Low GPA from Johns Hopkins... Law School Possibilities?

[nykni9ht]

Facts:

1. I graduated from Johns Hopkins with a rough GPA of 2.4 as a premed.

2. I was very active on campus with various social organizations. I was president of the GLBT group for 2 years and received various deans awards for my work in justice and diversity within the campus.

3. I have been a paralegal at a top 20 law firm for over 2 years with recommendations from partners regarding my substantive work. (Yes, I did things besides make binders and page-check documents). I've done a lot of 1st year work like document review and preparting presentations for arbitration.

4. I am taking my LSATS this October and feel I can break 165, I have taken a course already and am still studying.

Any suggestions on how to make me more attractive to a top law school, how to develop my application/personal statement, any thoughts would be greatly apprecaite, thanks.

[$Bill]

Take LSAT first.  Use LSAC and law school numbers to gauge your chances.  Prosper.  Anyone can go to lawschool nowadays, its knowing what your getting into thats the key.

[richardblaine]

1. Separate yourself from your GPA.  Focus your PS on your substantive work experience and how you've grown, etc.  Make it sound like undergrad was a long time ago.

2. Write a brief addendum explaining the difficulty of your premed course load and any other extenuating circumstances that may have negatively impacted your GPA.  But keep it short.


3. Take a look at these folks:

http://www.lawschoolnumbers.com/display.php?user=OkieMike

http://www.lawschoolnumbers.com/display.php?user=Marcus15

http://www.lawschoolnumbers.com/display.php?user=desperateCA

Cast a wide net because your cycle will be unpredictable.  Minnesota and UIUC may be your best T1 chances.

[Ninja1]

...

Any suggestions on how to make me more attractive to a top law school

...

Break 170. Depending on how you define a top law school, you're going to need to really dominate the LSAT to make up for your GPA. Sub 2.5 GPAs seem to be pretty close to an auto reject at most of the decent schools in the country without a good explanation for the GPA and a killer LSAT.