Drop Out and Retake LSAT and go to better school or WHAT?

[bocabelle]

Hello,

I am faced with a rather unique situation... I am at a cross-road and am quite lost as to what I should do...

I finished college early, went for my MBA and then started law school at a 4th tier school. I am bright, however never put in much effort. Now, after having completed my 1st year, I am regretting being such a slacker in my underage years. I wish I could restart my whole education and actually achieve what I know I'm capable of instead of choosing the easy route. Considering the currect economy, the future is questionable at best... Thus, my dilemma...

I had a decent gpa of 3.4 and an LSAT of about 150 without ever taking a prep course and only doing a few sample LSATs. People at my school got full rides with the same GPA and an LSAT of about 156 while I am paying 30K for tuition... I did not do great in my first year (mostly because I underestimated how much I should study, not because I have trouble getting the material) and the career prospects at graduation worry me. I would like to practice corporate/securities/international business law.

So I am considering the following options:
1) leave the current law school
2) perhaps go do another MBA in finance at a top in state school (my original MBA is in operations management) - this would only take a year and this school is the best in the state, though I honestly prefer management to finance, but the career prospects are better with finance since money makes the world go round lol; this would also be beneficial if I end up doing securities law
3) take an LSAT prep course and actually do practice exams so I would score around 160s
4) then either apply to the top 2 state schools (which are in the 158-160 range) with tuition being only 10K a year
5) re-apply to the lower tier schools and see if I would get a full ride

The main reasons why I went to this law school is because it was closest to home, I did not put in effort to score better and I was sure that my career prospects would be decent upon graduation. However, being more than 100K in debt no longer seems very attractive. I am young, so I do not mind wasting a year or two and re-doing things the way I should have done them in the first place.

However, I would like to know what my chances are. Has anyone left law school, retaken the LSAT and been accepted to a better school? Or left l.s. and after retaking the LSAT been offered a scholarship the second time around? Thanks a lot! PMs will also be appreciated from people who have gone through this.

[TeeTwenty]

I've never heard of anyone doing that. I'm not sure if they would let you. It certainly isn't a common occurrence. You might want to ask around at admission departments.

[derby]

I think the lsat is sort of an aptitude test. You may increase your score by some (maybe by a whole lot) but the folks that I know that took a course on a retake improved from like a 156 to 160 or 164. Those scores are higher, but my point is that they already scored at least at a median level.
I took the lsat cold also and got a 158 and didnt opt to retake b/c of all the effort might not have resulted in much gain.
also, the people that do well in school have an ability to get the info. Those that study the hardest arent necessarily the ones that score the highest.
I brief and outline, but play tetris in class all the time, and didnt buy text books second semester, I also have a 3 yr old. I finished 4 in my class at a T3. Maybe its not fair that the people who read every treatise published and lived in the library didnt do as well.
I guess my point is your record is bad and if what you want is to graduate from a higher ranked school at the top of your class I dont think you should count on it. Its not a mathematic formula where effort = results.
I am not trying be a bummer. You could just continue where your at and get on with your career and forget about being some type of hot shot law student.

[jacy85]

If you did, you'd have to wait quite a long time I think before jumping back in.  Problem is this:  as the last poster said, the LSAT is a diagnostic.  Combined w/ your GPA, it's an indicator of law school performance.  But the kicker is this:  you have a year's worth of grades.  A school no longer needs an indicator of your performance - if they want to see how you'd do in law school, they'll look at your transcript. 

The people I've heard of starting over (from posts on LSD) are people who tried school years before, but had to drop out due to family circumstances, illness, etc.  Some have left because they just weren't ready, etc. but I this most of them had at least 5-10 years between dropping out and reapplying.

Finally, if you do decide to leave and reapply, don't expect any scholarship money whatsoever unless you reapply 10 years down the road with some career accomplishments and a shiny new good lsat score (personally, I'd question whether you'd even get accepted for a second go within the next 3-5 years).  Going to get a finance MBA, sitting out for maybe an extra year is not going to change that fact that you have a transcript of law school grades that apparently don't fit with your "potential", mostly do to apathy and laziness.

[Matthies]

Hello,

I am faced with a rather unique situation... I am at a cross-road and am quite lost as to what I should do...

