Have I screwed over my grad prospects forever by going to law school?

[Tungston]

In short: I didn't do very well in undergrad (it was like a 2.9 I think, with the worst grades highly concentrated in my second year).  I tried to make that better by applying to an MA program in philosophy, where I got a 3.96.  I applied to PhD programs last cycle, and I was actually high on a few waitlists (e.g. UVA, Amherst,and I was actually first on the waitlist at Iowa), but I didn't get in (in at least two cases, I was explicitly told they had to drop their waitlist because of COVID). 

 

However, I did get into a second-tier law school, and decided to attend, thinking that if I couldn't get a PhD in philosophy I could be a lawyer and/or try again next cycle.  So I figured I could bide my time in law school, fix up my application, and reapply . I got a lot of very helpful advice on my application from committee insiders, and I decided to try again this time.

Unfortunately, something I never expected happened:  I got destroyed in law school. Like, the worst grades I have ever gotten in anything ever I got in law school.  I'm in my second semester, and I'm considering dropping out because I'm afraid of what my final transcript is going to look like.  My first semester was one B+ and the rest Cs and C-s.  This is literally the worst I've ever done in anything.  I studied hard, I genuinely tried to do well, but I just got eviscerated.

I'm now terrified that I've just completely screwed up my chances of ever getting into a PhD because I made a really stupid decision to go to law school, and I'm frustrated and angry at myself both for not being better at law than I am, and for making the foolish decision to go to law school in the first place.  I'm sitting here, waiting on 15 applications (putting special hope on those that I sent in before I got my first semester grades, terrified that this one decision to go to law school may have cost me any future opportunity at getting into a PhD program. 

How do committees look at stuff like this?  

[liljouissance]

I know this might not be the most helpful answer, but I'm in the same boat as you. I actually chose my law school to pursue a JD/PhD, got rejected from the PhD program (to start fall 2020, same as law), came to the law school anyway, and had a rough first semester. I got rejected again this year from the PhD program at my university as well.

I also applied to other PhD programs, and from what I've gathered, most graduate schools don't necessarily put too much weight into your law school grades. Some professors at schools I applied to gestured toward that as well. Law grades aren't correlative to your future success in philosophy, and the material and pedagogy of law school is substantially different than that of philosophy. I wrote addenda for each program I applied to so I could further explain my decision to attend law school, why I don't think it was the right decision for me, and then I (gently and carefully) explained my subpar performance. I also trumped up the fact that I've been trying to pursue the PhD path for a while (my goal has always been to teach) in the hopes of assuaging fears I might jump from a PhD program.

I would think your high master's GPA, your rec letters, and your writing sample are much more important than you law school performance. Grad schools are so secretive about their admissions, though, that it's hard to say for sure. I think really emphasizing the substantial difference between law and grad would help your applications. At least, I'm hoping that's the case, for the best of both of us!

[planningfor2021]

On 2/11/2021 at 2:04 PM, liljouissance said:

I know this might not be the most helpful answer, but I'm in the same boat as you. I actually chose my law school to pursue a JD/PhD, got rejected from the PhD program (to start fall 2020, same as law), came to the law school anyway, and had a rough first semester. I got rejected again this year from the PhD program at my university as well.

I also applied to other PhD programs, and from what I've gathered, most graduate schools don't necessarily put too much weight into your law school grades. Some professors at schools I applied to gestured toward that as well. Law grades aren't correlative to your future success in philosophy, and the material and pedagogy of law school is substantially different than that of philosophy. I wrote addenda for each program I applied to so I could further explain my decision to attend law school, why I don't think it was the right decision for me, and then I (gently and carefully) explained my subpar performance. I also trumped up the fact that I've been trying to pursue the PhD path for a while (my goal has always been to teach) in the hopes of assuaging fears I might jump from a PhD program.

I would think your high master's GPA, your rec letters, and your writing sample are much more important than you law school performance. Grad schools are so secretive about their admissions, though, that it's hard to say for sure. I think really emphasizing the substantial difference between law and grad would help your applications. At least, I'm hoping that's the case, for the best of both of us!

I am in a very similar situation. I graduated from UG (topic public) with a 3.8 or 3.89 (i'm not certain how they're calculating my GPA) and finished a history pre-doc, before attending law school. Now, I am applying to a masters program in urban planning and with the hopes of applying to a PhD. program  While my UG GPA is outside the average 25-75% band, my aw school my gpa was extremely low (>3.0).  I went to law school (t-14 at that) and in that time span, everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. I unexpectedly became a dad to a daughter, while her mom had some personal issues that sprung up and eventually lead to a divorce, and a host of other off-setting events. But I think i've grown up since then (about five years), but i'm so worried that my law school school GPA ruined my chances of even being admitted to a masters program. I wrote about this in my statement of purpose. But right now they let in the first batch of students and I'm still waiting. They lost my transcripts and I had to resend, so i'm hoping that I haven't received information because of that administrative issue. But Idk if they're looking at my law school gpa and honing in on that. This purgatory is pretty terrible.