LSAT vs GPA Weight Forum

[UVA2B]

Interesting if it was based in any sort of reality? Sure. But it’s not.

If you’re a splitter, how high your LSAT is will play a big part, in that you basically need to be above a median to be considered, and being above a 75th helps more. And if you have >3.0, you’re better off than a 2.x, but you might not be much better off as a 2.9 vs. a 2.4. And you might not be much better off as a 3.3 vs. a 3.0, as the data generally shows (for schools that make 3.0 a bit of a dividing line, which some do and others don’t).

And none of this mentions how the input of GREs may affect admissions calculus, as it might or might not.

You want your LSAT to mean more than your GPA, and for good reason. It’s possible admissions will see it that way, but the only way they can do that is if you make everything else about your application compelling, possibly including an addendum if you have any good reason for your low GPA. Otherwise, you’ll have to live with the fact that your GPA is going to hold you down some (again, depending on your particular GPA and the schools you’re considering).

Mylsn is still the best resource you have to understand where you stand as a splitter. Despite some needless debate about index scores, it’s the best indication of how scores are treated that we have, because it shows (mostly) real applicants and actual data.

[Nycsplitter]

@UVA2B

Thank you so much for the time and explanation. As my cycle is very unpredictable I’m basically just driving myself crazy with “what-ifs” and attempting to determine admissions chances.

Mylsn is great, but my GPA is so low that there are no real comparable stats. My GPA was crushed by community college Fs from a decade ago, but my LSAT is well above the 75% for my target schools (mostly 35-75 rankings range), so I guess all I can do now is wait and see.

It is encouraging to hear that once you’re below 3, how far below means less and less.

I have good softs and WE, and have spent a lot of time working on polishing my application.

For now, I’ll just keep feeling the nerves without resurrecting irrelevant 2015 threads. Thanks again for the thoughts!!

[UVA2B]

I’m sorry to hear your GPA suffered due to CC failures. Have you tried going to the CC to get your F’s retroactively changed to non punitive withdrawals? That could help your cause and your GPA.

Since you’re applying to regionals, it’s more likely your LSAT will result in admissions because those schools are less selective than the T14. That doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed admission, and it says nothing about whether you’ll get good scholarships at those schools, but it leans more toward admission.

That said, please tell me the regionals you’re applying to are all in a similar region, and that region is where you’d like to ultimately work.

[kellyjohnson]

LSAC publishes the exact indices of the schools that use them, so you can find out exactly how schools quantitatively weight GPA vs. LSAT. There are obviously qualitative considerations as well that can mitigate some of these effects (if your GPA is very old or if some old CC is dragging it down, or you had extenuating circumstances, etc. tc.).

http://www.lsac.org/docs/default-source ... nindex.pdf

[UVA2B]

Without context for how those are considered by the schools, those formulae and constants are useless.

[Nycsplitter]

Yes, all the regionals are in NYC, and this is where I will be practicing. We’re talking Cardozo, Fordham (have to reach, right?!), Brooklyn, NyLs, etc

I am applying with a 164/2.3, an addendum for the Fs from my past, and strong LORs and WE. (LSAC is still calculating my gpa so that could be +/- .1 but I have a pretty good grasp of it.)

I tried contacting the CC to have them changed to nonpunatives. It was from 2007-2008 so I had high hopes but no cigar.

@kellyjohnson thanks! That is a great resource! I’m off with my calculator to continue driving myself crazy.

[kellyjohnson]

Without context for how those are considered by the schools, those formulae and constants are useless.

I mean, I can look at them and tell which schools value GPA more than other schools relative to LSAT. I cant predict if you will get in anywhere, but you can see "School A considers GPA more (relative to LSAT)than School B does..."

[QContinuum]

You just necroed a three year old thread that doesn’t at all reflect admissions calculus today.

With splitters (and reverse splitters), both numbers must be considered in context for the given school. But there isn’t a single index score associated with a numbers combo.

I actually suspect admissions calculus hasn't changed all that much from three years ago, except that it may be more competitive now due to the higher number of applicants. Even in 2015, I don't think a single "index score" accurately captured splitters' chances.

[UVA2B]

Without context for how those are considered by the schools, those formulae and constants are useless.

I mean, I can look at them and tell which schools value GPA more than other schools relative to LSAT. I cant predict if you will get in anywhere, but you can see "School A considers GPA more (relative to LSAT)than School B does..."

But even that relativistic analysis of these constants doesn’t paint a picture of anything of value. And it doesn’t even begin to understand what an index score based on those constants means to those schools, or whether/how much those index scores are considered in an admissions decision.

