Living Up To My Promises...

Last time, I talked a lot about the LSAT.  My experience is coming soon, but first, I want to talk a little about all the things that go into becoming a law school student as well as how I selected my future school based on those things.

There are two major factors that law schools examine with heavy emphasis when selecting their incoming student body.  The first, as previously mentioned, is your score on the LSAT.  A "good" score something between 155-164.  A "great" score is about 166-170.  A score that is Harvard worthy is the final range between 170-180.  The areas become more narrow as you reach the top, and crossing the threshold from good to great, even though it's a few points, can really determine your placement in the schools you have your hopes on.

The other primary factor is, of course, the undergraduate GPA.  This can be a wonderful thing for those who are not that great at standardized testing, and perhaps not so great for students like me who got along in school by cramming for exams, borrowing notes from the smart kids, and hitting happy hours with my professors. I did well enough, but my GPA wasn't the shining star that lots of students achieve (though I do have some excellent, EXCELLENT stories from college...maybe those will come out as I slowly lose my sanity during the law school process). If your sights are set on law school, the GPA is key.  Study like hell and skip the occasional 3PM flip cup game.  You will thank yourself later; besides, there's always Spring Break and the summer to soak up those embarassing moments. When I was faced with selecting a law school, I knew I had to fall within at least the "good" range on the LSAT to even get accepted, sadly enough.

That's the motto

This fact, believe it or not, surprised me. Why, you might ask?  Well, as a student in a small university, I was able to participate in multiple events outside of the classroom and I even landed a few leadership positions within them.  The resume dots are listed below:

• Student Government Delegate, 2005-2007
• Student Government Cheif Justice, 2007-2008
• Student Government President (SHAZAM!) 2008-2009
• Model Arab League Delegate, 2005-2007
• Model Arab League Secretary General (SHAZAM!) 2007-2008
• Model Arab League Head Delegate, 2008-2009
• Phi Alpha Delta Member, 2005-2007
• Phi Alpha Delta President (SHAZAM!) 2007-2008
• Alpha Xi Delta Sorority Member, 2005-2006
• Alpha Xi Delta Membership Vice President, 2006-2008

Needless to say, organizations ruled my life.  Also, I held either full time jobs or multiple part time jobs during my entire college career.  Looking back, I definitely should have limited my workload, course load, or activities load, because I was giving only about 33% to each cause (the extra 1% was reserved for sleeping). Hindisight is always 20/20 I suppose.  Anyway, I always thought that doing all of these things would carry me through.  I also knew that I could write one hell of an essay, so my personal statement should help me get into a great school, right?

Wrong.  Dead wrong.

You see, when doing the groundwork to get into these elite graduate programs or exclusive internships, the examiners will look about 20% at quantity, and the remaining 80% will go to quality.  Sure, I lived on my own and paid my own bills (except for help from my parents for tuition), and sure I managed a hard-knocks story for my personal essay, but all of these things that I had been working on for the past four years lacked excellence.  I was there and I went through the motions, but I didn't contribite 100% to my activities, courses, or really anything.  I was just there.  Maybe I did it because I was popular, or because I could find loopholes, or perhaps because I can live off no sleep and juggle my time like a wizard, but who cares? None of that can be reflected on paper.  When an admissions counselor sees your application for the first time, they look at that GPA and LSAT score and put you into the "Maybe" pile or straight into the "No" pile.  Only after this step do they even begin to think of you as an actual person with a past and hidden strengths.  Does it suck? Maybe.  Does the way you acted and performed in college determine how you act and perform now? Not likely.  But none of that matters.  What does matter is how you did and what shows up in those two score boxes.  So, advice from a hard working slacker here, if it's not too late, make your GPA awesome.  If it is too late, make your LSAT score awesome.  If neither of these is an option, go to a crappy law school and do awesome then go for the transfer.

For anyone who is not going to law school, this is worthless.  I know.  It's hard to write to a mixed audience without trying to give advice on your experiences, so bear with me here.

Alright! You don't have to be a jerk about it...

Those who know me will say that I am intelligent. I don't want to sound my own horn, but I may agree on this one.  It has gotten me to where I am in life, and I believe that intelligence, mixed with some determination, will get me through most things. Thankfully, I am 25 now and I am beginning to see the error of my ways. It took a while, but if I can be happy about any part of the law school application process, it would be that it really opened my eyes to how important it is to be responsible for every aspect of your life that will be scored in some way.

Now, onto selecting law schools.  This part was really greuling. What gets me going is the international community.  For several different and not worth mentioning reasons, I am infatuated with international culture and specifically with immigrants' experiences here in America.  On a side note, this is one of the reasons why I am leaning toward immigration or international law. I always had dreams of living somewhere else, anywhere else really, but as fate would have it, I have lived in the Dallas area all of my life. I have traveled all over the world and I hope to continue to do so, but here I am, writing my blog in the same room I lived in when I went to high school.  That being said, it is not surprising that I wanted to go out of state or at least out of city to attend school. I didn't do that during my undergrad years because I was afraid (and utterly irresponsible) at the time. I stayed close to the family and friends I had always known.  When it came to law school, I looked at rankings a lot less than I looked at location. I applied to schools in Houston (a city I'm not a fan of, but it's not Dallas and it's the center for immigrants in Texas), Colorado, California, Florida, Chicago, and all over the Northeast (New York, Jersey, and the like).  I wasn't after somewhere specific, no beach or skyscraper scene, just something different.  I filled out tons of applications and paid a boat load of money (applications are usually about $80 for each school).  As I was waiting though, reality hit (damnit!).  Here's what I realized:

1. I have no money saved and I am not willing to deal with illicit activity or rich men to get it;
2. Moving away means not only paying 50K a year for tuition and books, but also paying rent, groceries, utilities, buying furniture, post traumatic stress therapy for my cats, etc.;
3. I have never really been away from my family and I would miss those years we could have together at such an important part of my life (plus my mom made me feel like I was abandoning them at the mere mention of moving away);
4. If I do well enough in school and land a solid job when I graduate, the school I select will begin to matter less and less as the years go by;
5. I am a socialite and I cannot be disconnected from friends for more than about 18 seconds;
6. My alma mater is 15 minutes away and they have a wonderful law school that would most likely gladly take me in as a student; and finally,
7. I am going to be a law school student.  This would not be a permanent vacation unless I built a sand box in the law library, so location was actually not that important.

Maybe I should reconsider #1...

All these things considered, I waited for the acceptance letters to come in, but I had tacitly decided that Texas Wesleyan Law was what worked for me. Other people who have better scores and bigger courage than I do can base their decisions on far different goals (mostly, which school will make them a higher salary when they graduate or which comes with more prestige), but this is the reasoning that worked for me.  The closer law school gets, the more confident I am in my decision. I just recently left my place of employment where I met some of my closest friends, and they will still be within a 30 minute drive from me. The people who I have grown up with are starting to get married, have children, or (better yet), just get more awesome, and I will be here to witness all of that.  Best of all, if I fail out, I am totally opening a restaurant on an obscure beach in Mexico and pretending none of this ever happened.

That's enough explaining for now.  I need to go cry over a Michelada and dream about falling in love and moving to Buenos Aires on a whim...