Tips for Getting Into Law School

[LevelUP]

Have dreams of going to law school? Well this is the thread for you!

A lot of the information here is pulled from this thread of DF member Mysonx3 who earned a perfect 4.0 GPA, 176 on the LSAT, and attended a T14 law school with a near full-ride scholarship.
https://www.degreeforum.net/mybb/Thread-...ool-Thread

BASIC LAW SCHOOL INFORMATION
https://www.lsac.org/choosing-law-school...d-programs

LAW SCHOOL RANKINGS
https://www.ilrg.com/rankings/law/1/desc...ame=&state

LAW SCHOOL TUITION SEARCH
https://www.ilrg.com/rankings/law/tuition

GETTING ACCEPTED INTO A LAW SCHOOL
A law school will look at undergrad GPA, LSAT, and possibly a few other factors in determining acceptance. 

LAW ACCEPTANCE PROBABILITY SEARCH ENGINE
There is a search tool that will give a general idea of which schools will accept you based on a variety of factors. 
https://mylsn.info/k66mkk/

WHICH LAW SCHOOL SHOULD I ATTEND?
There are some factors to look at such as ranking, cost, and location. A T14 law degree might be nice to have in New York city though it may not matter as much if you practice in a more rural area.

ADVICE FROM DF MEMBER THAT ATTENDED LAW SCHOOL
Don't consider any law schools where you'll have to borrow large sums of money to afford. AVOID student loan debt as much as possible. Lawyers are leaving the field every day and, last I heard, BigLaw firms weren't hiring the way they used to hire. Going to the Harvards and Yales is great ONLY if you can graduate without significant debt. Barring that, your best bet is to get a full ride to a solid law school, even if it's not in the top 50. The thing you should be most concerned about is a school's first time bar passage rate. Compare it with the state's first time bar passage rate. If it's close to, equal to, or exceeds the state's rate, it's a decent school.

MINIMUM NUMBER OF GRADED CREDITS
In order to have a GPA included in your application for law schools, the Law School Admissions Council requires you to earn at least 60 graded semester credits before your bachelor's degree is conferred.

There are law schools that will accept less than 60 graded semester credits though you take the risk of not getting into some law schools if you only have a few semester credits. 

UNDERGRAD COST
UMPI would be the cheapest place to gather lots of semester credits with the total cost likely being below 6k. TESU, SNHU, and PUG would cost up to 20k for 60 semester credits.

DOES THE UNDERGRAD MAJOR MATTER?
According to past acceptance data, your major isn't going to matter. Some lawyers end up going into business careers or working with business clients so a business major wouldn't be a bad idea. If you like other things such as history or psychology then do those majors. Doing a political science degree won't help you get into law school. 

GPA
If you go to one of our recommended colleges, then your GPA should at a minimum be 3.0 with a 3.5+ being most likely. In order not to be discriminated against, you should strive to get a 3.7+ GPA.

Basic things like following the rubic, knowing APA format, and not turning in assignments late is mostly what you need to know in order to get a high GPA.
https://www.degreeforum.net/mybb/Thread-...in-College

LSAT
Earning a high LSAT score can make up for a low GPA. A high LSAT score is also key to law school admission and earning a scholarship.

LSAT PREP
Be prepared to spend a minimum of 200 hours or 2-3 months doing LSAT prep. Using a prep service is key to earning a high score. DF member mysonx3 used Logic Games Bible (book) and 7Sage (service) and scored 176/180 on the LSAT on the 1st attempt. 
https://www.intelligent.com/best-lsat-pr...PowerScore

APPLICATION ESSAYS
That will consist of a personal statement (which can be recycled with only minor changes for each school), a total of 2-3 school-specific essays (most schools don't have any, but a few do), and probably a few short "why such and such a school" essays (I'm told most schools don't care, but a few do)

WRAP UP
If there are any things to add or errors, please feel free to make suggestions.

[ss20ts]

176 out of 180?? Wowee! That's awesome!

[HogwartsSchool]

Having been accepted into a T14 law school, I would like to add.

The applicant's personal/motivational statement should not be a last-minute thought. It is the moment to separate from everyone else with similar scores, grades, and undergrad degrees. And in fact, many law schools use the personal statement to learn more about the person. The applicant needs to research EACH law school's mission, values, and other characteristics important to the law school. Then, describe how those characteristics apply to the candidate in the personal statement. Reading a brief Wikipedia article about law school is not research.

[Randyb100]

Has anyone heard of Concord Law School, the first fully online law school? It's not ABA approved but is regionally approved in California. There are also several accounts of graduates sitting for the bar in other states after petitioning.

[ss20ts]

Has anyone heard of Concord Law School, the first fully online law school? It's not ABA approved but is regionally approved in California. There are also several accounts of graduates sitting for the bar in other states after petitioning.

There are threads about it on here.

[SweetSecret]

Has anyone heard of Concord Law School, the first fully online law school? It's not ABA approved but is regionally approved in California. There are also several accounts of graduates sitting for the bar in other states after petitioning.

Yes, and I have tried asking them the same question twice about transferring in the Law Shelf courses to the JD program and have not gotten any answer. Maybe third time will be a charm?

There are a few other resources I would suggest. First, check out Mike Kim's LSAT Trainer book. Second, the new big thing is the website LSATDemon.com. For people who are not low-income students, the LSATDemon website has a great scholarship page that links to PDFs about the various funding available to students but the page will also tell you your chances of getting a scholarship based on UGPA and LSAT score. 

Some places offer free one-on-one tutoring for low-income students. If I could remember the names I would post them but I think the best thing is just to do research.

Finally, there is a huge correlation between schools that offer bar prep courses or materials and the first time bar pass rate according to a recent study that came out. Given that I would specifically look at schools that offer these. Personally I put everything into Google Sheets with tuition prices, bar pass rates, location appeal, and any opportunities that the school offered that I thought I might be interested in and used the sort function to find the best options for me.

OP, I think I was the one who initially posted about the law school dean site tuition search, but it looks like that website link is no longer working.

Khan Academy also has an free LSAT prep program which could be good for beginners. However, eventually they start repeating a lot of the same questions so I would highly suggest that once a person sees the same questions they switch to a different site. 

Finally do not undervalue the local public library and the inter-library loan system. I got a lot of the LSAT study books through the library, but the LSAT trainer was actually on my wish list and gifted to me because it had been so highly rated.

[resistk]

Has anyone heard of Concord Law School, the first fully online law school? It's not ABA approved but is regionally approved in California. There are also several accounts of graduates sitting for the bar in other states after petitioning.

No law school would accept Lawshelf classes; first of all, those are like undergrad Sophia and study.com courses and have no place in a law school curriculum. As for Concord, non ABA law schools have a poor pass rate and it is no wonder because their students are not the best and brightest. If you cannot get into an ABA school, a California non ABA is your option but keep in mind the few of us who do pass the Cal Bar likely would have done well at an ABA school too; most non ABA grads do not make the cut on the very hard Cal bar exam. Another option is go to England and get a 3 year Bachelors in Law, qualify as a solicitor and come back and take the US bar. Getting into an English law school is not hard because these are at the bachelor's level.

https://www.sra.org.uk/become-solicitor/