Academic Renewal and the LSAC

[wolfgang]

Anyone had any experience with the LSAC and academic renewal? I was told, and it makes sense given their policies, that IF your school does academic renewal AND you're lucky enough to have a school that lists the "units attempted" as zero, the grade wouldn't be calculated into your GPA.

Turns out, the LSAC doesn't want to do that. Their policy says that "if the units attempted is unclear, we will assign three units to the class".

However, they also apparently consider "zero" to be unclear for some reason. So they assign it three units.

So I have two classes with F's and zero units attempted, but they're still factoring these classes into my GPA

Anyone had any experience fighting this or have any advice?

Thanks!

[midwest17]

This makes sense given LSAC's policies. They don't pay attention to schools' attempts to rewrite your grade history in any other situation (taking a class multiple times, etc). The only times they do are when they don't have a choice (such as retroactive withdrawals, where the grade simply isn't available to them).

Unless you can convince them that it really was a 0 credit class (and I wouldn't recommend lying to them), you're probably out of luck. But I don't have experience with this, so I don't know for sure.

[jordan15]

Unfortunately you will need to get them taken off the transcript completely or turned into Ws. I'm in the same situation and it's very frustrating.

Luckily you only have 2 and you're not the only one who's ever gotten an F so it's not the end of the world. Write a GPA addendum, take an additional semester before graduation of easy A classes, petition for retroactive withdrawal, make sure your LSAT is over the 75% and pray your GPA doesn't fall below the 25%. Ecen if you do end up being a splitter, its better that your GPA be low from 2 low grades than from multiple semesters of Cs. Splitters are doing increasingly well as standards drop.

[Ti Malice]

Turns out, the LSAC doesn't want to do that. Their policy says that "if the units attempted is unclear, we will assign three units to the class".

However, they also apparently consider "zero" to be unclear for some reason. So they assign it three units.

So I have two classes with F's and zero units attempted, but they're still factoring these classes into my GPA

What the LSAC is doing is entirely consistent with its policy. "Zero units" is unclear because graded zero-unit classes are pretty far from the norm. You took classes, failed them, and your transcript is now unclear as to how many credits the classes were worth when you took them. This is precisely the kind of situation the LSAC's policy is meant to address.

Anyone had any experience fighting this or have any advice?

You have no grounds on which to "fight this" with the LSAC, so don't waste your time.

[bp shinners]

You have no grounds on which to "fight this" with the LSAC, so don't waste your time.

This - their policy is clear on the issue. The only way to have a chance at getting this changed is to have your school alter your transcript.

[hephaestus]

You have no grounds on which to "fight this" with the LSAC, so don't waste your time.

This - their policy is clear on the issue. The only way to have a chance at getting this changed is to have your school alter your transcript.

OP's best bet is to talk to the registrar and try to explain the situation. Different schools have different policies on retroactive withdraws and otherwise changing transcripts. Ask for a meeting with someone in the registrar's office, bring copies of all of your communication with LSAC and their policies, and see what happens.