It seems to me that LSAC has created a split system that will last for the next cycle or two. As these changes run their course, I assume that DE grades will essentially be viewed similar to a master's transcript, ie. a soft factor. However, this cycle will have some folks whose gpas were calculated before this change and include Dual Enrollment grades, and some folks whose gpas were calculated after and do not include these grades.
I suppose I'm wondering what schools will do in a case with two hypothetical candidates: Applicant A, who submitted their transcripts after the change and whose LSAC GPA is a 3.77, but would be a 3.87 with DE grades; and Applicant B, who submitted their transcripts before the change and would have a GPA of 3.76, but their DE grades bring them up to an LSAC GPA 3.85.
At the end of the day, the answer is, of course, that law schools have medians, that those medians are calculated using LSAC GPA, and that LSAC GPA is whatever LSAC says it is, even if you and the guy next to you have had it calculated in different ways. But I'm interested in what the community thinks
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From a very rudimentary standpoint, I think this will be akin to how schools treated different LSATs when they came about ("Will schools treat the virtual LSAT different than the in person? Will they treat new LSATs without logic games differently than the old one?").
First and bluntly - the stat is the stat. If we're aiming for a 3.80 and LSAC says Candidate A has a 3.81 while Candidate B has a 3.79, then Candidate A has the advantage.
But below the surface, I think that admissions officers will take the applicant's broader academic background into context. Historically, that's usually meant "While those Bs in those dual enrollment classes in high school drop the applicant's GPA below our target median, I'm not horribly worried about it because it was high school." Going forward and with the growth of accelerated college programs (ie, graduated with a high school and Associates degree), I think it's instead going to be "Yes, their GPA is a smidge low, but let's look at that good work in the dual enrollment classes that doesn't count anymore for their GPA."
In statistical analysis, we would have to find a beta (β) regression to standardize the weighting. I wouldn't be surprised if the formation of LSAC weighting would be similar in this cycle to create a benchmark for future cycles