Self-study
Hi all, I have a question on how law schools consider undergrad GPA based on hearing various takes in the past. Starting college, I initially performed not as well as I would have hoped, as college was a big adjustment for me (first gen student). My GPA was lower for freshman and sophomore year (probably in the 3.6 -3.7 range), although I eventually was able to adjust and I would estimate my GPA throughout my last two years of undergrad to be in the 3.9 area. Ultimately, my final GPA ended up being 3.79. I am wondering how law schools (especially T14s) react to situations like these. Is the GPA improvement not really that beneficial? Or will law schools (without a better way of describing it), largely interpret my stats based on my latter performance as opposed to the former two years? Somewhere in the middle?
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5 comments
As a former admissions officer, both the red letter stat as well as the context of the stat are important. In this case, you'll be below the medians for all the T14 (and T25, for that matter). But we'll see that your first two years really held you back and then that you were a far different student during your final two years. If you can balance that out with a higher LSAT (and a good resume, and good written statements, etc), you can still compete for admissions at those schools!
@JacobBaska Thank you! One question: when you say higher LSAT here, what do you mean by "higher?" Do you mean higher than the median for a given school? Do you mean above a certain score (say, above 170)? Obviously the plan is to maximize my score, but I guess I am wondering out of curiosity of whether there is an LSAT score guideline for a situation like mine where the strength of any resume, LORs, written statements would not really save me (also understanding that every school is different, and this may not be something with a black and white answer).
@cmemery2020 Good follow up question! I mean "higher than the median for that particular school." So a 170 would represent a "high LSAT" for Fordham, whose most recent median has been a 168. But it would still be low for NYU and Columbia (172 and 173 respectively).
I hope that helps!
Also not an expert on admissions, but the way I understand it is there are two different considerations. 1. How confident they are that you will be able to succeed at a rigorous law school. Based on your stats, and especially if you score highly on the LSAT, I don't think schools will have many questions about your ability to succeed academically. That's where the upward trajectory and strong finish kick in as a significant doubt-eraser. 2. The statistical classes they are trying to assemble. You'll be below every t14 median, and clearly upward trajectory can't help there. But, as @AltanM said, half of all students will be below the median, and you can find many examples of people with your GPA being accepted to t14s in the public data. I'm sure the admissions experts here could give you a better inside perspective, though.
I'm not an expert on admissions but in my experience, it's better to show an upward trajectory rather than the opposite. It's important to keep in mind that medians are medians, so half the incoming class anywhere is below the median! Schools consider the GPA as a whole since that is what they have to report, but I think 3.79 is high enough where you won't be outright disqualified from any school because of it.