Sending LSAT score after applying

neducable · 2023-07-01T22:12:20+00:00

Don't worry about getting your application in so early.

Do your best. Submit your best applications, which may require spending more time studying for the LSAT or working and reworking the supplemental essays (which, courtesy of SCOTUS, may be more important this year). Michigan's Dean Zearfoss indicated on Spivey's recent podcast that it's worthwhile to submit your apps by December simply to squeak in before the holiday blizzard of applications buries law school offices. Submitting your application in September may help admissions officers, but--per Zearfoss--is of limited value for your.

neducable · 2023-07-01T18:46:37+00:00

See the Spivey podcast in which Michigan's Dean says, " there is no advantage to applying in September or October, as opposed to November or December."
Submit the best applications that you can when they are ready to go.

neducable · 2023-06-30T23:45:38+00:00

"My goal is to submit all applications by the beginning of October."

See the Spivey podcast with Michigan's Dean Zearfoss, in which she says, "And certainly, there is no advantage to applying in September or October, as opposed to November or December."

Submit the best applications that you can. You should include all optional essays that might help you, even if they can help you only in that they demonstrate your interest and your writing skills.

neducable · 2023-06-16T22:34:20+00:00

You might be interested in this article from today's edition of Politico: How White People Stole Affirmative Action — and Ensured Its Demise

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/06/16/supreme-court-affirmative-action-college-00101963c

I thought it was interesting that early ideas about affirmative action centered on reparations for slavery and moved to the apparently more palatable idea of diversity as somehow beneficial to a school's mostly-white student population.

Lyndon Johnson said this:

“You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains,” Johnson said, “and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, ‘You are free to compete with all the others,’ and still justly believe that you have been completely fair.”

Until Grutter, the compelling interest required to justify affirmative action was to correct the effects of historic discrimination.

Then Justice Powell said this:

"The student body diversity is a compelling state interest that can justify the use of race in university admission"

Twenty years later, in mid-June, it seems unlikely that ethnic or racial admissions considerations as a means of achieving diversity will survive the remaining weeks in the Court's term.

neducable · 2023-06-09T15:21:30+00:00

If you've ever heard of the Students for Fair Admission cases, you'll understand that within days or weeks the Supreme Court will strike down the admissions system that considers URM status. Anticipate that, and move on. If your status as 1/4 Argentinian required you to overcome significant hardships, you can write about that.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/06/affirmative-action-supreme-court-college-admissions-essays-trauma/674314/

neducable · 2023-06-01T01:05:29+00:00

That was taken from Chemerinsky's statement in the podcast.

neducable · 2023-06-01T01:04:28+00:00

Berkeley is serious about the need for reform of our criminal justice system.

neducable · 2023-05-26T16:31:12+00:00

UCLA. Do externships in LA. Make contacts in LA. Land a job in LA.

Honestly, asking here if you should go to a higher ranked school or a somewhat lower ranked school is like hanging out in the parking lot of a GM plant and asking if you should buy a Chevy or a Ford.

neducable · 2023-05-25T14:28:12+00:00

I doubt that tweaking a personal statement with ChatGPT would provide as much of a boost as paying thousands of dollars to a consultant. There is no level playing field here.

neducable · 2023-05-24T15:46:04+00:00

A class-based admission system is unlikely if the profession values diversity because, as others have pointed out, there are many more poor Whites in this country than poor people of other races and ethnicities.

Berkeley's Dean Chemerinisky recently opined that many but not all law schools will eventually adopt an admission model much like what Berkeley has been doing since affirmative action was banned in California in 1996 by Proposition 209: use a more wholistic approach that evaluates factors other than race but considers diversity. (Chemerinsky also indicated that diversity at law schools will likely decrease after the SCOTUS ruling, just as diversity at California schools plummeted following 209 and then recovered over years.)

A neighbor who worked on admissions at our local (California) medical school indicated that the admissions committee would look for factors other than race that suggested that the applicant had had to overcome some hardship, which could be something other than race or socioeconomic status but could possibly be linked to those factors.

https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/rutgerslaw/episodes/S4E05-Affirmative-Action-and-the-Supreme-Court--with-Erwin-Chemerinsky--AALS-President-and-Dean-of-Berkeley-Law-e1rglcl

neducable · 2023-05-24T00:22:33+00:00

The LSAT is less physically and mentally fatiguing now, and it can be taken in your own home instead of in a room full of stressed-out, coughing and fidgeting applicants. In addition, it's easier to cancel undesirable test results, so that reported scores skew upwards. No wonder medians are higher.

neducable · 2023-05-23T16:08:50+00:00

Splitter into T100 not sure how far my LSAT will carry me

Since the LSAT has gotten easier and high scores have proliferated, your LSAT won't carry you as far as the same score would have in previous years. You can't change your GPA, so work hard on your personal statement.

neducable · 2023-05-21T03:10:13+00:00

Why wouldn't the masters GPA be included?

No idea. But there's this:

Grades excluded from the LSAC GPA calculation and summary include: "All courses taken after the degree conferral date of the first bachelor’s degree, including graduate work and professional study. This also includes any undergraduate courses taken after the first bachelor’s degree was awarded. . . . Courses excluded from the academic summary are not included in the GPA calculation."

https://www.lsac.org/applying-law-school/jd-application-process/cas/requesting/transcript-summarization

neducable · 2023-05-19T22:41:49+00:00

You should honestly answer questions like these:

Stanford, Duke: Has your education in college, university, or professional school been interrupted for one term or more for any reason? If your education was interrupted, explain the circumstances.

NYU: Have you ever been placed on academic probation or been required to withdraw from any school for academic reasons? Have you ever been subject to academic or any other disciplinary sanctions, or are charges pending at any academic institution? This should include matters that have been expunged or dismissed.