I concede it’s interesting that schools actually publish these calculations, or at least the constants they apply generically to these calculations, but it doesn’t actually say much about whether these schools weigh GPAs and/or LSATs more or less heavily without knowing how those calculations fit into their admission decisions.

[UVA2B]

You just necroed a three year old thread that doesn’t at all reflect admissions calculus today.

With splitters (and reverse splitters), both numbers must be considered in context for the given school. But there isn’t a single index score associated with a numbers combo.

I actually suspect admissions calculus hasn't changed all that much from three years ago, except that it may be more competitive now due to the higher number of applicants. Even in 2015, I don't think a single "index score" accurately captured splitters' chances.

Absolutely agreed, and to the extent this is the same question as the original necro thread, I wasn’t trying to say it has changed so much as much of what was discussed in 2015 was incomplete and not worth expounding on.

Admissions calculus is getting its first injection of a new factor that could change the calculus now as more schools consider GREs, but to this point the calculus has mostly been the same (based on each school and how they handle their own admissions decisions). But I think my overarching point still stands, in that there wasn’t a predictive calculus that can be applied across schools three years ago, and there isn’t one now. Maybe I failed to fully articulate that because I started with criticizing a necro and didn’t get to why it was wrong substantially, but that doesn’t change that my point was a good one, I think.

[QContinuum]

I actually suspect admissions calculus hasn't changed all that much from three years ago, except that it may be more competitive now due to the higher number of applicants. Even in 2015, I don't think a single "index score" accurately captured splitters' chances.

Absolutely agreed, and to the extent this is the same question as the original necro thread, I wasn’t trying to say it has changed so much as much of what was discussed in 2015 was incomplete and not worth expounding on.

Admissions calculus is getting its first injection of a new factor that could change the calculus now as more schools consider GREs, but to this point the calculus has mostly been the same (based on each school and how they handle their own admissions decisions). But I think my overarching point still stands, in that there wasn’t a predictive calculus that can be applied across schools three years ago, and there isn’t one now. Maybe I failed to fully articulate that because I started with criticizing a necro and didn’t get to why it was wrong substantially, but that doesn’t change that my point was a good one, I think.

Yep, completely agreed with all of the above.

[albanach]

Yeah I'm not the biggest fan of mylsn, the sample size is just so small.

If you have the numbers to get in to a top law school then I think the sample size is usually pretty decent assuming you select a range for GPA and LSAT. I typically go with a conservative range and usually find dozens of hits. If 80% of folk with similar numbers are being admitted (or rejected) you have a decent prediction of the cycle.

LawSchoolNumbers has a huge amount of data. You can see quite easily that a school like UVA in the past two years has a pretty firm cut off where you'll be rejected if your LSAT is below 169 and GPA below 3.85ish (unless you're URM). Once you're outside that range there's very few rejections, though still plenty of WL.

This also shows that, at least at this one school, there's more in the way of a hard floor than a scale that's applied to each number. I expect that's typical at the T-14 where there's more qualified applicants than places.

[QContinuum]

Yeah I'm not the biggest fan of mylsn, the sample size is just so small.

If you have the numbers to get in to a top law school then I think the sample size is usually pretty decent assuming you select a range for GPA and LSAT. I typically go with a conservative range and usually find dozens of hits. If 80% of folk with similar numbers are being admitted (or rejected) you have a decent prediction of the cycle.

LawSchoolNumbers has a huge amount of data. You can see quite easily that a school like UVA in the past two years has a pretty firm cut off where you'll be rejected if your LSAT is below 169 and GPA below 3.85ish (unless you're URM). Once you're outside that range there's very few rejections, though still plenty of WL.

Seconding this. IMO the critical part is selecting a range for both LSAT and GPA; going for exact matches only for both needlessly narrows the available data.

I like to select a narrow range (e.g., GPA within a 0.1-0.2 range, LSAT within 3 points or so), and, if someone's particularly interested in a specific school, I might move the range a bit to account for that school's 50%/75% 509 data. Like, if the school's LSAT 50% is 164, and 75% is 165, and someone scored a 165, I'd look at LSATs from 165-167 - looking at 164-166 would lowball the applicant's chances, because it'd lump in applicants with LSAT scores < the school's 75%.

[TrashSplitter]

One thing that gets somewhat ignored in these discussions and why it doesn't make sense to assign a "weight" is that there is a more limited supply of high LSATs versus high GPAs, so even a school that values GPAs more than average will value high LSATs. From a perspective of maintaining medians, even to Berkeley a 3.64 (25%)/170 (75%) is going to be valued more highly than a 4.0(>75%)/165 (25%). The 170 is in shorter supply, so a 75-25 splitter is going to be in shorter supply than a reverse splitter by definition.