Hello All & The US and their damned numbers.

[Melatonin]

Hello,

Add one more Canadian to the forum.  I'm currently in 2nd year and I've been been doing some minor research into the possiblility of attending law school.  I only became ambitious and decided to go into law going into this year, hence my first year performance is pretty bad.  Am I beat for getting into the above average Law Schools in the States since most of them look at your entire cumulative GPA? I do realize they vary from school to school but I'm just looking for the general consensus on whether my first year is going to kill me.. lol

Thanks in advance for any advice and I'm glad to be part of the forum...

Joe

[long_gone]

What's your GPA?  Remember that it won't matter nearly as much as it would in Canada.  A good LSAT is much more imperative.

[jentheshark]

Hey there,

Having bad first year grades isn't going to make things easy for you but it's not going to bury you either. I'd say, now that you have a goal in mind for your studies, just do all you can to kick butt in the two and a half years you've got left in your degree. You've got some room to recover and everyone loves a good comeback story! 

Maybe you could look into some solid extra curriculars to boost?

Good luck to ya.

I'm hoping for some (preferably good) news from U.S. Schools too. 

[Melatonin]

Thanks for the information guys...

My GPA from 1st year was 2.6 (I know, it's not pretty) but I've since switched majors and it's conceivable that I could pull it up to around a 3.2 at the minimum.  I'm into a fair amount of volunteering as well and I'm sure I can do well on the LSAT if I buckle down and study for it like crazy... 

I just think that I want to end up in the U.S. for practicing purposes thus I should try and get into U.S.-based J.D. degree program.

Thanks again,
Joe

[DarkHound]

2.6 after 1st year? and I thought you said you did bad.    I was at about a 2.8 after 5 of 8 terms. Just do well the next few years and destroy the lsat and you'll be fine. In addition, you can present a good excuse, suck up to a couple profs and do some serious volunteer work (overseas). You might not get into Yale, but you'll still have a shot at most of the top 10 schools in the states.

[Melatonin]

Hahaha, I don't know about top 10 schools, but it definately makes me feel a bit better... Thanks..

I just hope to get into an average school in the states and if I stick to courses in philosophy like Formal Logic and Reasoning and Argumentation and then study for the LSAT like my life depended on it, I should be able to balance out my average GPA...

Thanks for the pick-up...

Joe