I don't go to a rigorous school...

samantha.ashley92

I am a senior at an "average" college, and I have a 3.99 GPA. I am a transfer student, so my combined GPA is a 3.8. I am aiming for a 170 on the LSAT, but I wouldn't be surprised if I wound up closer to a 165. Anyway, I am concerned that I won't get into schools that look for decently high LSAT scores unless I score well above the median score... like maybe I will need the 75th percentile score to get in without scholarship. I'm just wondering if anyone else has had this issue or if anyone has any thoughts on it.

Seeking Perfection

I don’t think the rigour of the school matters much. The US News rankings don't put any weight on it so the law schools treat it as at best a minor soft in admissions. If I were you, I would pick schools to apply to on the assumption that you will perform as your numbers suggest. Use law school numbers and enter different possible LSAT scores with your GPA to see what those numbers suggest. http://mylsn.info/498kl7/
Pick safeties, reaches, and targets accordingly.

That said, 165 vs 170 or 175 are going to have huge differences in your admissions results and scholarships so you want to do everything you can to maximize your LSAT score. If the pessimism of fearing you need to be at the 75th helps, then ignore what I said until after you secure your best possible LSAT score.

studyingandrestudying

Do you have an LSAC GPA average yet?

TheMikey

if your LSAC GPA is around a 3.8, that is pretty good tbh

Try to get as high as possible on the LSAT. Also, play around with numbers on http://mylsn.info if you want to see what kind of LSAT score you could have and still get into some schools.

also, where you go for undergrad really doesn't matter.

samantha.ashley92

@lsatplaylist I don't. My schools are all on 4.0 scales. Would my LSAC GPA change?

TheMikey

@"samantha.ashley92" said:
@lsatplaylist I don't. My schools are all on 4.0 scales. Would my LSAC GPA change?

It may change.

https://www.lsac.org/jd/applying-to-law-school/academic-record#grade-table

https://www.lsac.org/aboutlsac/policies/transcript-summarization

samantha.ashley92

@TheMikey of course, the website is down right now. Does this translate your school GPA into a more standardized GPA in terms of academic difficulty?

samantha.ashley92

@TheMikey it's back up! It says that they don't attempt to change your GPA based on school difficulty. I guess I'll have to do my best to figure it all out, and I'll really have to depend on my LSAT score to get into a good school.

Leah M B

Yeah, sometimes GPAs change with LSAC because of how they calculate things. They use a specific method to standardize everyone's GPAs. It'll likely be close but could go up or down a bit.

FWIW - my college that I attended for 3 years doesn't recognize A+ as a grade. I wish LSAC did the same! We didn't have the option to get that slight bump that some people do. The college I went to my first year though did allow them and I got 1, which helped a tiny bit. But man, really jealous of folks who had that as an option in their GPAs haha. (I know this is absolutely the lamest whine haha)

Edit: but no, they don't standardize for rigor, just to base everything off the same 4.0 scale.

TheMikey

@"samantha.ashley92" said:
@TheMikey of course, the website is down right now. Does this translate your school GPA into a more standardized GPA in terms of academic difficulty?

Yeah, it's more of the LSAC's own way of just calculating GPA's to have a set number that takes into account your entire UG history, not to the exclusion of anything prior to being given your first bachelors degree. For example, classes you took in high school that were college credits, community college class, etc. will all be factored into your lsac gpa along with your degree-granting institutions GPA.

TheMikey

@"samantha.ashley92" said:
@TheMikey it's back up! It says that they don't attempt to change your GPA based on school difficulty. I guess I'll have to do my best to figure it all out, and I'll really have to depend on my LSAT score to get into a good school.

Yeah, it's not based on difficulty or anything, it's just their own GPA formula. It can change drastically, a little bit, or not at all. For example in community college I had a low 3.9, in my degree-granting school I had a low 3.7, my LSAC GPA ended up being in the 3.8's.

there's an LSAC GPA calculator on the web somewhere that you can mess around with and input all of your grades. Back when I didn't have my official LSAC GPA I messed with it and it was basically what I have now so it's fairly accurate. I believe it was this one http://www.lawpad.com/gpa_calculator/