant. I may have messed up and not noticed, but I think I did well. The logic games I had to guess 5 on, but I'm almost certain I perfected the rest of that section. These guesses were reasonable, with some choices eliminated. Honestly I think I may have aced RC and maybe missed a couple on LR. It just makes me worry that I missed something and bombed but I'm putting it out of my mind.

Oddly enough, since I can tape my wrists and my gloves are like braces, boxing is the only sport involving my hands I can currently participate in. Should I mention that? I'm pretty good at it. Turns out getting hit in the face by ex-sparring partners for contenders is less painful than the slow death of a nerve. I'm actually good enough that my golden glove winning trainer thinks I can win state Gloves tournaments. Is this a good letter of recommendation to show drive?

One big reason I'm going to law school is that the disabled are treated as less impacted by their conditions than other minorities and less subject to affirmative action - except by federal contractors - which IMHO is complete bullshit. Better for all that we function to the best of our ability than leech off SSI.

I'm an Iowa resident and have a 3.6 undergrad GPA, dual B.S. in math with honors and cs from the U of Iowa (the latter crippled me), and will have a masters in math by the end of the year. A scribe can't handle the math terminology and so I have to end the hopes of a PhD in a technical field. It would take 3 minutes to tell someone how to write "let phi be a representation of the n-dimensional group of invertible linear transformations over R to GLn(R)..." Iowa law is my goal, but a killer LSAT would make me reconsider. I have a good GRE - 620 V, 740 Q, 6/6 analytical writing. Can I submit that, and will it help?

I have spotty records as the condition progressed and bettered/worsened in response to surgery. I've taught college math courses and had excellent reviews, at least when I wasn't in constant pain. Though I'm going to law school because of the way the disabled are treated, I hope to study patent law and funnel the riches I make into organizations to help the disabled, while focusing on disability law as much as I can to help those in the situtation I'm in now. Can I hope on admissions understanding this, or should I limit myself to the midrange T1 schools? I'm a bright kid - I could read when I was 2 - and it infuriates me that I get so little credit for performing this well under this kind of disadvantage.

This is the most peculiar non-flame post I've ever read... You asked wayyy too many questions though.. hopefully someone a little more patient will come along and answer some of them for you.

I really hope your hands didn't get in your way during the LSAT. If so, you really should retake with some accommodation. Schools use the LSAT to test how quickly and accurately your mind works, not your hands. Any adcom that saw an accommodated test as less significant should be fired. However, they really shouldn't raise your score just because you took the test without accommodation.

I really hope your hands didn't get in your way during the LSAT. If so, you really should retake with some accommodation. Schools use the LSAT to test how quickly and accurately your mind works, not your hands. Any adcom that saw an accommodated test as less significant should be fired. However, they really shouldn't raise your score just because you took the test without accommodation.

It wasn't that bad. I had practiced and took a lot of anti-inflammatories to mask the pain. The logic games was me getting stuck on the game type with the stress. It hurt, but they always hurt, honestly I can't really get around that fact. What I'm sure I got right I finished in very little time and spent the rest playing with scenarios.

Yeah, I've learned recently that people don't believe chronic pain even with documentation, and that I get treated worse than women with similar records. I've read enough about ADD accommodations to know that they're not as seriously considered. The GRE and other tests don't even flag accommodations. Research accommodations and the civil rights suit against LSAC from a group of blind test takers. It was filed by the DOJ. Note that LSAC asks no questions about disability anywhere on their forms - I had to put I was interested in disabled law students to even mention it anywhere on their registration. I give the reason for that below.

They should be fired, but they won't be. I've been treated similarly by a good deal of people do far, and honestly, they take sexual harassment more seriously. You can read ABA rules and see URMs are supposed to be recruited "specifically with respect to gender, ethnicity, or country of origin," or something similar. Check rule 211 and interpretations in the standards for approval for law school:

http://www.abanet.org/media/legaled/hod210_212.pdf

"underrepresented groups, particularly ethnic and racial minorities, and a student body diverse with respect to gender, race, and ethnicity"

"demonstrate with concrete action a commitment to having a faculty and staff that are diverse with respect to gender, race, and ethnicity."

Those are the equal opportunity principles mentioned in the standards for approval for law schools. They can be construed to include the disabled in the first quote, but with much less emphasis (lack of "particularly"), and not in the second quote at all. This ABA rule and intrepretation is why being a URM is so powerful in admissions.

The next section on the disabled specifically mentions it doesn't impose standards beyond those of section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act - aka no preference, just non-discrimination. Keep in mind the ADA was passed in 1990. There would be a lot more upset minorities if this happened that late for any other group. The ABA regulations regarding the disabled were later than for other minority groups.

Honestly, this is driving me half crazy. I don't hate AA outright. But until I'm given equal treatment with other minorities - and most seem to totally overlook the disabled - I oppose it in all forms. You just can't convince me that my years of chronic pain and tight blood sugar/eating/exercise regimen is less deserving than discrimination for gender or ethnicity. I've poked myself with tens of thousands of syringes. When I can't finish a job or turn in HW on time, you can guess how people treat me. I TA, so I can also tell you the perception of students who continually claim to be sick by the people I taught with. Incidentally I'm the son of an Italian immigrant, so I just missed on two accounts.

