That Damn GPA

See also 151.

I know that I could have been a better undergrad student. I admit, I fucked it up quite a few times and my resulting GPA will always haunt me. I fear that it may be the biggest factor in a denial from a law school. It wasn't until my second semester as a junior that I seriously got down to studying. My last semester at State I finally pulled my GPA to up a 3.0. I almost cried over that because it seemed like I would never be able to crack 2.9. I was proud that I got a 3.0 for a math class that I failed 3 times over. I could hardly contain myself when I got a 4.0 in Constitutional Law when a year earlier I failed it with a big 0.0. I gave my friends a high-five when my Capstone Course was finished with a healthy 3.0. Considering it was a Madison class heavy in Islamic politics and history, I thought it would be a lot worse. I can make up for my unimpressive GPA. I think that I stand a good chance at getting into some law schools if my LSAT numbers manage to get into the upper 150's and I get some kind of experience by this fall.

I went to Michigan State based on a view book I received when I was in 7th grade. No research went into my consideration of schools. I applied only to three. UofM was my reach school. Western was my safety. Although I don't regret going to State, I don't want to make a leap of faith for law school. I went to the library today to get a little idea on what law schools are out there. So far, I've only given serious consideration to Thomas Cooley Law School and Michigan State University basically because they are the only ones I've had experience with besides Notre Dame ( would be out of my mind to consider applying there). What I found was pretty depressing. Although I feel like I stand a good chance of getting a decent LSAT score, I looked at the GPA info. In one of the places that I looked, it had "lowest GPA accepted."

Indiana University-Bloomington: 3.03
Penn State: 3.05
University of Pittsburg: 3.05
Ohio State: 3.33
Wisconsin: 3.04
Florida State: 3.16
Georgia State: 3.10
Louisiana State 3.15
UNC: 3.01

I was sitting there pulling out my hair over the lack of some GPA's in the 2.0's. I suppose it's fine that MSU and Cooley had 2.91 and 2.66 respectively. But I'm just concentrating on these cut offs. Sure, law schools say that there aren't strict cut offs but when I'm seeing these as the lowest that they accepted... it means that it was the bottom o fthe barrel. And what does that say about where I will be within the class itself? I'll be at the bottom. That is, if I get in.

I never thought that IU or Wisconsin would ever be my reach schools, but there we have it. I'm going to have to work that much harder. As much as I loved getting that 3.0, I'm going to have to say, "Fuck it. Let's do what we can."