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Thanks for any advice.

Your instinct is correct, no.

Law schools are likely to expect an explanation for a course grade of "F".

Shoot, two diametrically opposed opinions. Any tie-breakers?

Canadian Wolf, would the same thing go for any F on a UG transcript? Or do you think it stands out more because it's a grad course that I went out of my way to take?

I think that the schools you are applying to will in large part determine whether or not you should include an addendum for the F. What are your target schools?

bk187 wrote:Your instinct is correct, no.

No. Try again.

If OP omits complaints of unresponsive profs and anything else "whiny," this is a story about missing a mandatory final due to work and consequently failing a post-collegiate class. Half of what adcoms are trying to do is determine who will be successful in post-college studies. An F as a grad student's highly relevant to an adcom's interests, and not in a good way.

Long Live Jacox - I'm applying to most of the T14, minus YHS, with a 3.7 GPA from UG and a 171.

Thanks for everyone's input. For whatever reason, I was thinking this wasn't a huge deal, but maybe that was just wishful thinking.

I'd say the other responses have convinced me I was wrong.

MrKappus wrote:

bk187 wrote:Your instinct is correct, no.

No. Try again.

If OP omits complaints of unresponsive profs and anything else "whiny," this is a story about missing a mandatory final due to work and consequently failing a post-collegiate class. Half of what adcoms are trying to do is determine who will be successful in post-college studies. An F as a grad student's highly relevant to an adcom's interests, and not in a good way.

I would say that, since you are applying T14, the F is something you should address in a very brief, concise addendum. Your LSAT and UGPA will show that you are a smart person with a strong work ethic, and you should want to eliminate any questions about the F.

As you surely know, the standards of what T14 looking for is much different from 2nd or 3rd tier.

With your numbers, you should get into some great schools (Northwestern, Duke, Cornell, and Georgetown at the very least). Good luck!

In my humble and likely uninformed opinion, I would think that you would want to include an addendum about this as it is an obvious irregularity in your transcript (assuming your GPA is mostly composed of Bs and As as most applicants are). I say this because there is a reasonable explanation, and the story even somewhat makes you come off in a positive light if written properly (took challenging graduate level course just for interest - failed because you realized that your work responsibilities had to come first). If this was a fourth year course that you bombed because you were out drinking before the final it would be different. If you are on good terms or friendly with your boss you may even think about a brief statement from him to corroborate your story.

I know most people on here don't think stuff like this matters and that it is all numbers, but if you are in the middle of the pack a good explanation for this hit to your GPA will make you a much more attractive candidate.

Good luck

I'm also not au courant with the thinking on this website, but I cannot imagine not explaining this to the law school admissions officers. If you're hoping they won't notice or won't care that you received a failing grade for graduate-level course work... then maybe I'm misunderstanding how easy it will be to get into some of these schools.

I can only tell you how I would view this if I were looking at hiring you - do not try and blame it on the prof, take responsibility for it, and it will show some maturity that you tried to do something above and beyond the norm, but it didn't work out. If it seems like you were just trying to let an "F" slide by somehow, as though you didn't care or you thought the admissions officer wouldn't care, I personally wouldn't view it positively at all. Maybe they're not as careful with the applications as I'm thinking though.

Looks like excellence wasn't a habit in this case....

Wow, I'm really impressed by and grateful for the advice here. I'll definitely write an addendum, and stay away from any insinuation that it was anyone's fault but my own. Thanks to everyone for your thoughts - this changed my apps for the better.

M.M. wrote:Looks like excellence wasn't a habit in this case....

M.M. - Touche. It's more like a mantra that I will need to repeat ad nauseum to remain competitive with my smarty-pants peers.