LSAT's

[Munchkin03]

There have been a lot of threads on GC, maybe not specifically about the LSATs, but about the state of the legal profession and how maybe it's not such a good idea to go and rack up a ton of debt. It seems that, unless you have an ace in the hole like a family firm to work for or a low-cost school, it's not the golden ticket to wealth it may have seemed when you were growing up.

The Top 14 may be a safer bet (everyone I know from college who went to a Top 14 is employed at a top firm but most of them graduated law school in 2006 so they were not as affected by the recession as younger folks might be), but all but a handful of those schools are in the most expensive areas in the country. If you ended up at one of those places, which isn't likely, you could have $15-20K of living expenses a year (a conservative estimate, really). Also, I believe the ABA prevents you from working more than 20 hours a week during your 1L year.

In other words, even if you get a "full ride," you could still end up 75-80K in debt and that's assuming you don't have any undergrad debt. That's on top of uprooting your life (unless there's a great law school close enough to avoid moving). Do you love the law that much, or is this more about making more than you do as a teacher?

ETA: I wish GeekyPenguin was around more. I think she posted about her LSAT/law school experience a lot and doing a search of her posts might be helpful for you.