I don’t know why I get so emotional when I see threads like these because trust me I was in the same boat as you were. Dear bro/sis , you will never be late if you start at 20. Tons of my friends did start at 20 at a tier-1(to not sound vague , one my frnds started at NLIU around this age and two my frnds started at NLS around this age) and hey I am also going to mention myself. The average batch age of tier-1 nlu varies a lot (especially at NLS). When you will actually go to law school , you will realise 20 is a fairly young age because half of the batch average will range from 19-20. Considering the fact that clat is happening this December , and your admission next year will be way before your birthday (since clearly you haven’t turned 20 yet this year) , I will say go for it. You won’t regret it. That being said NLU’O is doing fairly well (yes there are humongous administration problems) but the placements haven’t taken a hit yet. You can count on it. But I don’t know why , even though I don’t know you , your confidence and faith in yourself can make things happen for the greater good in this year’s clat.

Please ensure you balance your academics with clat preparation. Promise yourself and start hustling. Time will give you your value if you make good use of it. I understand your concerns but trust me this drop won’t be a big deal. If you wanna get in touch , I will drop my mail. But try to follow this advice first. As you said yourself , you are taking a partial drop. If you are mature enough to make it this time , you will be judicious later on as well. Go ahead , ace your acad at Odisha , prep well for clat. It’s hardly 5 months. You can do it ❤️

Nehi bro. 20 isn’t a ‘too old’ kinda age. I don’t usually comment here (only a keen observer) but this was literally the hot topic few months back. You can even check some threads. I agree with a point mentioned in this forum only that see even a person taking just a year drop can make them graduate at 24. Depends on you. Your batchmates won’t be too young or infact some will be your age only - I can confirm this because a 20 year old in my batch is a topper infact. And there are many of them. This is not any norm but this has become quite normal after 2020. Check some threads if you wanna comfort yourself.

https://www.legallyindia.com/convos/topic/256763-graduating-at-245-normal-right

Hi, OP here. Thanks a lot for your compassionate response. It has been weighing quite heavily on me, but I am really glad to see that most people here seem to be supportive of a partial drop. This year's CLAT was heartbreaking for me because I made a few silly mistakes that deprived me of 2-3 additional marks that would've likely given me NLIU or GNLU. So I was extremely disappointed and I was feeling like a failure ever since. I've been in a fragile emotional state lately due to all of this, and trust me, I cannot explain to you just how much better I feel after reading your comment and realising that there are other people in similar circumstances. I will work very hard to perform well in CLAT this year, and I'll make sure I don't neglect my academics in NLUO either. Thanks a lot for replying, and I'd love to get in touch with you through email if you're okay with that. :)