Senior Manager
Joined: 16 Aug 2011
Status:schools I listed were for the evening programs, not FT
Posts: 379
Given Kudos: 50
Location: United States (VA)
GMAT 1: 640 Q43 V34
GMAT 2: 660 Q43 V38
GPA: 3.1
WE:Research (Other)
Re: JD/MBA COLUMBIA - Profile Review
[#permalink]
30 Mar 2012, 14:15
I'm not the admissions consultants, but I guess here's my take on it.
MBA
With the degrees, why do you have so many?
2 baccalaureate degrees (1 in Pakistan, 1 at Pace), four masters degrees (were they all at once at Pace?) and the certificates. That is going to pop questions to the adcom. Why do you want another degree?
GMAT-wise, your 710 is around the median, but the average work experience at CBS is over four years...
As for work experience, the MBA is more sensitive to work experience than the MS in Finance, etc. I think you're going to need another year of work experience to get a really good look. Internships don't count as work experience to the MBA school, so I assume you have 1.5 years here.
Columbia Law School
Like the MS programs, work experience doesn't matter for law school, though work experience could help you get more of a chance.
So you know, because you have TWO baccalaureate degrees, only the FIRST degree you got will count as your undergraduate GPA. The second degree will be considered like another masters.
The LSAC GPA range is 3.6 to 3.82 (25th to 75th) and the median is at 3.72 for Columbia Law. Because both of your degrees' GPA's were real close in the 3.7 to 3.8 range, you're good here imo. The GPA's listed here are also calculated through LSAC (the law school admission council's) standardized GPA's, so your LSAC GPA may be up to .1 higher or lower because of pluses and minuses...
The issue is with the LSAT. The 25th to 75th range is 170 to 175. You have a 168. A 168 is a great score on the LSAT, and should be good enough for one of the coveted "T-14" schools and Columbia is in this category. However, when your LSAT is below the 25th percentile, your GPA needs to compensate for it, especially in law admissions where undergraduate grades matter a lot more, and I don't think you have a good chance at Columbia Law either with a 3.75 and a 168 when the median student there has a 3.75 and a 172. Even considering the fact that law school apps have dropped 25% in the last two years, schools at the top, like Yale/Harvard/Stanford/NYU/Columbia/Chicago probably won't have very much of a dropoff in credentials. However, schools ranked lower, even within the T-14 will have LSAT medians closer to your LSAT and a GPA that may be a little below yours.
If you're still set on Columbia, you should retake the LSAT and shoot for at least a 170, because the LSAT average there is almost at HLS and Yale Law.
Those are my 2 cents.