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First and foremost I need to preface that I am a Black Male, born in Kenya and came to the states when I was Five.

So I have a real concern with my application. I am a graduate of UC Berkeley where I majored in Economics and graduated with high honors and completed an honors thesis.

I completed my undergraduate degree with a 3.86 GPA and my LSAC GPA is a 3.91. with 126 semester units. Furthermore, I recently took the February LSAT and scored a 169. I am a Black male and I know my numbers are strong but my GPA is tarnished for several reasons.

1. I have two drops on my transcript. I dropped these classes during my freshmen and senior year.


2. I took one 5 unit class Pass/Fail. It’s the only class where I changed the
grading option to Pass/Fail as oppose Letter Grade.


3. During my senior year, my fall quarter there were some family issues (my
mother was sick) and I was going through emotional rollercoaster with finding my biological dad. In the end I took two incompletes (which I completed the next semester and got A’s in both classes) and dropped one of my course (this was one of the two drops I was talking about). After this semester, I went on spring semester and got a 4.00 and did summer school that year and got a 4.00

In short I want to know if these blemishes on my transcript will hurt my application this upcoming cycle or am I okay?

I wouldn't worry about one P/F at all, but you might want to write an addendum about the dropped courses.

dont call me from hys

nyyankees wrote:dont call me from hys

Confused? What do you mean? Am I okay with my transcript situation? I don't know folks I keep getting conflicting information about writing an addendum. One of my drops was due to it being my freshmen year and just getting a hold of the school rigors. The other was part of that shitty semester I had senior year.

I don't know...do I really need to even acknowledge my blemishes if at the end of the day LSAC says I have a 3.91 and scored a 169?

I don't know...I need more opinions.

The poster above implies that you're a lock for HYS, which I pretty much agree with. Whatever blemishes you had can easily be incorporated into your PS/DS or if you need to, a separate addendum. If you're this worried about it I would recommend that you just get on with writing one. It should give you at least some peace of mind while you're waiting for your inevitable HYS acceptance letters!

Yeah, you'll definitely be wearing one of these:

= Harvard or Yale

Relax dude. Numbers matter. Only numbers. Your GPA is solid. LSAT is good enough. Lock for CCN and down, 33% at HYS.

Yeah you're fine. But definitely write an addendum explaining your senior year drop.

I dropped 3 classes, 1 in my freshman, one in my sophomore, and 1 in my junior year. I didn't write an addendum and I'm fairly certain it didn't affect my cycle at all.

If you write an addendum this should only have a small impact, certinaly not enough to keep you out of the best schools in America.

Harvard does hate P/F tho.

Is OP the Barack Obama of our generation? I advise Harvard, prof at Chicago, senate, etc.

Lock at everywhere other than Yale.

For me, when I read your post, I was confused as to what you were asking. Seems like you are stretching trying to find a "blemish" when none exists.

Do not do the same mistake by bringing all these non-issues up in any way on your applications. You may just confuse the ad comms, as well.

Leave it alone, you are in fantastic shape. . . as long as you don't give them reasons not to accept you.

14yearplan wrote:For me, when I read your post, I was confused as to what you were asking. Seems like you are stretching trying to find a "blemish" when none exists.

Do not do the same mistake by bringing all these non-issues up in any way on your applications. You may just confuse the ad comms, as well.

Leave it alone, you are in fantastic shape. . . as long as you don't give them reasons not to accept you.

I agree. A drop is not really blemish on your record as far as adcoms ago. I seriously doubt adcoms actually look at what specific courses you took or whether you withdrew from any.

14yearplan wrote:For me, when I read your post, I was confused as to what you were asking. Seems like you are stretching trying to find a "blemish" when none exists.

Do not do the same mistake by bringing all these non-issues up in any way on your applications. You may just confuse the ad comms, as well.

Leave it alone, you are in fantastic shape. . . as long as you don't give them reasons not to accept you.

I had a drop and two withdraws. No one cared. I didn't explain them specifically, but they were part of my "before I got my act together grades."

I also had a few disciplinary troubles. Law Schools DO NOT care about little things like that. I wouldn't even mention them, as that would only bring light to them. Honestly, with URM status, great numbers and a good PS, why on earth would they reject because you dropped two classes?

[/quote]

I also had a few disciplinary troubles. Law Schools DO NOT care about little things like that. I wouldn't even mention them, as that would only bring light to them. Honestly, with URM status, great numbers and a good PS, why on earth would they reject because you dropped two classes?[/quote]

You sound stupid. Always, always, always disclose. I did, it hurt me not at all but the opposite cab bring major trouble.

Veyron wrote:
You sound stupid. Always, always, always disclose. I did, it hurt me not at all but the opposite cab bring major trouble.

Huh??? Drops/Withdraws are present in your transcript. There is no issue of disclosure. The only thing an addendum would do is draw a big red circle around the issue.

URM = You're in either way enjoy.

digitalcntrl wrote:

Veyron wrote:
You sound stupid. Always, always, always disclose. I did, it hurt me not at all but the opposite cab bring major trouble.

Huh??? Drops/Withdraws are present in your transcript. There is no issue of disclosure. The only thing an addendum would do is draw a big red circle around the issue.

Disciplinary troubles brosuph.

.

OP, keep in mind that they're concerned with your GPA only insofar as yours won't hurt their statistics. and obviously a 3.91 LSDAS--with drops or without--isn't an outlier on the naughty side of the spectrum. i know somebody who got into harvard with almost identical stats (he, too, is urm). i'll wager $50 you get a full ride offer from at least one T6 school.

edited for typoooooo

Have fun at Harvard!

your GPA is not tarnished.