I could bore you with stats on disability discrimination...just trust me, as someone who recently became disabled, people are assholes. Or google it. I really like it when AA hires/fellowships get jealous of me for delaying stuff a semester when I'm losing use of my hands right now, and none of their fellowships include me.

My goal isn't to weight it higher. It's to say, "I played by your rules, you can't take me less seriously, and I won. Give me credit." I don't want a higher score because I took it without accommodations, but a longer time limit isn't going to look as good, and I know I can kill this test regardless. Longer time limits don't include % distributions with scores. It removes that method of comparison. That alone makes it considered less seriously.

I'm legally blind - weird disability - non-correctable - slows my reading pace
Took LSAT without accommodations - I'm too hard-headed. The time limits kill me because I just need longer to read. I went in hoping the adrenaline would push me through, but it didn't. I performed how I had been under time constraints in practice. When I had been added 7 minutes to sections my scores bumped up to 170+ consistently. I just flat out didn't finish sections. I took a 10-12+ point hit on questions because I didn't finish. Oh well, right?

My PS is about growing up with impaired vision, and how it's shaped my values and what not. I submitted an LSAT/Diversity addendum directly addressing my testing issue and disability. I have a high GPA, solid softs and LORs in addition to my disability - if there's a case study in how they should ignore an LSAT I'm it, but it's unlikely that they'll be able to step away from it. So, I'll do like I always have and make the most out of where I end up!

I think that you should mention your disability in a DS or PS if you haven't already.

With your GPA and background if you get a good LSAT score you could easily make it into Iowa and higher.

oobob wrote:I've had diabetes for 20 years - type I since I was 4 - and diabetic neuropathy in both wrists has lead to 4 years of carpal tunnel and chronic pain. Is this going to be weighted as anything? This has had a tremendous impact on my recent life. Most significantly, chronic pain has made me a clone of House. I'm a bitter, sardonic person who isolates myself from anyone who causes me extreme pain. It's honestly the first TV show with a character I could identify strongly with.

I expect a decent LSAT (I was preptesting 170+ but expect a low 160 to low 170 on the dec LSAT), without accommodations to avoid them treating my score as less significant. I may have messed up and not noticed, but I think I did well. The logic games I had to guess 5 on, but I'm almost certain I perfected the rest of that section. These guesses were reasonable, with some choices eliminated. Honestly I think I may have aced RC and maybe missed a couple on LR. It just makes me worry that I missed something and bombed but I'm putting it out of my mind.

Oddly enough, since I can tape my wrists and my gloves are like braces, boxing is the only sport involving my hands I can currently participate in. Should I mention that? I'm pretty good at it. Turns out getting hit in the face by ex-sparring partners for contenders is less painful than the slow death of a nerve. I'm actually good enough that my golden glove winning trainer thinks I can win state Gloves tournaments. Is this a good letter of recommendation to show drive?

One big reason I'm going to law school is that the disabled are treated as less impacted by their conditions than other minorities and less subject to affirmative action - except by federal contractors - which IMHO is complete bullshit. Better for all that we function to the best of our ability than leech off SSI.

I'm an Iowa resident and have a 3.6 undergrad GPA, dual B.S. in math with honors and cs from the U of Iowa (the latter crippled me), and will have a masters in math by the end of the year. A scribe can't handle the math terminology and so I have to end the hopes of a PhD in a technical field. It would take 3 minutes to tell someone how to write "let phi be a representation of the n-dimensional group of invertible linear transformations over R to GLn(R)..." Iowa law is my goal, but a killer LSAT would make me reconsider. I have a good GRE - 620 V, 740 Q, 6/6 analytical writing. Can I submit that, and will it help?

I have spotty records as the condition progressed and bettered/worsened in response to surgery. I've taught college math courses and had excellent reviews, at least when I wasn't in constant pain. Though I'm going to law school because of the way the disabled are treated, I hope to study patent law and funnel the riches I make into organizations to help the disabled, while focusing on disability law as much as I can to help those in the situtation I'm in now. Can I hope on admissions understanding this, or should I limit myself to the midrange T1 schools? I'm a bright kid - I could read when I was 2 - and it infuriates me that I get so little credit for performing this well under this kind of disadvantage.

I'm an accommodated tester, for partial blindness. I had extra time and extra breaks, plus bigger print. No law school that I applied to ever looked down upon my score, but then again, very few law schools did not compare me to the rest of all test takers. I got into law schools with scholarship that were in my range. Testing with accommodation is something you MUST DO if you need them. I wouldn't have been able to get the score I did without getting mine. The process of getting accommodations is difficult, and LSAC won't give you everything you request. PM me for more details on gaining accommodations if you're interested, and information on how my cycle played out.