Transfer Credits

asufian

Hello all,

I went to 2 schools for my undergraduate degree, from my first school I transferred about 30 credits towards my new school. My question is, will the LSAC look at my old transcript and count all the grades from my old transcript towards my overall GPA on LSAC? My grades were poor in my old school, but significantly improved in my new school. I ended up graduating Summa Cum Laude with a 3.86 GPA. but had a really bad start to college in my old school. Maybe I should write an addendum to explain the grade difference? Also I had a different major back in my old school and ended up graduating with a degree in a completely different major, I don't know if that makes any difference at all. Any help is appreciated, thanks in advance!

hopefulling

Your major change does make a difference: it shows that that major (especially with the grades to go with it) wasn't your 'best fit' and that when you changed majors, your grades improved. The schools will not judge you on this - they understand that this is an issue (I've heard it a few times in admissions webinars lately, too).

They will look at your first school's transcript (since you'll have to send it along). But I'm not sure how they interpret it. For me, I transferred from a trimester program to a semester program, so the 2nd school converted the grades into a semester equivalent and they're included in a section both on the 2nd transcript as well as on the original 1st school's transcript (which is handy, since this one shows the classes and all the other term stats). On a totally different topic-ish, I'm also really curious how the admins look at a graduate degree transcript - if / how it factors in. Since it's graduate-level work, it doesn't show up on the LSAC report other than as a 'see transcript.' (which makes sense)

So, you seem to be in a really good position - and the schools will see that you overcame that first school/major to do MUCH better overall. They might also see it as a 'bad fitting school' additionally as well as a 'bad fitting major.' Which helps you in both cases. I don't know that you need to write anything to explain, but I did attend an admissions webinar recently where the school mentioned that if we needed to explain a detail (if it left a question on the adcom's mind), then we could include an addendum - even if it's just a short paragraph to point something out. It sounded like a recommendation to do so, also. That it was better to provide a possible answer to a question than not. However, it might depend on the school, so you might want to confirm that they don't mind an addendum (I've not seen this, but that doesn't mean a school is super-strict about limiting submitted docs).