Does sharp improvement matter? Forum

[golosa33]

Hey everybody, this is my first time posting so I appreciate any help. I am wondering how much schools consider a sharp uptick in grades. I was an idiot for my first 2 years of college, getting a 2.6 GPA, after which I took a year off and transferred. In the 2 1/2 years at my new school I have a 3.9 GPA, and got a 175 on the LSATs. Where does this leave me with schools, am I a just typical splitter, or will they heavily weigh my more recent performance? As a second question, would it be useful to write a PS about my maturation in my year off, or does my transcript make the progress self evident? Could this end up being just another boring, cliche, "finding yourself" letter ?

[bk1]

Not much. LSDAS is pretty much all that really matters.

[Marionberry]

Not much. LSDAS is pretty much all that really matters.

I'm not going to try to argue this point, but OP, keep in mind that there is a lot of stuff presented as truth on these forums which is completely unfounded. Unless you're hearing it from a present or past adcomm, I would take it with a grain of salt.

It will likely not be viewed as favorably as a solid 3.9, but depending on how well you craft your addendum the sharp increase may be taken into some degree of consideration. It probably depends, too, on how much each school youre applying to is currently number whoring. If a school were solely concerned with what level of academic work you're capable of, I would think that last two years would serve as a pretty good indicator. But don't take my word for it, you would be wise to seek out someone with some actual experience. My input is based on being in a similar situation, and having worked with an admissions consultant to figure out how to handle it.

[bk1]

I'm not going to try to argue this point, but OP, keep in mind that there is a lot of stuff presented as truth on these forums which is completely unfounded. Unless you're hearing it from a present or past adcomm, I would take it with a grain of salt.

It will likely not be viewed as favorably as a solid 3.9, but depending on how well you craft your addendum the sharp increase may be taken into some degree of consideration. It probably depends, too, on how much each school youre applying to is currently number whoring. If a school were solely concerned with what level of academic work you're capable of, I would think that last two years would serve as a pretty good indicator. But don't take my word for it, you would be wise to seek out someone with some actual experience. My input is based on being in a similar situation, and having worked with an admissions consultant to figure out how to handle it.

LSN doesn't really have people outperforming their numbers except for special things like extenuating circumstances and URM's. This would make me think that softs (including an upward trend) don't really matter that much.

[clevinger33]

I failed out of school with a .33 GPA for one semester (2.92 cumulative at that point), took a semester off, and applied with ~3.3 (3.9 for the three semesters after I came back) and was accepted at two T10 schools (one RD, one ED). I had the same LSAT score, which certainly didn't hurt, but I think if you can write a compelling addendum (blaming outside circumstances/your immaturity won't help, just own up to the fact that you were a fuck up and explain how and why you've changed - having concrete examples of this will help) you'd probably outperform your numbers slightly. I did.

[clevinger33]

As a second question, would it be useful to write a PS about my maturation in my year off, or does my transcript make the progress self evident? Could this end up being just another boring, cliche, "finding yourself" letter ?

I would write a brief, <1 page GPA addendum but I would not make it the basis for your personal statement. Find something else interesting to write about for that.

[094320]

..

[madcherrylimas]

yeah, I think so. I wrote an addendum about my grades. Then I wrote my personal statement about my motivations for law school. I have a 3.4 and a 170 and I got into a T-14 law school.. I'd say it's better to have a low over all GPA with a sharp improvement, rather than just a low GPA.