I finished college early, went for my MBA and then started law school at a 4th tier school. I am bright, however never put in much effort. Now, after having completed my 1st year, I am regretting being such a slacker in my underage years. I wish I could restart my whole education and actually achieve what I know I'm capable of instead of choosing the easy route. Considering the currect economy, the future is questionable at best... Thus, my dilemma...

I had a decent gpa of 3.4 and an LSAT of about 150 without ever taking a prep course and only doing a few sample LSATs. People at my school got full rides with the same GPA and an LSAT of about 156 while I am paying 30K for tuition... I did not do great in my first year (mostly because I underestimated how much I should study, not because I have trouble getting the material) and the career prospects at graduation worry me. I would like to practice corporate/securities/international business law.

So I am considering the following options:
1) leave the current law school
2) perhaps go do another MBA in finance at a top in state school (my original MBA is in operations management) - this would only take a year and this school is the best in the state, though I honestly prefer management to finance, but the career prospects are better with finance since money makes the world go round lol; this would also be beneficial if I end up doing securities law
3) take an LSAT prep course and actually do practice exams so I would score around 160s
4) then either apply to the top 2 state schools (which are in the 158-160 range) with tuition being only 10K a year
5) re-apply to the lower tier schools and see if I would get a full ride

The main reasons why I went to this law school is because it was closest to home, I did not put in effort to score better and I was sure that my career prospects would be decent upon graduation. However, being more than 100K in debt no longer seems very attractive. I am young, so I do not mind wasting a year or two and re-doing things the way I should have done them in the first place.

However, I would like to know what my chances are. Has anyone left law school, retaken the LSAT and been accepted to a better school? Or left l.s. and after retaking the LSAT been offered a scholarship the second time around? Thanks a lot! PMs will also be appreciated from people who have gone through this.

It sounds to me given the oiptions you put out, your just defaulting to the easy route again.

Why not re-double your efforts at the school you’re in, with hard work and choosing your classes right you can bring up your GPA in years 2/3. Does your school have a part-time program? Can you switch to that and get a legal job PT to defer some of the cost of school? This will also give you some experience, and if you network right you can get a good job out of your school. Focus your energies on fidning mentors and opertutnties in the local legal community rather than the schools limited OCI offerings. The other options you listed just sound like giving up w/o fixing the problem i.e. you don’t put much effort into things. That’s not going to change until you address it, even if you get a 180 on the LSAT the second time around and some school decides to over look your crappy law school grades. It seems like a lot more work in the long run to “start over” then it is to just fix your attitude and change what has gone wrong thus far. Its also the more adult decision than running away from the mess you created. Dig your feet in and fix what went wrong and you can recover from this if you change your outlook, convince yourself that you CAN overcome this and put all your efforts into doing so.

[big - fat - box]

It's sounds like you don't like your current school very much (and didn't do much research on it before deciding to attend) and are looking to cut your losses. Nothing wrong with that per se, but you need to take a realistic view of your current situation.

Frankly your chances of doing the practice area are slim if you stay at your current school. Most of the firms that do that kind of work are fairly large, and to be blunt, they do not hire 4th tier students with poor grades. Getting your grades up might not help either because recruiting at those large firms tends to be very regimented and you've sort of missed the boat. Even if you were to get into the better schools in your state (which is doubtful, unless you wait awhile - 5+ years like Jacy said) that might not allow you to get the kind of job you want unless you finish at the top of the class.

I do not think getting a second MBA is going to work either. You may be able to get some sort of post-grad certificate or something but most MBA schools aren't going to let you earn a second MBA when you've already got one. Some schools may offer a 1 year M.S. in finance though. Not sure if that's a good idea though. You might want to get a job and work for a little while before jumping into another degree program. You don't need to make another mistake.

Side point: earning additional degrees won't really help with law school admission.

My advice would be to try the following:

1) Get permission from your school to take a leave of absence for 1 year. Many schools will let you do this.

2) Get a full time job doing something related to your MBA. During that time you can decide if it's worth it to go back to your current school (despite the poor career prospects for what you want to do), keep working or do something else entirely different or think about returning to another law school several years later.

[succubus]

Stay in school and get your grades up, if you want to be in law.  If not, leave.

"Bright" people don't just arbitrarily not put forth effort.  They, at minimum, put for the modicum of effort needed to be successful.  You're just a bad planner with an astounding lack of foresight.  This projects the exact opposite of "bright."  You can salvage things, but you should wise up.