How did U. Chicago get its GPA median up so fast? Forum

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Re: How did U. Chicago get its GPA median up so fast?

Post by beepboopbeep » Fri May 31, 2013 11:17 am

TaipeiMort wrote:Something else to remember is that UChicago UG doesn't grade inflate. The admits from there (a large number each year) have had around 3.5 or 3.6 GPAs. This has traditionally dragged down our numbers. I'm not sure if there was a policy change or a change in the type of UChicago UG admits, but this could help explain. But, I don't think it has changed. They still seen to be to biggest group in each class.
I think pretty much every school faces this - very few don't give some sort of bump to their UGs.

I also experienced pretty rampant grade inflation in certain humanities departments at UofC, but you're right that it's not like this in most of the university.

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Re: How did U. Chicago get its GPA median up so fast?

Post by Dr. Dre » Fri May 31, 2013 11:42 am

Regulus wrote:Wow... That was really interesting and informative. Thanks for taking the time to write that, Mike.

Still, this only explains why Chicago raised their GPA medians instead of their LSAT medians and not how they did it. (Ruby being part of the "how.")
Regulus brings up a valid point.

Granted, Chicago wants high GPA's.

But how are they able to get them? And in such alarming speed?

All of a sudden they are attracted to something, and are quickly able to obtain it — just doesn't add up.

They are tied with Y, and beat both S and H. And practically murder CLS.

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Re: How did U. Chicago get its GPA median up so fast?

Post by RhymesLikeDimes » Fri May 31, 2013 2:03 pm

I wonder if some of this has to do with utilizing the GPA/LSAT "dead zones" (<25th or >75th) more efficiently. Prior to the jump, they may have been using them simply as a way to bring in borderline candidates (along with URMs, where necessary). But, if they were to get creative with reverse splitters, that could account for the difference. Instead of admitting in a bunch of 3.5/low-170s to fill out the class (like Columbia and NYU do), they could go for the 3.9/high-160s instead.

High GPA applicants are also much easier to come by than those with high LSATs. It would be far more difficult for a school to bump it's LSAT median a couple points. Peer schools C/N are both big on the LSAT, so UC opens the only window into the T6 for reverse-splitters. Their 25th LSAT is also 3-points lower than C/N (which is really quite substantial) anyway.

With a class size around 200:
10% of your class: Rubies that otherwise would be at CHYS; above GPA and LSAT medians.
25% of your class: <25th LSAT, >old 75th GPA. Doesn't hurt your LSAT percentiles, puts your 75th GPA on the moon when combined with the Rubies
25% of your class: <25th GPA, >50th LSAT. Doesn't affect new GPA goal. Helps keeps LSAT median stable.

At this point (with 60% of class filled), you have 35% of your class above your LSAT median, and 35% of your class above your GPA median. If you keep scholarship money to splitters and reverse-splitters low, you are now free to attract the thousands of >25th/<75th candidates with solid scholarship offers to fill the remainder of the class. All of those 3.9/168s who got shut out of Columbia are ripe for the taking.

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Re: How did U. Chicago get its GPA median up so fast?

Post by Dr. Dre » Fri May 31, 2013 4:20 pm

RhymesLikeDimes wrote:I wonder if some of this has to do with utilizing the GPA/LSAT "dead zones" (<25th or >75th) more efficiently. Prior to the jump, they may have been using them simply as a way to bring in borderline candidates (along with URMs, where necessary). But, if they were to get creative with reverse splitters, that could account for the difference. Instead of admitting in a bunch of 3.5/low-170s to fill out the class (like Columbia and NYU do), they could go for the 3.9/high-160s instead.

High GPA applicants are also much easier to come by than those with high LSATs. It would be far more difficult for a school to bump it's LSAT median a couple points. Peer schools C/N are both big on the LSAT, so UC opens the only window into the T6 for reverse-splitters. Their 25th LSAT is also 3-points lower than C/N (which is really quite substantial) anyway.

With a class size around 200:
10% of your class: Rubies that otherwise would be at CHYS; above GPA and LSAT medians.
25% of your class: <25th LSAT, >old 75th GPA. Doesn't hurt your LSAT percentiles, puts your 75th GPA on the moon when combined with the Rubies
25% of your class: <25th GPA, >50th LSAT. Doesn't affect new GPA goal. Helps keeps LSAT median stable.

