With a 2.9 UGPA, your odds are best at schools that need to compromise on *something* to hit their medians. WashU is one of the more dramatic examples of this, but other schools (e.g., TAMU) have a similar "right angle of death" where being above one median is sufficient for admission, because unlike schools preferred by applicants they can't be picky about everything
feel like cornell inherently has the portability that im talkng about tho. Like for instance i was asking this same question about wake forest before and someone said their friend who practices in philly said that the wake name does nothing for them there.
Places like Penn, which are stereotypically "splitter friendly" to the extent they avoid people likely to get into (and choose) HYSCCN over them, might go down to a 3.4 or 3.5 GPA for a high LSAT but they have plenty of high LSATs above a 3.0. What you're looking for with a 2.9 is the equivalent of Penn, but a tier lower in selectivity/ability to be picky
@Glove Really depends on the rest of your profile. Plugging a 3.26/173-180 into the LSData "chance me" tool shows 6/30 applicants in that range got into Penn.
@jb2028 But I would have to look at splitter friendly schools that not only will accept me but offer me aid too - or will I be stuck getting into a splitter friendly school with no aid?