Welcome to the latest installment of Law Admissions Q&A, a monthly feature of Law Admissions Lowdown that provides admissions advice to readers who send in questions and admissions profiles.

If you have a question about law school, please email me for a chance to be featured next month.

Learn [ more about applying to law school.]

Dear Shawn: I was hoping you might be able to give me some pointers on l aw s chool a pplications if I had a low undergraduate GPA. My LSAT is about average, or slightly above, for the schools I am looking to apply to.

By the time I apply I will have two years of experience at one of the top advertising agencies in the world … I’ve already been promoted in the year that I’ve been working here.

I have also been taking some extra classes through a website called Coursera. I’ve chosen to focus on International Law and Politics, Intellectual Property and a few other areas that interest me. I also plan on having some solid recommendations and have visited the schools I am applying to so I could speak with an admissions representative.

I’m still very concerned though. My undergrad GPA was below a 3.0 from a highly regarded university. I started my university career as an economics major. I quickly learned the hard way that calculus and statistics were not my strong suits , which resulted in an extremely low GPA following my first year.

I spent the next three years trying to bring it up, but still managed to only get a B average in most of my non-major classes. I still have a 3.5 and 3.6 in both of my majors, history and government. Would you suggest I include an addendum? And if so, how can I word it so I don’t sound like I’m making an excuse for my grades? –Back to School

Dear Back to School: With respect to your undergraduate transcript and GPA, I think you are absolutely right that you should write an addendum. In the addendum you should explain to schools that, at the beginning of your undergraduate study, you had not yet found the subjects that interested you and played to your academic intellectual strengths, but once you did, you excelled.

[Get tips on applying to law school with a low GPA.]

The fact that you can point to strong grades in your major and a significant upswing in your overall GPA as you progressed through college will strengthen your case. I think you should continue to take classes through Coursera that interest you and do your best to get as good grades as possible.

But remember that law schools will much more heavily weigh your college transcript, and will likely view your extra course work as an indication that you are interested in furthering your education even while working — not as an indication of your academic ability.

With respect to your work experience, that is definitely something you will want to highlight in your applications. Make sure you continue to do excellent work and cultivate mentors and superiors who would be willing to write stellar letters of recommendation.

If you can, try to do work for them that involves the skills that law schools most highly value: research, writing, editing, attention to detail and critical analysis. Having a recommendation that can speak directly to those skills will strengthen your application overall and will help allay any concerns about your overall GPA.

Dear Shawn: I am trying to decide between preparing for the June LSAT exam and the October LSAT exam. I have started preparing this week, and my scores are in the mid-160s, but I am hoping to score in the mid-170s to ensure that I am admitted at the top programs.

I am finishing my junior year right now, so I will likely have to spend the next several weeks preparing for exams, and I will have a very intense internship this summer that will take up most of my time. I will be free, though, for the last two weeks of May and all of August. I should also have plenty of time to study in September. Should I take the June or October LSAT? –Test Taker

Dear Test Taker: I think in your situation the clear answer is to take the October exam. Scoring in the mid-160s is an excellent place to start, but since you rightly have very high expectations for yourself, the eight remaining weeks between now and the June LSAT are likely not enough for you to get your score consistently into the mid-170s.

That fact, coupled with the fact that you will have to devote a significant amount of time to school in the next several weeks, makes taking the exam in October much wiser.

Follow this [law school application timeline.]

Between now and August, you should continue to take approximately one practice test per week, reviewing any questions you got wrong or spent too much time on. In August, you should begin to take two to three tests per week and devote approximately 15 hours per week to your preparation.

This path will give you a much greater chance of putting yourself consistently in the mid-170s scoring range before you take the real thing.

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Address Undergraduate GPA Struggles in Law School Applications originally appeared on usnews.com