At this point (with 60% of class filled), you have 35% of your class above your LSAT median, and 35% of your class above your GPA median. If you keep scholarship money to splitters and reverse-splitters low, you are now free to attract the thousands of >25th/<75th candidates with solid scholarship offers to fill the remainder of the class. All of those 3.9/168s who got shut out of Columbia are ripe for the taking.
things are starting to make more sense. thanks.

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Re: How did U. Chicago get its GPA median up so fast?

Post by sinfiery » Fri May 31, 2013 6:03 pm

Big Dog wrote:
Something else to remember is that UChicago UG doesn't grade inflate.
But to be fair, only a handful of colleges truly have high gpa medians - here's looking at you, Brown, Yale and Pomona. Most private colleges are in the 3.3-3.4 range, which is exactly where Chicago lies.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/lv? ... DNSbUNtZ1E

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Re: How did U. Chicago get its GPA median up so fast?

Post by badaboom61 » Fri May 31, 2013 11:55 pm

TaipeiMort wrote:Something else to remember is that UChicago UG doesn't grade inflate. The admits from there (a large number each year) have had around 3.5 or 3.6 GPAs. This has traditionally dragged down our numbers. I'm not sure if there was a policy change or a change in the type of UChicago UG admits, but this could help explain. But, I don't think it has changed. They still seen to be to biggest group in each class.
There were 3 or 4 Chicago UG's in a class of 200 for c/o 2014. I think they've stopped giving them any extra credit for their deflated gpa's.

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Re: How did U. Chicago get its GPA median up so fast?

Post by 2014 » Sat Jun 01, 2013 12:23 am

I can only think of 3 or 4 Chicago UGs in this years 1L class too.

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Re: How did U. Chicago get its GPA median up so fast?

Post by beepboopbeep » Sat Jun 01, 2013 2:00 am

2014 wrote:I can only think of 3 or 4 Chicago UGs in this years 1L class too.
I have fairly reliable sources that say 4 of the 6 who applied through Chicago Scholars this year were accepted, and that's ED. No idea how many applied RD.

I'm also relatively good evidence myself that they don't give free passes to 3.6-3.7/17x alumni these days :)

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Re: How did Chicago get its GPA median up so fast?

Post by LexLeon » Sat Jun 01, 2013 3:51 pm

John_rizzy_rawls wrote:Yep, the Ruby is your answer here.

It's improved their yield, GPA median, and bumped them up into a tied for 4th with Columbia.
How many people get Rubensteins?

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Re: How did U. Chicago get its GPA median up so fast?

Post by 09042014 » Sat Jun 01, 2013 3:55 pm

3.4 is grade inflated compared to good public schools.

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Re: How did U. Chicago get its GPA median up so fast?

Post by Borg » Sat Jun 01, 2013 4:56 pm

If I remember correctly, a few years ago UChicago got a new dean in their law school. They claimed that prior to him coming in they had been "miscalculating" their GPA range, which was something like 3.4-3.7, and then the very next year it shot up to like 3.6-3.8. How a group of allegedly intelligent people whose professional duties consist entirely of admitting applicants and accurately reporting their scores to various publications fail by that huge of a margin, I will never know. All I can tell you is that I did my first box and whisker plot in elementary school, and it was perfect. I think that the real answer here is that the school is full of shit, and that they have messed with their methodology to inflate their entering class statistics. Rubenstein is helpful, but not that helpful.

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Re: How did U. Chicago get its GPA median up so fast?

Post by 20141023 » Sat Jun 01, 2013 6:52 pm

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Last edited by 20141023 on Sun Feb 15, 2015 11:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: How did U. Chicago get its GPA median up so fast?

Post by Big Dog » Sat Jun 01, 2013 7:07 pm

3.4 is grade inflated compared to good public schools.
Not really, when you factor in the fact that a good chunk of the students at "good public schools" barely treaded water in HS. (

Undergrads at Cal, Michigan and Virginia all have a mean gpa of just under 3.3. Not much lower (and so easy to compare) than a 3.4 for a private such Chicago's entering class.

sorry, sinf, but your google doc is just the gpa of law applicants (which are predominately lit/hume majors). I was speaking of the mean gpa for the whole school, which would include those engineering students and premed/STEM majors in courses with harsh curvets.

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Re: How did U. Chicago get its GPA median up so fast?

