- PowerScore Staff
- Posts: 9010
- Joined: Feb 02, 2011
- Fri Jun 30, 2017 4:48 pm
#36594
What follows is the transcript of a conversation between a parent, Dennis, and one of our Admissions gurus, Dave, regarding Dennis's daughter's decision to accept a law school offer, or to wait a year to possibly improve her LSAT - and her chance of admission to a T14 school.
Dennis: "Hi Dave, You have offered some great advice on this site and was hoping you could opine on my daughter’s situation. She graduated in 2016 with very good grades and decided late in the year to try to apply to law school. Her original intention was to use the year as a practice run and then apply seriously for admission for the fall of 2018. Well, with very little study she did well on the LSAT (lower 160’s) and applied to 8 schools to see how it would go. It turns out that she got full ride offers to 6 (Ohio State, American, ASU, U of Arizona, Wake Forest & Case), ½ to George Washington and a decline from Duke.
It has come down to Ohio State vs waiting another year and trying to improve her LSAT score to get into a T14. She’s torn between practicing in DC and Ohio, but looks at the prestige a T14 can offer and potential opportunities it affords. She also is very conscious of the enormity of debt that may coming with getting into a T14 without significant scholarship. She originally was interested in GW but because Ohio State and GW are ranked the same thought the Ohio State offer was better.
So looking for your thoughts on likelihood of improving her LSAT score to get into a T14, and starting a career in DC if she attends Ohio State. The Ohio State offer seems too good to pass, but she also doesn’t want to settle if there is greater potential at a T14. Also waiting another years seems to be putting off the inevitable. Thank you!"
Dave Killoran: "I will say that this is all going to come down to her waiting an extra year vs her career aspirations. the Duke rejection more or less sums up where she stands right now: she's set with OSU (great school, btw) but her numbers aren't good enough for the T14. Could she increase her LSAT score with an extra year? Sounds like it. Is it worth it? That I'm not sure about--it's a long time, but we do know that a higher LSAT score will not only increase her acceptances but bring more money as well. So the balance becomes an extra year (and I don't take that lightly) vs where she wants to go and what kind of school she needs for that."
Dennis: "She is concerned about opportunities offered at Ohio State. I've told her to reconsider George Washington if that is a concern, but would be interested in your opinion on Ohio State. Waiting a year just doesn't make sense to me."
Dave Killoran: "Hi Dennis,Thanks for the reply! The first place I'm going to refer you to is the LST Report on OSU: https://www.lstreports.com/schools/osu/. This gives a very nice thumbnail sketch on how the school performs when it comes to job placement, salaries, and bar passage. You should also compare that to GW: https://www.lstreports.com/schools/gw/.
The comparison between those two would suggest to me that the full ride at OSU is generally the better choice. First, it's free, whereas at GW she'd be walking out with a six figure debt load. Second, in comparison to GW, OSU also performs well in employment, which is really important to me when evaluating offers. The downside is that OSU places a LOT of grads into Ohio (80%), so her options for practice would most likely be in-state unless she is at the very top of her class (which is not easy at all to guarantee). GW places about half of their grads in DC and about 10% in NYC, so there is a bit broader feel to the options when you attend GW. However, you mentioned that she's torn between DC and Ohio as practice locations, so for her it may be that this isn't a big issue. To me, this is a critical point, and question she *really* needs to ask herself is: where do I want to practice and what type of job do I want? If Ohio is great, then take the money at OSU and don't look back! If she's a "bit" interested in DC or "kinda" would like to have the option, then again I'd say go with OSU. However, if she's adamant that she wants a big-city practice or for sure wants biglaw, that's when other options aside from OSU come into play.
If the latter is the case (and I suspect it isn't based on your initial comments), then she has either a half scholarship at GW or the option of a year off for a try at a higher LSAT score. The decision factors involved get very personal here, and aren't of the type that I can easily evaluate. Given her performance with minimal prep, I suspect she can raise her LSAT score further, which as I've mentioned earlier would open doors at more highly-ranked schools as well as increase her financial aid packages. The cost is the extra year off, which is a huge cost! However, that cost is weighed against the debt load from GW, and through that prism I don't think the cost looks so bad. Let's say she could raise her score into the upper 160s. At that point, her aid package at a place like GW might well be increased a full ride, meaning she'd save something like $150K overall. In that light, taking a year off actually would make some sense. If she could do even better, then perhaps she'd be looking at great aid packages at even better schools, meaning even more would be saved (or gained, it depends on how you look at it).
Thus, in my opinion, her situation reduces to two primary questions:
Please let me know what she says--I'm really interested in hearing what she think about the options. Thanks!"
Dennis: "Dave,
Great additional comments about her choice. Well after a week of mulling things over, she has decided to take the offer at Ohio State. She’s not completely sure she wants to end up in DC to practice but, in order to keep her options open there, she plans to continue to cultivate relationships that she made during undergraduate school and in the past year in working there.
Ohio State also offers a summer program in DC which she will look into. I think a lot of her decision came down to a sure thing at Ohio State vs an uncertain path and delaying that path for another year. Thanks again!"
Dave: "Hi Dennis,
A solid decision on her part, and one that makes complete sense to me. I wish her the best of luck! Thanks also for letting me know the final decision--I really appreciate that!"
