Hi! I'm applying to law school for the next cycle and am getting super nervous about my GPA. Unfortunately, my undergrad gpa was quite low. For context, I am a computer engineering and computer science major who graduated in 2025 and had two dips in my gpa that were both affected by emergency situations. I had to take an incomplete for a class since I had to miss the final exam due to the circumstance, but retook the class next Spring and got an A. In another course, I had a D, but maintained an A until the incident hit. My plan is to explain these dips in a gpa addendum without making excuses. I also got some corporate experience during and after college. I worked for 6 months full time as a Data Center Tech and 1 year as a RF engineer. I also have been working as an intern for 6 months at a cybersecurity company.
I would really love to apply to T14 law schools and a few in mind (obviously I will also be applying to targets and safetys), but is it just not in the cards for me? I know my LSAT is gonna have to some heavy lifting and my goal score is a 170+ (ambitious ik) with my first attempt in January. But is there anything else I can do to really strengthen my application?
3 comments
Good question, @SZD007 and one where I think it's useful to check out lawschooldata.org. If you go to various law school pages, you'll find a number of folks with a >3.30 GPA admitted this past year to Michigan, Penn, UVA, and Northwestern among others (ie, I didn't do a comprehensive search). This is because your GPA is just one component of your app but it isn't the entirety of things. People can still be competitive for admission if one area of their app is a little weak but the rest are strong.
So do well on the LSAT, keep working in your desired field so you can have a strong resume, write an explanation of your lower marks on your addenda, and that's all you can do!
@JacobBaska I see thank you! Would essays and solid recommendations make some impact when admission counselors are evaluating my profile?
@SZD007 Yup and sorry I didn't say this explicitly! What I meant when I wrote "people can still be competitive for admission if one area of their app is a little weak but the rest are strong" is that your resume, written statements, letters of rec, addenda, etc (ie, everything BUT the undergrad GPA) can help compensate for the lower undergraduate GPA!