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Lets say you have a valid reason for why you had crappy grades one semester or year, how do law schools factor this in? do they remove that semester/year from ur LSDAS GPA and base their decision on ur new GPA? or do they just give u a slight bump versus other applicants with similar numbers?

can anybody who has written one and applied chime in with their experiences?

I talked to an adcomm from Vandy about addenda before writing mine. She said that if you really do have a valid reason, they will be a little more lenient on your GPA. I don't think it means they will recalculate, but at least you'll have that advantage over other applicants.

it makes you feel better when you submit it, but they still look at that GPA (although they might be more lenient and would likely consider you over someone else with everything else identical)

It's a "soft" basically. It won't make your overall GPA go away but it'll change how they look at you as an applicant overall. If your GPA is low you'd still better have a high LSAT score for that school, because low GPA + low LSAT = rejection no matter what kind of addendums you have.

With a 3.0, a GPA addendum, and some work experience/other softs I got into a T14, but that's with a 170 LSAT. If I didn't have the LSAT score I would've never gotten in anywhere.

From personal experience it helps a lot if your LSAT is above the 75th percentile of the school in question and the addendum issue was something beyond your control.

More or less it's helping to convince them to admit the below-median GPA along with the really good LSAT score.

Did I mention it only works if you have a really good LSAT score?