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Graduation dates and LSDAS GPA

Posted: Tue Jul 05, 2011 12:15 pm
by blech
I've read that all coursework (university or community college) completed before receiving your undergraduate degree is included in the calculation of your lsac gpa. As I understand it, it is therefore possible for students to take easy community college courses (during the summer, say) in order to inflate their gpa for lsac purposes.

If anything above was wrong, then everything coming after is no longer an issue, so I guess you can stop here. If not, what about this (my) situation:

I've just finished my 4th year of university and will complete my degree requirements in the first semester of next year. I'll then graduate in the summer following my fifth year. Is it possible for me to take community college classes during the second semester (before I've received my degree, though my degree requirements are already complete) and have them count towards my lsac GPA?

Thanks

Re: Graduation dates and LSDAS GPA

Posted: Tue Jul 05, 2011 1:54 pm
by whatchoicetomake
Depends on your school. My school would let you take classes until you were broke after meeting your requirements if you did not fill out your graduation papers and pay the fee.

In another local state college near me, once your requirements were complete, your degree was "awarded." What I mean is you had you bachelor's degree. But they would not give it to you, nor could you walk, nor get a transcript that stated graduated on it until you paid your graduation fee.

So the answer is, ask your school which path they take

Re: Graduation dates and LSDAS GPA

Posted: Wed Jul 06, 2011 10:47 am
by blech
Thanks! I'll get in touch with my school then.

Re: Graduation dates and LSDAS GPA

Posted: Wed Jul 06, 2011 1:17 pm
by rinkrat19
whatchoicetomake wrote:Depends on your school. My school would let you take classes until you were broke after meeting your requirements if you did not fill out your graduation papers and pay the fee.

In another local state college near me, once your requirements were complete, your degree was "awarded." What I mean is you had you bachelor's degree. But they would not give it to you, nor could you walk, nor get a transcript that stated graduated on it until you paid your graduation fee.

So the answer is, ask your school which path they take
More on this. My state school swore up and down that we would absolutely NOT graduate (the degree would not be awarded) until we applied for graduation and our records were reviewed to make sure we'd met all the requirements, were in good academic and disciplinary standing, had paid all our tuition, didn't have any library fines, etc. I finished my degree requirements after winter term, but wanted to hang around until spring, take a few extra writing classes, and graduate with my friends in June, so I didn't apply.

Turns out that they graduated me in the winter anyway and never notified me. I applied for graduation in June, was approved (you'd think they would have informed me that I'd already graduated at some point, right?), and walked at commencement. And when I sat down in the bleachers, I found that the folder they had given me had no diploma in it! I finally tracked down my diploma in the registrar's office, filed away with all the other spring grads who hadn't picked them up yet. It's a bummer, because I had 3 more classes of As.

TL;DR: Make SURE, even if they say they won't graduate you, that they really DON'T.