I am at a top 35 school with a 3.1 GPA (Top 55-60pct of class). Applying to NYU, UF, GT, NW, BU, UMiami, UVA-
-no work experience, decent resume, 2-3 tax related coures with a B+ avg
-very good undergraduate GPA

Will my grades keep me out of these programs?

To some extent, it will depend on the quality of the other applicants and how you fall with respect to the pool. The undergraduate GPA doesn't really matter at all and the top 35 school with a middling GPA is kind of a wash. But, I will tell you that the one thing that sticks out as your biggest weakness is no work experience and only a couple tax courses.

LLMs are really geared towards attorneys who KNOW they are going to practice in a certain area and need the intense focus on that area of law. With no work experience and only a couple tax courses, it doesn't look like you could possibly be sure at this point that you want to concentrate in tax law.

I took five tax courses in law school -- including one I audited for no credit during my "free time" -- and worked for two years in trusts, estates and pension law. When I got my LLM at UF, there were very few students there without work experience and it was painfully obvious who they were.

UF only lets in about 65 applicants a year, so if you're lucky enough to get in, it's an incredibly rewarding experience. But, if you don't know that you already enjoy spending hours figuring out tax regulations, you might be truly miserable spending an entire year doing nothing else.

Tax law is a serious brain-drain every day and you will never be able to honestly bill like a litigator or corporate lawyer. You should really work in the area for a couple of years before thinking about an LLM.

As for your chances of getting in, if I had a choice between accepting someone with your qualifications, or someone from a third or fourth tier school in the top 25% who had been working in tax law for 2-5 years, I'd pick the experienced person. That person already knows they are cut out for tax law.

Hope this helps.

While the above poster makes many valid points, my experience was somewhat different.

I went to a Top 50-60 school, did well there, and went straight into the LL.M. in Tax program at GULC. I took four classes in law school with varying results.

I got into UF as well but didn't go there for a variety of reasons (which I'm not listing because I don't want this to become a debate about which school is better).

Work experience certainly would have helped, but mostly if you wanted to come in and take a bunch of classes focused in that particular area.

And while there were a bunch of practicing attorneys in my program, there were just as many who came straight out of law school.

As to your question, I'm not sure what your chances are of getting into the programs you listed. The best tax programs are at NYU, UF, and GULC. It's debatable whether other programs are worth the time and money.

Although, as hangfire said above, we had different experiences in our LLM programs, I definitely agree with her/him that NYU, UF and GULC are the best programs, the ones with the most name recognition and the ones that will help you along in your career the most.

Actually, in my family, three of us have LLMs, one from each of these programs. We choose our schools based on location because we already lived in the area. But, we really all had very similar experiences in our LLM programs because we all spent most of a year learning how to research and analyze the tax code -- and we all had plenty of job opportunities when we got out and still do ten, twelve and fifteen years later because of the LLMs. The biggest difference is that the UF program is MUCH less expensive because it's a public university.

Apply to all of them -- you can't go wrong. But, if you don't get in -- don't give up on it - there are all kinds of reasons why people don't make the cut from year to year and it's not necessarily indicative of whether you will get in the next year. Work for a year, then apply again. Just keep trying. Good luck.