Tier 4 transfer to Cornell??

[Law Geek]

I just finished in the top 1% of a Tier4 law school. my ranking is #9/ 560. my 1st semester GPA was a 3.53, second semester, 4.0. this brings me to 3.77 overall GPA for my 1L. the grade curve is a C. I made moot court and have won a book award for legal research and writing. i applied for transfer to some top schools, such as cornell, bu, and bc. i had an awful LSAT grade (won't even mention it here) but my UGPA was 3.8.  what do you think my chances are of making such a huge leap? 

[brightline]

Apply to more schools. The schools you mentioned don't take that many transfers. Apply to schools that take a lot of transfers, like Columbia, NYU, or Georgetown for example.

[lawsuperstar]

I think you've got a great shot at BC & BU.  I was top 5% at a T4 ranked 22/500ish and was accepted to both BC & BU as a transfer student.  My LSAT was respectable, 157 and my undergrad gpa was around a 3.3.  My personal opinion is that schools look at your class rank and that's about it.  With your rank you'll have no problem.  If you want to work in Boston I would suggest going to BC or BU over Cornell, but if you want to more options to work anywhere Cornell is a much better choice.

[Law Geek]

Thank you both for your inputs !

[Law Geek]

hm, 190 views so far and no one else has thoughts/comments/experiences to share on this topic?

[Sepatown]

hm, 190 views so far and no one else has thoughts/comments/experiences to share on this topic?

Transferring from Cooley won't take you very far. Hope to God for Toledo and apply to MSU as a back up.

[brightline]

Geek,

Is it true you're at Cooley? If so, you may suffer some "Cooley Prejudice" in the transfer process.

Anyway, if you are at Cooley, I would definitely recommend applying to lots of schools. Basically, you should apply to any school you like from #10 on down to number #45 or so, say that is in a location you like and that takes a decent amount of transfers. If you focus just on schools like Cornell that only take a handful of transfers, you are likely to be very disappointed with your results.

In general I don't think transferring to a tier 2/tier 3 is worth it, unless you can get in-state tuition there. However, if you are dying to get out of Cooley, you may want to consider 2-3 safety schools.

Bottom line: apply to more schools!

[Law Geek]

I'm not at Cooley guys. Does it make a difference though? These tier 4 schools, although they have a bad rep, also have the rep that they intensively weed out the real students from the bad ones, due to the strict C curves. wouldnt that work in my favor?

[brightline]

The schools should take into account the curve at your school when evaluating your GPA. Does that mean they will take you over a T1 or T2 transfer applicant with similar grades / rank? Of course not.

Luckily your rank is high. The problem is, you only told us you applied to 3 schools, none of which take a boatload of transfers. That means you may get in, or you may not.

The only way to increase your chances at this point is to apply to more schools. You'll have to ask yourself, what's worse, staying at my school or paying some more app fees?

Look at the lsac / aba guide for info on how many transfers a school took last year.

As for the curve, I doubt it's a strict C curve (i.e. 2.0) because that would mean 50% of your classmates flunk out after first year. It's probably more like a 2.5-2.7.

If your school is newer, or provisionally accredited, or one of the worst in the country (i.e. Cooley, Southern, Tex Southern, UDC,etc.) you might have major problems.

Is there anything else in your background that might help you ? For example, did you do undergrad or grad school somewhere that has a top law school you want to transfer to? That might help a little.

[Lawbster]

I just finished in the top 1% of a Tier4 law school. my ranking is #9/ 560. my 1st semester GPA was a 3.53, second semester, 4.0. this brings me to 3.77 overall GPA for my 1L. the grade curve is a C. I made moot court and have won a book award for legal research and writing. i applied for transfer to some top schools, such as cornell, bu, and bc. i had an awful LSAT grade (won't even mention it here) but my UGPA was 3.8.  what do you think my chances are of making such a huge leap? 

You finished in the top 1% but finished with a rank of 9/560?