Dennis: "Hi Dave, You have offered some great advice on this site and was hoping you could opine on my daughter’s situation. She graduated in 2016 with very good grades and decided late in the year to try to apply to law school. Her original intention was to use the year as a practice run and then apply seriously for admission for the fall of 2018. Well, with very little study she did well on the LSAT (lower 160’s) and applied to 8 schools to see how it would go. It turns out that she got full ride offers to 6 (Ohio State, American, ASU, U of Arizona, Wake Forest & Case), ½ to George Washington and a decline from Duke.
It has come down to Ohio State vs waiting another year and trying to improve her LSAT score to get into a T14. She’s torn between practicing in DC and Ohio, but looks at the prestige a T14 can offer and potential opportunities it affords. She also is very conscious of the enormity of debt that may coming with getting into a T14 without significant scholarship. She originally was interested in GW but because Ohio State and GW are ranked the same thought the Ohio State offer was better.
So looking for your thoughts on likelihood of improving her LSAT score to get into a T14, and starting a career in DC if she attends Ohio State. The Ohio State offer seems too good to pass, but she also doesn’t want to settle if there is greater potential at a T14. Also waiting another years seems to be putting off the inevitable. Thank you!"
Dave Killoran: "I will say that this is all going to come down to her waiting an extra year vs her career aspirations. the Duke rejection more or less sums up where she stands right now: she's set with OSU (great school, btw) but her numbers aren't good enough for the T14. Could she increase her LSAT score with an extra year? Sounds like it. Is it worth it? That I'm not sure about--it's a long time, but we do know that a higher LSAT score will not only increase her acceptances but bring more money as well. So the balance becomes an extra year (and I don't take that lightly) vs where she wants to go and what kind of school she needs for that."
Dennis: "She is concerned about opportunities offered at Ohio State. I've told her to reconsider George Washington if that is a concern, but would be interested in your opinion on Ohio State. Waiting a year just doesn't make sense to me."
Dave Killoran: "Hi Dennis,Thanks for the reply! The first place I'm going to refer you to is the LST Report on OSU: https://www.lstreports.com/schools/osu/. This gives a very nice thumbnail sketch on how the school performs when it comes to job placement, salaries, and bar passage. You should also compare that to GW: https://www.lstreports.com/schools/gw/.
The comparison between those two would suggest to me that the full ride at OSU is generally the better choice. First, it's free, whereas at GW she'd be walking out with a six figure debt load. Second, in comparison to GW, OSU also performs well in employment, which is really important to me when evaluating offers. The downside is that OSU places a LOT of grads into Ohio (80%), so her options for practice would most likely be in-state unless she is at the very top of her class (which is not easy at all to guarantee). GW places about half of their grads in DC and about 10% in NYC, so there is a bit broader feel to the options when you attend GW. However, you mentioned that she's torn between DC and Ohio as practice locations, so for her it may be that this isn't a big issue. To me, this is a critical point, and question she *really* needs to ask herself is: where do I want to practice and what type of job do I want? If Ohio is great, then take the money at OSU and don't look back! If she's a "bit" interested in DC or "kinda" would like to have the option, then again I'd say go with OSU. However, if she's adamant that she wants a big-city practice or for sure wants biglaw, that's when other options aside from OSU come into play.
If the latter is the case (and I suspect it isn't based on your initial comments), then she has either a half scholarship at GW or the option of a year off for a try at a higher LSAT score. The decision factors involved get very personal here, and aren't of the type that I can easily evaluate. Given her performance with minimal prep, I suspect she can raise her LSAT score further, which as I've mentioned earlier would open doors at more highly-ranked schools as well as increase her financial aid packages. The cost is the extra year off, which is a huge cost! However, that cost is weighed against the debt load from GW, and through that prism I don't think the cost looks so bad. Let's say she could raise her score into the upper 160s. At that point, her aid package at a place like GW might well be increased a full ride, meaning she'd save something like $150K overall. In that light, taking a year off actually would make some sense. If she could do even better, then perhaps she'd be looking at great aid packages at even better schools, meaning even more would be saved (or gained, it depends on how you look at it).
Thus, in my opinion, her situation reduces to two primary questions:
- 1. This is the question I posed above, namely, "where does she want to practice and what type of job does she want?" Depending on her answer, then she'd either accept the OSU offer, or alternately consider my second question.
2. This question only gets asked if the answer the first question shows that Ohio isn't where she wants to end up, and her opinion on that is *very* strong. The question is: "How much better could she do on the LSAT if she had another year to prepare for the exam?" If the answer is, "I don't think I can improve much," then take the OSU offer and don't worry about this option. But if the answer is that she believes with good reason that she could do 5-6 points better (or more), then she should consider retaking the exam, and then re-applying, especially to schools in the T14 and schools with good rankings in larger cities (such as GW or Georgetown).
Please let me know what she says--I'm really interested in hearing what she think about the options. Thanks!"
Dennis: "Dave,
Great additional comments about her choice. Well after a week of mulling things over, she has decided to take the offer at Ohio State. She’s not completely sure she wants to end up in DC to practice but, in order to keep her options open there, she plans to continue to cultivate relationships that she made during undergraduate school and in the past year in working there.
Ohio State also offers a summer program in DC which she will look into. I think a lot of her decision came down to a sure thing at Ohio State vs an uncertain path and delaying that path for another year. Thanks again!"
Dave: "Hi Dennis,
A solid decision on her part, and one that makes complete sense to me. I wish her the best of luck! Thanks also for letting me know the final decision--I really appreciate that!"