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During my time in the military I was trained as a medical laboratory specialist. The military worked out a deal with George Washington University to provide those who successfully completed the program with college credit from GWU. This was around 1997. So, when I returned to school in 2007 I submitted to my current undergrad school what amounted to transcripts from GWU for I think around 60 hrs of courses. My school didn't give me credit transfer credit for any of them because they said that they were basically "correspondence courses" or "credits for work experience" given by GWU, and not actually classes that I had taken. I was basically told by the admissions office that the credits I had at GWU were really only good at GWU. I also applied (and was admitted) to SMU in Dallas as well and they told me the same thing. I didn't really think much of it because honestly I've never set foot on the GWU campus, so I figured it was no big deal....until...

I was looking at my transcripts from my current school and it shows under institutions attended, "GWU". Now my concern is that I am going to have to provide LSDAS with my "transcripts" from GWU as well. From my understanding, you are only required to disclose institutions you "attended" and since I never attended GWU, I wasn't planning on listing them, especially since two major undergrad private universities had already told me that my GWU credits were nothing more than "work credits".

I do have an actual GPA for my credits from GWU however, and not that it's bad (3.5 ish), but it would definitely bring down my 3.93 I have now. My arguments against being forced to list it include:

1. I never actually attended GWU
2. The wasn't given a choice on whether or not to receive the credits (ie, I joined the Army, not enrolled in GWU)
3. The coursework was administered and graded under vastly different conditions than would have been case if I actually attended the university
- I was given 60 semester hrs of credit for 26 weeks of training, which is far too short of an amount of time to adequately learn and demonstrate the same knowledge at those who attended the GWU MLT program
- None of my "professors" had higher than an undergrad degree in anything, and some didn't even have that. Rather, most were selected as instructors based upon their ability to meet many military requirements unrelated to an ability to teach, or even the subject matter in question.
4. (though I know it is not entirely relevant) I was never allowed to profit from these "credits" at my undergrad institution, so I don't see why I should be penalized for them now.
- To extend this argument, I should note that had my current school accepted my GWU credits as "transfer credits", the school policy on transfer credits stipulates that the courses do no affect your GPA (so you can have all A's or all C's and it doesn't affect your graduating GPA).

So, am I required to list GWU on my LSDAS? If not, should I try to get the dean to take GWU off my transcript as an "other institutions attended"?

1. You have a GWU transcript.
2. irrelevant
3. irrelevant
4. LSAC doesn't care if your UG allows them for transfer credit or counts them toward the GPA, or if you didn't transfer them toward any degree requirement.

Conclusion: you have to send your GWU transcript.

Looking at the official LSDAS requirement though they only talk about courses you have taken for credit, not about "work credits". So if I can find some BS institution to give me straight A's for my military experience (or any other work experience for that matter) as long as I pay them for the transfer credits, are those going to be considered valid for raising my LSDAS GPA?

Also, provided I do have to disclose them (for the record, I'm going to ask LSAC directly, I'm just trying to get a feel for what I might be facing), will an addendum to my applications about my GPA matter or is the admissions process really just a numbers game and a GPA is a GPA regardless of the circumstances surrounding it?

Also, if my undergrad institution doesn't award +/- grades, is there a way to get LSAC to take my actual percentile grades into GPA calculations? Several courses I have achieved 100% for the course grades and many other I have gotten pretty close. I'm sure the # of A+'s would outweigh the A-'s. Or am I just screwed there too?

Ascend wrote:Looking at the official LSDAS requirement though they only talk about courses you have taken for credit, not about "work credits". So if I can find some BS institution to give me straight A's for my military experience (or any other work experience for that matter) as long as I pay them for the transfer credits, are those going to be considered valid for raising my LSDAS GPA?

Yes but you still have to provide your GW one.

Also, provided I do have to disclose them (for the record, I'm going to ask LSAC directly, I'm just trying to get a feel for what I might be facing), will an addendum to my applications about my GPA matter or is the admissions process really just a numbers game and a GPA is a GPA regardless of the circumstances surrounding it?

Fundamentally a numbers game, but an addendum would be well justified in your circumstances. 60 credits of 3.5 is going to massacre a 3.93.

Also, if my undergrad institution doesn't award +/- grades, is there a way to get LSAC to take my actual percentile grades into GPA calculations? Several courses I have achieved 100% for the course grades and many other I have gotten pretty close. I'm sure the # of A+'s would outweigh the A-'s. Or am I just screwed there too?

Screwed.

The cruel irony of LSAC, lol. If I would have known this I would have just meandered through my courses and studied for the LSAT for 4 years. My transcript from GW doesn't even show courses per se, it just says like "20 hrs clinical lab, offsite/contract". Most of the stuff I did for that course was actually pass fail, so if you passed, you got a B, if you failed you got booted from the course (Only 1 out of 3 people who started the course actually graduated).