MA GPA over undergrad?

kateoutdoors

Hi everyone,

I have an opinion question for people who may be in my position and already spoken to admissions teams about this topic.

I have an undergrad GPA of 2.8 from a state school-I did not take school very seriously and was working full time while going. Anyways, I graduated in 2011 and have since been to school again for a MA in education, with a GPA of 3.9. My PT LSAT scores are coming in around 158-165 depending on the day.
Does anyone have opinions on trying for T15 schools or going for a state school with a good local network? I have a small daughter as well so being somewhere cheaper/more scholarships would be helpful. Most T15 schools seem to have VERY high cost of living. Is anyone else relying on grad GPA for admission? Thanks!

Cant Get Right

Unfortunately, all they care about is your UGPA since that's the only thing that counts towards their rankings.

However, you should definitely write an addendum to explain your UGPA which should, of course, include your MAGPA. They can't use that as your official, reported GPA; but it definitely shows that you've turned things around academically since your undergrad.

Accounts Playable

I have an MS, so I'll give my input. It's true that only undergrad GPA (specifically LSAC calculated) matters for the rankings/medians, so every law school is going to care about those simply for that reason. Graduate GPAs tend to be pretty high, so law school admissions officers expect them to be. But, unfortunately, they are not calculated by the LSAC.

Now, in your case, I'd write an addendum explaining the difference. Also, note any trends in your undergrad GPA. Did you nail your last year with a 4.0 or something? If you can spin it into a "becoming more mature/seeing the light" type thing, that will most likely be to your advantage.

DEC_LSAT

@"Accounts Playable" do you really think an addendum would serve us rather than make our past mistakes even more blatant? I have a drastic upward trend on my Undergrad transcript and an even higher GPA for my MA. I'm hesitant to point out my mediocre marks my first two years of undergrad because i don't think saying i matured will excuse those marks but maybe i am wrong. who knows

DallasOnFire

In my view, one should only write an addendum if one has something significant to say. If, like many others, you had a bad first year and received your best grades in senior year, you don't need to say anything. The numbers speak for themselves. Saying that you "saw the light" and decided to go ham your last year (instead of the truth, which is probably that you took easy/interesting classes your last semester), would probably trigger eye-rolls in adcoms across the country. Think about it from their perspective: hundreds of applicants to review, thousands of essays, resumes up the wazoo, and some smart aleck thinks he needs to write a paragraph explaining why he drank too much frosh year and drank slightly less his senior year.

Unless you have some extenuating circumstances (medical, random act of god, family circumstances, etc). You don't need to write an addendum.

Accounts Playable

I think it can help if worded correctly. Of course you should never actually use the phrase "see the light" or anything like that. But, if you can draw attention to progress and emphasize the numbers that do in fact speak for themselves, it don't believe it will hurt.

Page 292 in "How to Get into the Top Law Schools," Page 110 in "The Law School Admissions Game" specifically talks about writing a GPA addendum, and Pages 179-190 in "The Ivey Guide to Law School Admissions" talks pretty in depth about GPA addenda.