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I have been lurking on this form for about 8 months now but never posted until now. How do law schools compare an applicant (GPA wise) like myself who applies before the end of his 1st semester senior year to someone who is a recent graduate? Since I have two more semester left, my GPA could fluctuate in either direction, but the graduate's GPA would be set in stone.

Do they use weights, look at GPA trends, compare transcripts by a time-line, or what?

Hopefully this hasn't been recently discussed, but I have been unable to find anything on this.

Thanks in advance.

LSAC uses the GPA you have at the time of your admission and thats the only one that matters:

Thus, if you apply end of junior year and have a 3.9 you are the same as a graduate with a 3.9 EVEN IF your grades drop after you are done applying.

Na_Swatch wrote:LSAC uses the GPA you have at the time of your admission and thats the only one that matters:

Thus, if you apply end of junior year and have a 3.9 you are the same as a graduate with a 3.9 EVEN IF your grades drop after you are done applying.

Correct. If you apply with a 3.9 and then it drops to a 3.7 before you actually graduate they only will be looking at the 3.9 you had when u applied. Which, actually, gives you a slight edge over those who have already graduated.

I had a closely related question -- so, if your GPA goes down a bit during the fall semester, you would still have to send those grades to the law schools to which you applied, right? The only difference is that in their index formula or w/e, they would have already plugged in your higher GPA?

vsl89 wrote:I had a closely related question -- so, if your GPA goes down a bit during the fall semester, you would still have to send those grades to the law schools to which you applied, right? The only difference is that in their index formula or w/e, they would have already plugged in your higher GPA?

No sending in grades your fall semester to LSAC is optional... so if they go up you want to send them in, if they go down you just leave it alone.

After you graduate you have to send a final transcript if you've been accepted at a school.

vsl89 wrote:I had a closely related question -- so, if your GPA goes down a bit during the fall semester, you would still have to send those grades to the law schools to which you applied, right? The only difference is that in their index formula or w/e, they would have already plugged in your higher GPA?

You are not required to update your fall transcripts, but some schools like Columbia have been known to contact applicants to specifically request this.