Self-study
Good afternoon all,
I just graduated from school and sat to calculate my CAS GPA through 7sage, resulting in a slightly better one than initially expected, but still lower than I wanted. However, I finished up school at a Top-5 engineering school with a pretty strict grading system (very, very few all-A students). Anyways, I got an engineering degree and a good GPA coming out of that school, but I am wondering how that will play into consideration with the many Econ, Business, and other majors with less rigorous classes and higher GPAs (I truly mean no disrespect).
Do officers look at the major, rigor, and college? Or is it truly just based on the number?
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2 comments
The baseline number is what matters for the school's median (and, therefore, their ranking) so it is paramount. But grade inflation is out of control and a 3.9 isn't really a reliable signal of how good of a student you are anymore. So particularly at top schools, AOs do try to read the tealeaves of your transcripts to figure out how rigorously you proved yourself in college. They also see a comparison of how you did compared to the rest of your school, so they do have some insight into your institution's grading policies.
The real question is, What do you do with this information? Because your degree was STEM and the legal profession is mostly entangled with language, you need to use your application to demonstrate that you're also linguistically strong.
There's also the professional question -- have you proven yourself in a professional context? Will that be clear to AOs?
It depends on the school and officer. I'm sure some schools don't care about what major it was, but others do. Sorry I don't have a more definitive answer for you. I wouldn't rule yourself out anywhere since you never know!