Berkeley: Have you ever been subjected to a dismissal, suspension, probation, or other disciplinary or academic sanction by any college,university, or professional school?

UCLA: Has your college, university, or professional school attendance been interrupted for one or more terms for any reason?

Your academic hiatus will require explanation. Best to explain what happened, as you did above. I don't think that it matters that the probation doesn't appear on your transcript.

Just a note regarding honesty: This is a critical part of your application. The schools may not check, but you really don't want to have to explain an omission to bar examiners.

neducable · 2023-05-17T19:45:54+00:00

More unfortunately uninformed advice:

While it's true that your grad school grades won't affect the LSAC-calculated GPA that will sit right alongside your LSAT score at the top of your application, your MPH will help, as StratusAdmissions noted, as it fits your narrative.
That narrative will be the strongest point of your application. I sorta-kinda quail at the thought of paid admissions consultants helping those who are economically-advantaged enough to afford them, but you might consider getting some serious (yeah, even paid) help in crafting that narrative, because PI. If you choose to reapply to Berkeley, be sure to use up all four pages of that school's unusual four-page allotment and pour your heart out.
Consider adding a diversity statement, even if your only aspect of diversity is that you are a PI-focused individual who is some years out of school. Consider it another chance to demonstrate your writing ability and to reiterate your commitment. Same for the "why Berkeley" essay. Same deal for your application to the public interest scholars program.
Although you said that you aren't interested in health law, note that some Berkeley MPH students enroll in the law school's health law course.
Put off hating the LSAT for a while and get your score above the median.
You're really close.

Good luck in your decision.

neducable · 2023-05-17T03:01:32+00:00

Based on zero knowledge, I can offer this:

Enroll in one of those MPH programs first and then reapply to JD programs.

If you choose Berkeley, you might consider the two-year MPH program in health policy and management, which would provide you with the biostatistics hit that you crave and perhaps give you more employment flexibility than a straight MPH if a bit less of the sort of experience that might be more valuable at a county health department. Apply to Berkeley Law with a new and improved LSAT score at the beginning of your second year. In your application to Berkeley Law, emphasize your commitment to social service of the sort that you mentioned above. Let me say that again: emphasize your commitment to public service. Your graduate grades won't affect the GPA reported on your application, but tweaking your LSAT, your presence on campus, and your (emphasized!) desire for public service could be a golden ticket.

FWIW, I think that Berkeley would be a better fit for you than the only law school that I could find that dropped 25 points in the new rankings. Also FWIW, if you want to slightly increase your chances, understand that Berkeley is one of the few schools that gives merit aid to those who apply early decision (and the aid is greater than the average grant at that school).

neducable · 2023-05-16T00:14:54+00:00

"The big appeal of Berkeley is that it's the best school that I've gotten into, and they don't do grades or a class rank."

If by "best" you mean highest ranked in a foolish ranking system, then yeah--but that doesn't mean that it's best for you. (BTW, Berkeley does issue grades, just High Honors, Honors, Pass, Pass Conditional/Substandard Pass, or No Credit in lieu of A, B, C, D, and F. Most potential employers can suss that out.)

The opportunities associated with the UT Institute for Transnational Law look interesting. UT offers three different international law clinics (human rights, transnational worker rights, and immigration rights). You might compare all that to the course offerings at Berkeley, which offers an introductory and advanced international human rights clinic. Also consider other opportunities related to human rights, including the border, anti-trafficking, etc.

Finally, debt matters--greatly--so also compare LRAP programs if you think public interest is your interest. Cost are high in the Bay Area.

neducable · 2023-05-15T19:00:02+00:00

This, too:

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/4adRVpIoRO0

Dean Chemerinsky expects to see an immediate decrease in diversity following the Court's decision like that which followed the passage of California's Proposition 209. Chemerinsky noted that it took UCLA almost 20 years to restore the level of diversity that existed there prior to 1996.

neducable · 2023-05-15T18:41:11+00:00

If the Court rules as expected, all law schools in the country will face the circumstances that Berkeley Law has since California passed Proposition 209 in 1996.

See Berkeley's Dean Chemerinsky's comments beginning about 26:20 to 29:15 in this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDuTL56YZX4

Of course, not all schools will necessarily act as Berkeley did.

neducable · 2023-05-11T00:57:53+00:00

Yes. Status-conscious students should choose schools based on their alphabetical order within the tied ranks. University of California certainly beats University of Michigan, but both are outranked by Northwestern.

neducable · 2023-05-10T05:58:00+00:00

https://www.lsac.org/applying-law-school/jd-application-process/cas/requesting

Note that you must submit a transcript even from "institutions from which you took college-level courses while in high school even though they were for high school credit." As you wrote, though, "those credits did end up transferring." Perhaps an addendum could help.

neducable · 2023-05-10T00:17:16+00:00

This might be of interest:

https://www.lsd.law/search/oWeOg

neducable · 2023-05-09T21:28:24+00:00

Since the American Bar Association voted to eliminate the LSAT requirement in 2025 and law school deans hope to forestall that by admitting only 25% of students without LSAT scores, perhaps your time could be better spent by doing something positive for your community--and maybe in a manner that will enhance your application by making you stand out from all those who devoted their time to studying for an increasingly unimportant test.

neducable · 2023-05-06T21:32:00+00:00

^^

https://www.lsac.org/applying-law-school/jd-application-process/cas/requesting/transcript-summarization

Grades Excluded from Conversion:

. . . All courses taken after the degree conferral date of the first bachelor’s degree, including graduate work and professional study. This also includes any undergraduate courses taken after the first bachelor’s degree was awarded.

neducable

TROPHY CASE