Post by TaipeiMort » Sat Jun 01, 2013 7:52 pm

Borg wrote:If I remember correctly, a few years ago UChicago got a new dean in their law school. They claimed that prior to him coming in they had been "miscalculating" their GPA range, which was something like 3.4-3.7, and then the very next year it shot up to like 3.6-3.8. How a group of allegedly intelligent people whose professional duties consist entirely of admitting applicants and accurately reporting their scores to various publications fail by that huge of a margin, I will never know. All I can tell you is that I did my first box and whisker plot in elementary school, and it was perfect. I think that the real answer here is that the school is full of shit, and that they have messed with their methodology to inflate their entering class statistics. Rubenstein is helpful, but not that helpful.
The school changed its methodology for calculating per-student expenditures, which stood alone in underestimating expenditures, not GPA.

The GPA thing is easy. If I had to guess, they let in fewer splitters, more URMs with 75th GPAs and below 25th LSATs, fewer UChicago ungrads with low GPAs, and had a lot of scholarship money to throw at people that normally wouldn't get it because of a Rubenstein trickle down.

Are you sure you believe UChicago is falsifying data?

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Re: How did U. Chicago get its GPA median up so fast?

Post by hq2x » Sat Jun 01, 2013 8:04 pm

Big Dog wrote: sorry, sinf, but your google doc is just the gpa of law applicants (which are predominately lit/hume majors). I was speaking of the mean gpa for the whole school, which would include those engineering students and premed/STEM majors in courses with harsh curvets.
Is this confirmed though? I've read many people claiming this but I haven't seen any evidence. I suspect that the GPA mean reported to you by LSAC when you apply is the school's overall mean GPA, only because they closely align with other reports of school-wide GPA (aka gradeinflation.com). It seems plausible that the disparity between gradeinflation.com's report and the LSAC report is because the former's reports are some 4-5 years older than the LSAC data we have.

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Re: How did U. Chicago get its GPA median up so fast?

Post by Big Dog » Sat Jun 01, 2013 8:11 pm

I suspect that the GPA mean reported to you by LSAC when you apply is the school's overall mean GPA,
Huh? How? Why?

LSAC only receives official transcripts of LS wannabes. I haven't read a lot of college transcripts but of those that I have seen, none have a college's overall mean/median/whatever GPA. Moreover, some/many colleges only calc their ranks by individual colleges, such as Arts & Sciences, Biz, Eng, Education, Nursing, etc. Such Unis do not total up the scores across their individual college disciplines. (Of course, those colleges with D1 athletics have to crunch their total numbers for reporting purposes to the NCAA, but those are closely-held state secrets. No way LSAC would get their hands on those reports.)

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Re: How did U. Chicago get its GPA median up so fast?

Post by dresden doll » Sat Jun 01, 2013 8:16 pm

Serious question: who cares?

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Re: How did U. Chicago get its GPA median up so fast?

Post by Huey Freeman » Sat Jun 01, 2013 8:28 pm

Big Dog wrote:
I suspect that the GPA mean reported to you by LSAC when you apply is the school's overall mean GPA,
Huh? How? Why?

LSAC only receives official transcripts of LS wannabes. I haven't read a lot of college transcripts but of those that I have seen, none have a college's overall mean/median/whatever GPA. Moreover, some/many colleges only calc their ranks by individual colleges, such as Arts & Sciences, Biz, Eng, Education, Nursing, etc. Such Unis do not total up the scores across their individual college disciplines. (Of course, those colleges with D1 athletics have to crunch their total numbers for reporting purposes to the NCAA, but those are closely-held state secrets. No way LSAC would get their hands on those reports.)
If that's the case, are STEM majors at even more of a disadvantage? An engineering GPA of 3.5-3.6 is pretty decent from a good engineering school, but if the LSAC score report received says that the average GPA for LS applicants is 3.7 from that particular school, then the student looks like a below average student (even though that student may be in the top quartile of engineering students).

Of course, I can hope that law schools understand this, but numbers are numbers are numbers.

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Re: How did U. Chicago get its GPA median up so fast?

Post by Borg » Sat Jun 01, 2013 8:52 pm

TaipeiMort wrote:
Borg wrote:If I remember correctly, a few years ago UChicago got a new dean in their law school. They claimed that prior to him coming in they had been "miscalculating" their GPA range, which was something like 3.4-3.7, and then the very next year it shot up to like 3.6-3.8. How a group of allegedly intelligent people whose professional duties consist entirely of admitting applicants and accurately reporting their scores to various publications fail by that huge of a margin, I will never know. All I can tell you is that I did my first box and whisker plot in elementary school, and it was perfect. I think that the real answer here is that the school is full of shit, and that they have messed with their methodology to inflate their entering class statistics. Rubenstein is helpful, but not that helpful.
The school changed its methodology for calculating per-student expenditures, which stood alone in underestimating expenditures, not GPA.

