Law School and grades

[lisapar]

  Hello,
 
 I have been reading on the board for a little while, but would like some clarification on something.

 I am 42-years-old and I live in Western North Carolina. I don't have any college so I will be attending a community college to get my prerequisites. My question is, can I get into a top law school taking prerequisite courses at a community college?

 I don't have much money, I am hoping to get grants or at least qualify for student loans which is why I am attending a community college and not a major university.

 From my research, I do realize that I have to get at least a 3.5 gpa and very good scores on the LSATs. What else should I do to better my chances to get into say..Penn State or Chapel Hill (North Carolina law school).

 Thank you in advance for any help you can give me.

[nitr0x99]

It does not really matter if you go to community college before transferring to a four year university. Just keep in mind that LSAC will request all transcripts so your grades will show up from the community college and the university,so make sure you do well.

[lisapar]

 Thank you.

[BikePilot]

Also, do take a realistic look at the legal market.  There are many articles, posts etc examining the cost of law school vs employment probabilities and for the majority of graduates from the majority of law schools they aren't great (from a financial perspective).  Do reasonably well from a T3 law school or extremely well at a T14 and your prospects are quite good, even in this economy, but outside that the statistics are less than great.

As far as what you can to do improve admission prospects, focus for now on doing extremely well in college. Shoot for a 3.9+.  If you want to start LS right after graduation you'll need to have your applications in fall of your senior year which means taking the lsat the june before you start your senior year so start taking practice lsats and studying sometime in the fall or spring of your sophomore year. Better gpa and lsat make a huge difference on admission - not just on what you can get into, but on how much money lower schools will give you (the T3 don't give out merit based cash at all as far as I'm aware). A 3.9+ and 170+ and you can likely go to a lower T14 for free or close to it (free as in no tuition cost, you'll still have housing cost and opportunity cost).