I want to go back to law school

[Nathaniel]

I didn't even finish the first semester at 'SC.  In fact, I walked out of finals.  I think that marred my transcript with a bunch of W's.  Now, I have my sights set on Columbia.  What LSAT do you think I'll need to get in there? 

[jack24]

I don't remember what your UGPA is (and I don't know if you are just messing around), but it looks like low 170s will be required.

http://columbia.lawschoolnumbers.com/applicants

[Nathaniel]

Jack24, I am kinda messin' around.  I already got a 166 on the LSAT, which is 93-94 percentile, and attended the University of Southern California's law school before I dropped out.  I may just go to business school and proceed to reap what I've sown. 

[Zepp]

First off, judging by your other posts, I don't think you're serious (or truthful) about much of anything, least of which being your interest in law school, LSAT scores or whether you actually attended law school.  But I'm bored, so why not throw a real answer in for the heck of it.  Assuming everything you said is true, your chances of getting into any T14 school are slim.  If you walked out during finals, your transcript isn't marred by Ws, it's marred by Fs.  Schools have withdrawal deadlines, usually very early in the semester.  No school I have ever heard of permits you to withdraw in the middle of finals.  So you have a whopping 0.0 lawschool GPA, that you will be required to report.  So that puts you into a very interesting and unpleasant situation.  You're not exactly a transfer student, since you have no transferable credits, but you have to report your failed first swing through law school.  So that 166 LSAT score isn't going to help you very much either.  It's more than 5 years old, so it's not reported, and despite having attended law school, you are still a prospective 1L, so you will need to take the LSAT again.  Hopefully you will do as well or better.  If not...well, you already had an uphill battle, might as well give up.  As for any "soft" factors, I wouldn't hang my hopes on that either.  "Soft" factors might help someone on the cusp or help an otherwise "no"  in a tier 2 school to be reconsidered.  It's not going to be the basis to get into a top 14 school.  I'd wager you're pretty much SOL for Columbia.  But on the bright side, going by your other posts, I'm guessing you're full of B.S. anyway, so none of this really matters.  If I'm wrong, I'd say your posts show a lack of maturity and judgment to be successful in law school, and your second attempt would probably have similar results to your first, so don't waste the money for the LSAT or applications.

[Nathaniel]

Well, Zepp, I am only 29 years old.  Between you and me, I still have a bit of that "sow your wild oats" thing raging in my body because I never did "sow my wild oats" when I was younger.  Like when I was in high school or college.  So, it's kinda like, I'm off schedule.  I should be effing--"sowing my wild oats"--right?  Perhaps it's wise to "sow your wild oats" before you go to law school.  I am not kidding about my LSAT.  I did get a 166, and that's 93-94 percentile; I did attend USC law in 2007. a top-twenty ls; and my undergrad GPA from the flagship university of Maine was ~3.56.  That's magna cum laude.  Not to forget that I am a member of Phi Beta Kappa, that presitigious collegiate honor society many politicians belong to.  And, lastly and penultimately, I became an assistant manager at CVS/pharmacy in Beantown, U.S.A., with a salary of $39,000; as well as sell $2 million of merchandise at a Ford dealership in NoHo, CA.  I must've sold about a dozen Ford Focuses.  I think those are two "soft factors" that count.

[Julie Fern]

how many tampons sell?

[Nathaniel]

I vaguel;y remember showing a customer where tampons were located.  In that case, maybe what I did is sell ONE DOZEN TAMPONS!

[Julie Fern]

what go with, ear or ...

[Zepp]

Well, if you are being sincere, I suggest you hold off even trying to apply to law school, because your other posts here give a very strong impression that you still lack the maturity and focus for law school, and would have similar results to your first attempt.  A friend of mine once described law school as all the drama and hormones of high school, but without the restraint of living with your parents.  And I can understand not being mentally there yet.  That was me as an undergrad.  Had painfully average (if not worse) undergrad grades.  Thought about law school, but one of my proffs suggested I take some time off, dabble in the real world, and make sure it was what I really wanted to do, rather than get into a middling law school, get middling grades, and if I'm luck, get a middling job, and perhaps practice for 3 years before looking for something different.  So I started a career, got a masters in some liberal arts field just for personal enrichment, and then applied for law school in my early 30s.  Only ended up getting into a tier 2 school, ranked top 5 in my class after the first year, and transfered to Georgetown, and graduated cum laude.  So yes, I can understand lack of maturity being an obsticle.

Now for your other factors, and getting into a top tier school.  As I said earlier, you are not strictly a 1L, nor are you a transfer.  You can kiss that LSAT score from 2005 good bye, because every law school is going to require you to have current LSAT scores.  Anything older than 5 years is not current.  You will have to take the LSAT again.  Your 2005 LSAT score won't even be reported.  For all intents and purposes, it doesn't exist.  Hopefullly, you will do just as well.  However, to pretend that it is a given is to delude yourself.  Your attending USC doesn't help you in the least, because you failed out.  It might as well have been a top 5 law school.  Failing out of a great law school is not a selling point to an admissions board.  If anything, this is probably your biggest hurdle to get into a decent school.  Perhaps you can try to explain it away in a personal statement, but you can't just pretend you are only relying on an undergrad GPA and LSAT score.  If you didn't have that giant 0.0 on your law school transcript, your magna cum laude, and Phi Beta Kappa would certainly mean open doors at top14 schools, but you shot yourself in the foot.  As for your "soft factors," sorry to tell you, they aren't that impressive.  You held down some jobs that didn't require physical labor, and managed to work your way up to assistant manager.  Congratulations.  But it really isn't that much of a big deal.  It's not like you joined the Peace Corps, organized a successful non-profit that distributes clothes to homeless vets, became a lobbyist, worked on a congressional staff, etc.  You held a pair of retail positions.  It really is no big f'en deal.  It's not a strike against you (as if you had been living in your parents' basement for the past 8 years playing video games), but I'd be very surprised if it made a difference one way or the other.

If you really want to go to law school, first and foremost...grow up.  If you manage to get into a top tier law school, everyone will have similar credentials as you, so you can't afford not to take things seriously.  Even if you only get into a second tier school because of your failing out, you will still encounter folks with solid academic backgrounds.  You will be graded on a strict curve, so even if you put out a really solid final, it might still only get you a B- (mercifully, the higher tiered schools have much easier curves than the lower tiered schools, and the top 3 don't even report grades).  With the legal market as tight as it is, do you really want to take on a quarter of a million dollars in non-discharable law school debt if you are only going to screw off, "sowing your wild oats" and finishing with an unimpressive GPA that will leave with no job prospects when all is said and done?

[Julie Fern]

but he got 166.