American Law Schools GPA Requirement

Faaabs93

Hello,

I am interested in applying to American law schools. However, I was wondering if T14 schools look primarily at your cGPA, or if they/if any of them look at your primarily your last two years of study.

Thanks!

c.janson35

I don't think any of them look primarily at the final 2 years. A much better final 2 years does seem to warrant an addendum and you might be able to make a compelling case for yourself, but others may be more knowledgeable about this than me.

Either way, if you are concerned about your GPA then use the LSAT as your leveler! Get as high of a score as you can to try to offset any GPA issues.

Good luck!

ddakjiking

your cumulative LSAC gpa. But LSAT is just as important, if not more.

Pacifico

As stated above, cumulative LSAC is what gets reported to USNWR so that's what they care about. Upward trends are good but are more of a weak soft to compensate for a mediocre or worse GPA.

Also, in the T14 it really depends on the school. Some schools are splitter friendly (e.g.-NU) while others are not (e.g.- UCB). Some schools have GPA floors that they may or may not openly admit to, but are definitely there (e.g.- UChicago).

LSN can be a great resource to get a sense of certain trends, though keep in mind there is a huge selection bias going on as people are less likely to input data for rejections. Nonetheless if you keep thing in perspective it can give you some great insights. One thing to keep in mind is that crazy outliers you come across (e.g.- sub 160/sub 3.0 getting into Harvard) are almost always special interest cases (i.e.- children of donors/celebrities/politicians).

My GPA sucks but I'm still targeting the T14 if my LSAT score hits the right mark. A score over school's 75th will mitigate a lot more points in GPA than vice versa.

Faaabs93

Thank you everyone for the responses

nye8870

Is it at all of interest to admissions that the first 1/2 of my GPA came from 1989-1992 and the last half came 2012-2014? I'd much rather they weigh heavily the fact that I am a TOTALLY different person now than I was back then.

Pacifico

No but if you give them your Members Only jacket that might grease the wheels a bit...

nye8870

@Pacifico I am thinking more Trench coat/Boom box above my head.

Pacifico

I would pay to see that...