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[mbw]

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[Temporary Relief Assistant Trailer Park Supervisor]

Definitely a boost.  How big depends on the school, and on what you've done with your life.  Northwestern loves students with work experience.  Boston College seems to admit a lot of borderline students with significant life experience.  I'm sure there are others, but those are two that come to mind.  I don't think it will ever hurt you, but at some schools it may just have a very negligible effect.

[andy1990]

I'm glad to hear it's not so bad I am early on here but would like to know how long you studied for the LSAT? Anything in particular helpful to you? And about the Honors program you did, was ithard to get ito? I am already at one college but want to transfer to the Honors program at another. Does anyone know if this is possible, I want to do the Honors to make it look better for law school. I will be 38yrs old when I apply for law school. The highest may GPA will probably be is like a 3.5, I totally messed up early on in life and didn't take it seriously-live and learn.UUUGGG

[scottie]

Does this mean I should apply to HYS?  HAH!!! 

[reverendT]

Got a first-hand answer today from a friend who is a prof at a Tier 2 LS.  Definite bump.  Said schools want diversity, and very few people over 35 even apply, so good ones generally get an edge.  Can easily overcome a mediocre GPA.  Yay for us old fogies.

That's good news for me!!!
I'm almost 36, with a horrid GPA of around 2.6 (the result of major immaturity 15 years ago...if you only look at the 69 credits I took in the past 5 years I have a 3.95).
So I"m banking on them discounting most of my bad grades, looking at what I've done lately, and factoring in life experience (12 years in the business world, marriage, homeownership, etc.)

[reverendT]

I'd like to see how you manage to make an argument for admission to law school on the basis of home-ownership or marriage status. Though I don't deny that it probably can be done, I think it's going to take a great deal of mental gymnastics, and probably a real ferretting out of some of your own assumptions.

A woman in my Kaplan class is a real heartbreaker to me. She claims that all her life she's been desperate to be a lawyer. But she's bad at standardized tests, her LSAT's are in the 140s. I think it's mostly panic, but some of it is probably "inability to cogitate in a straightforward manner because of a lifetime of success with associative rather than rational thinking." Or some similar diagnosis. She's a near straight-A student, very dedicated. Probably make a better lawyer than me, definitely will get promoted faster, since she's eager to please, and wants to work for large corporate-like organizations, and looks damn hot in a business suit. She wants to make a case for her "dedication" and "desire" to be a lawyer being something the admissions committees should take into account. Should they? How is she going to convince them to? Is it the right plan?

Think about it...would you rather teach real estate law to a bunch of 24 year olds who've never bought a house, or would you rather have a few folks in the class with some practical, hands on experience with all the issues that come up.
You may disagree but the deans at a few schols that I've contacted tend to agree with me.
Quite a few of them cherish business/life experience.

[sharky]

Home ownership isn't a bump on applications.

Home ownership doesn't necessarily mean that you know anything about real estate law.  And the in-depth study of real estate law is not that central to core/mandatory law school curricula.  (Also, law schools care about your life experiences - not possessions - to create a diverse class.  Law school classes/profs usually don't really care about either.)

Non-trads have some advantages (like putting some distance on bad GPAs), but don't overestimate the non-trad bump in your applications... keep at least one "safety" based on your numbers (as reported by LSDAS) where you're above the 75th in both LSAT and GPA. 

[reverendT]

Home ownership isn't a bump on applications.

Home ownership doesn't necessarily mean that you know anything about real estate law.  And the in-depth study of real estate law is not that central to core/mandatory law school curricula.  (Also, law schools care about your life experiences - not possessions - to create a diverse class.  Law school classes/profs usually don't really care about either.)

Non-trads have some advantages (like putting some distance on bad GPAs), but don't overestimate the non-trad bump in your applications... keep at least one "safety" based on your numbers (as reported by LSDAS) where you're above the 75th in both LSAT and GPA. 

I don't think anyone was arguing that homeownership is in itself a bump.  The point is that experience of every kind is a bump.  You still have to demonstrate that you can handle the coursework, obviously.

[sharky]

I think you're being a little over-broad with the whole "experience of every kind is a bump", extending to your rhetorical question about professors presumably preferring teaching real estate law to homeowners.

The point is that adcoms are trying to build a diverse class, and there are some things that some non-traditional students can offer that will help compensate for borderline GPA or LSAT, and in rare circumstances negate very poor GPA and LSAT scores.  But there are some things - like owning a home - that aren't really indicative of anything that adcoms are interested in adding to the class. 

I will say that most of the nontrads (people who have been out of undergrad for more than a few years) in my class have extraordinary accomplishments -- they aren't just older with more net generic life experience.

[I am Penny Lane]

Experience is a bump, but it is not like being a URM and going to add extra points to the LSAT. Basically all other things equal, you might get a bump over someone with the same stats.

Final_id .....

www.lawschoolnumbers.com or look at the bottom of many people's posts.