The GPA thing is easy. If I had to guess, they let in fewer splitters, more URMs with 75th GPAs and below 25th LSATs, fewer UChicago ungrads with low GPAs, and had a lot of scholarship money to throw at people that normally wouldn't get it because of a Rubenstein trickle down.

Are you sure you believe UChicago is falsifying data?
I don't know that I'd go so far as to say they are falsifying data, but I think it's massively suspicious that the 25th percentile when I applied to law school was like a 3.45 and that it's risen that dramatically in just a few years since then. I think there's some piece missing from the collective explanation being offered here.

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Re: How did U. Chicago get its GPA median up so fast?

Post by hq2x » Sat Jun 01, 2013 10:44 pm

Big Dog wrote:
I suspect that the GPA mean reported to you by LSAC when you apply is the school's overall mean GPA,
Huh? How? Why?

LSAC only receives official transcripts of LS wannabes. I haven't read a lot of college transcripts but of those that I have seen, none have a college's overall mean/median/whatever GPA. Moreover, some/many colleges only calc their ranks by individual colleges, such as Arts & Sciences, Biz, Eng, Education, Nursing, etc. Such Unis do not total up the scores across their individual college disciplines. (Of course, those colleges with D1 athletics have to crunch their total numbers for reporting purposes to the NCAA, but those are closely-held state secrets. No way LSAC would get their hands on those reports.)
I don't really get the point of asking "why?" when you chop off the part of my post that answers why I suspect the GPA is not just the people applying. I've heard plenty of people say that the LSAC college mean is only for applicants, but I haven't seen any evidence corroborating these claims. I also think it's odd that you treat undergraduate median GPA as some tight-lipped secret when there is a lot of publicly available data, mostly volunteered by the schools themselves, offering just that.

But look - I understand that there are good arguments as to why it's implausible that the LSAC college mean is the school's overall GPA mean. On the other hand, what evidence is available to me from gradeinflation.com and the like seems to indicate that the LSAC college mean isn't so far off from the school's reported GPA medians. Maybe this just means that the people applying to law school are representative of the whole school, but I don't think you believe that. I was simply asking if anybody knew for sure, or had any corroboration for the claim.

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Re: How did U. Chicago get its GPA median up so fast?

Post by sinfiery » Sat Jun 01, 2013 11:14 pm

You have the same bias in LS applicants from all universities so it still allows you to compare the relative GPAs from one school to the next. UChi is kinda low, but not really.

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Re: How did U. Chicago get its GPA median up so fast?

Post by Dr. Dre » Sun Jun 02, 2013 12:03 am

dresden doll wrote:Serious question: who cares?
wut a TTT thing to say

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Re: How did U. Chicago get its GPA median up so fast?

Post by willwilliams1334 » Sun Jun 02, 2013 12:42 am

pretty sure harvard is dragged down by its giant class size... if they cut their class size and increased expenditure they could be numero uno... the reason they dont is profits

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Re: How did U. Chicago get its GPA median up so fast?

Post by TaipeiMort » Mon Jun 03, 2013 6:12 pm

sinfiery wrote:You have the same bias in LS applicants from all universities so it still allows you to compare the relative GPAs from one school to the next. UChi is kinda low, but not really.
Yeah, but the real issue is if it is low compared to the UGs of its similarly ranked peers (HYSCCN), especially within its applicant pool. The issue is that the law school is likely slightly obligated to take a few from its own UG.

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Re: How did U. Chicago get its GPA median up so fast?

Post by sinfiery » Mon Jun 03, 2013 6:27 pm

TaipeiMort wrote:
sinfiery wrote:You have the same bias in LS applicants from all universities so it still allows you to compare the relative GPAs from one school to the next. UChi is kinda low, but not really.
Yeah, but the real issue is if it is low compared to the UGs of its similarly ranked peers (HYSCCN), especially within its applicant pool. The issue is that the law school is likely slightly obligated to take a few from its own UG.
Fair point. It would seem to hurt UChi in that relative comparison and I definitely think law schools do look out, to a certain extent, for their own.

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