Top Law Schools

lawls wrote:I doubt this exists, but is there any information out there regarding how many law school applicants have certain GPAs? For instance, what percentile GPA is a 3.9? A 3.5?

One way to look at this, I suppose, is to look at the aggregate LSN data. I'm not sure if there are any predictor websites that present the aggregate data, though.

I was also looking at the Yale admissions chart (that looks a little dated) to see what the GPAs look like at the top schools:

http://officialguide.lsac.org/SearchRes ... AC3987.pdf

What I found surprising is that the number of 3.75+ GPAs isn't that much greater than the number of 170+ LSATs, although I suppose it is possible that there are quite a few more reverse splitters out there who aren't bothering to apply to Yale.

Lawquacious wrote:The reason that an overall LSAT percentile for a given performance can be meaningfully calculated across all LSAT takers is that the test is standardized and performance can be equivocated based on that. With GPA, there is no such standardization of grading systems, so even though it would be technically (hypothetically) possible to find where a particular cumulative UGPA score falls in terms of percentile when compared with all other law applicants, this percentile information wouldn't have anywhere near the same validity or predictive value as a generalized LSAT percentile IMO. The ceiling for the GPA range is much easier to hit (at many schools an UGPA of 4.0 can be accomplished with hard work and an easy major for one thing). There are plenty of 4.0 students who won't get any where near a top law school due to 150s LSAT even though in terms of GPA percentile they are probably in the 99th. On the other hand, any one with a 99th percentile LSAT is pretty much guaranteed a spot in a top school (T14) even with a relatively poor GPA. I think GPA is more important in terms of determining ceiling for likely acceptances, as opposed to LSAT which has greater power (along with corresponding percentile) to predict the floor of acceptances.

xyzzzzzzzz wrote:When you send your transcripts to LSAC, they calculate the % for your school. This basically tells you where your gpa ranks in comparison to others at your school.

Knockglock wrote:

xyzzzzzzzz wrote:When you send your transcripts to LSAC, they calculate the % for your school. This basically tells you where your gpa ranks in comparison to others at your school.

Is it only for your degree-granting school? I took some community college classes at several community colleges.

xyzzzzzzzz wrote:

Knockglock wrote:

xyzzzzzzzz wrote:When you send your transcripts to LSAC, they calculate the % for your school. This basically tells you where your gpa ranks in comparison to others at your school.

Is it only for your degree-granting school? I took some community college classes at several community colleges.

They might not. It was calculated for one of my universities but not the other. For the latter, there was insufficient information, meaning not enough kids from that school applied to ls. Also, it was a very small school, so that might have something to do with it.