GPA Factor- How much does a .05 increase in GPA boost your odds of admission?

mashUSMM

Hey,

I was wondering if anyone had any insight as to how law school admissions view GPA's as they approach the schools median. For example, if a schools median is a 3.8 and I have a 3.75, am I placed in the same "below-median" category as the student with 3.5? To what extent does the marginal .05 GPA matter?

Thanks

LOWERCASE EVERYTHING

undergraduate gpas are reported to the hundredth decimal place in the 509 reports: http://www.abarequireddisclosures.org/disclosure509.aspx
you can look up your specific school and see what their exact medians are.

if you hit the median, that just means half the gpas are above you and half are below. a median is not an average. so strictly speaking, if a school's median is 3.80 and your gpa is a 3.75, you theoretically do fall under their median in terms of numbers, but definitely not in the same "below-median" category as the student with a 3.50. they'd ultimately want their final median gpa as high as possible, so they would want to admit as many people with high gpas as possible until the end of their cycle.
what does this mean and how will schools look at the marginal 0.05 gpa? i don't have an answer to that, but i'd imagine they will more likely see you as someone who hits their median than someone who does not; at the very least, they will see you as someone who's below the median by a very little margin.
this is not specifically about gpa medians, but i think it's very relatable and might give you more insight:
https://7sage.com/admissions/lesson/lsat-median-explanation/

LOWERCASE EVERYTHING

this also reminds me of a webinar that i attended with the ucla's dean of admissions, rob schwartz. someone asked him if a gpa of like 2.22 (i'm not remembering the exact numbers..) will be looked similarly as someone with a 2.52. his answer was "theoretically, more or less similarly."

since both gpas were far below ucla's median anyway, dean schwartz said that he'd less likely decide these two applicants on their difference in gpas, but more on other factors if he were to admit only one of the two; basically, 2.22 and 2.52 both will cut their medians down a lot, so he said he'd focus more on other factors. he also said, though, this was not true the other way around, like 3.70 and 4.00. even though the difference between these two gpas were the same 0.3 (like between 2.22 and 2.52), this case would be much more different.

this makes sense. i guess their views on gpa and lsat medians are not strictly monotonic, and there is this sort of "diminishing marginal returns" concept that can be applied here.

hope this helps!
good luck!!

mashUSMM

@"LOWERCASE EVERYTHING" thanks for that insight. Definitely good to know moving forward as I will for sure be below all my schools median GPAs by about .05-.1.

Again, thank you

Auntie2020

If the median is 3.8 and someone applies with a 3.75, it is technically below the median.

When it comes to higher GPAs, .05 difference seems to be more impressive. For example someone with a 3.95 vs a 3.90 or a 4.00 vs. a 3.95. Though with lower GPAs the difference might be less significant. When comparing someone with a 3.8 and another a 3.75 and deciding which to admit, I would assume that the GPA would be considered if everything else is equal. Though if the 3.75 had a stronger LSAT, personal statement, resume and other factors perhaps the .05 makes less of a difference.

Though at the end of the day, someone with an admissions background could probably speak more about it with greater accuracy than us applicants!

LOWERCASE EVERYTHING

@mashUSMM i'm glad you found them helpful!
and def apply to these schools. your other factors can easily make up for that 0.05-0.1 difference. good luck!!

VerdantZephyr

To echo weed @"LOWERCASE EVERYTHING" said, if you're above the LSAT median at all you're going to be a very strong applicant. A single point above the LSAT matters more than .05 GPA. Part of the reason for this is I don't think it's a big deal for the school to have their median GPA shift .01 or whatever. Median GPA likely changes slightly every year because there's much more variety. They will get dozens, maybe even 100+ applications at their LSAT median. Realistically most everyone applying to the school will be within about 10 points of their LSAT. They aren't going to have a hundred applications at exactly a 3.69 and a huge percentage of their applications will not be within .1 of their GPA. They will want to balance you out still of course. They don't want their GPA to shift down, but as long as your LSAT is a single point above you're in a better position than a true splitter.