Top Law Schools

In the spirit of the thread that lists schools' mean LSAT scores, I thought it'd be cool to have a thread on here that lists the mean GPAs of law school applicants from different schools. I don't think there's much we can do with this data, but it'd be interesting to see how schools compare.

You can find this by looking at your LSAC Academic Summary Report, under "GPA College Mean." It might also be helpful to include the number of applicants from your school, and/or the year the mean GPA is from. Keep in mind that these numbers are NOT the average GPA of undergraduates; they're the average GPAs of people who have submitted transcripts to LSAC.

Feel free to PM me if you don't want to publicly post.

Let me know if this thread already exists somewhere.

I don't know if the LSAT averages in the other thread are updated, so if you want to include those, I can list that as well.


Mean GPAs

York University: 3.11
Sewanee: 3.12
University of California - Davis: 3.13
University of South Florida: 3.18
Davidson College: 3.20
University of California - Irvine: 3.21
University of California - Santa Barbara: 3.21
Texas A&M: 3.22
Miami University (Ohio): 3.24
University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee: 3.24
University at Buffalo: 3.26
University of California - San Diego: 3.27
University of Illinois: 3.28
William & Mary: 3.29
Middlebury College: 3.30
University of California - Santa Cruz: 3.30
University of Iowa: 3.30
Northeastern University: 3.32
Cornell University: 3.33
University of Missouri: 3.34
University of Utah: 3.34
Johns Hopkins University: 3.35
Oberlin College: 3.36
Saint Louis University: 3.39
University of California - Los Angeles: 3.40
University of Florida: 3.41
Utah State University: 3.44
Whitman College: 3.44
University of Pennsylvania: 3.45
Harvard University: 3.47
New York University: 3.47
Pomona College: 3.48
Stanford University: 3.54
Yale University: 3.58
Brown University: 3.59
Yeshiva University: 3.60

May I also suggest that a Google doc is created for UG Schools' Mean GPAs and LSATs.

UCSD: 3.27

Ikki wrote:UCSD: 3.27

I'm surprised that its this low.

fatdouche wrote:

Ikki wrote:UCSD: 3.27

I'm surprised that its this low.

I'm not, UCSD is full of bio majors and engineers. Those O-Chem clases are a GPA killer.

fatdouche wrote:

Ikki wrote:UCSD: 3.27

I'm surprised that it's this low.

Low is good - it suggests that the school has standards. A close friend of mine teaches at a TTT school with VERY minimal standards for admission, and the average GPA is higher than that (about 3.4, I believe). They're desperate to retain as many of their students as possible, so the school makes no attempt to enforce standards. I read somewhere recently that UC Berkeley's average GPA is only about 3.0 (school reported, not LSAT reported, though).

WhatSarahSaid wrote:Let me know if this thread already exists somewhere.

Not as thorough as the LSAT one you posted but, here:

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 5&t=136707

SG09 wrote: Not as thorough as the LSAT one you posted but, here:

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 5&t=136707

Good find. I'm gonna assume that people's posts in that thread are accurate and compile it here.

University of Iowa

LSAT: 154 LOL
GPA: 3.30

LOL at the grade inflation at the Ivys.

Corwin wrote:LOL at the grade inflation at the Ivys.

You do realize that it is extremely flawed to assume that a higher average gpa means it is easier to get a higher grade, right?

.

Redacted, was thinking of UCSB

Is this the mean GPA of the entire school, or the mean GPA of students who apply to Law School from these schools?

Curry wrote:Is this the mean GPA of the entire school, or the mean GPA of students who apply to Law School from these schools?

Pretty sure its the entire school

NYC Law wrote:

Curry wrote:Is this the mean GPA of the entire school, or the mean GPA of students who apply to Law School from these schools?

Pretty sure its the entire school

Ah. Then I take back my surprise at UCSD. Thought it was just law students.

University of Texas - 3.35

Nope, its only for those that apply to law school. So, depending on how many people your school has applying to law school will determine how accurate the numbers for your GPA is. Also, since its only those applying to law school there is a tendency for the LSAC mean GPA to be higher than your actual institutions GPA.

Also, institution has less to do with GPA than the individual professors that teach certain courses or what a college's most popular majors are (As a rule of thumb more engineers + most other STEM = lower GPA overall). I think almost every school has a department or two known for having higher than average GPAs. I know for my school English and Communications/Journalism are known for having higher GPAs.

University of Saint Thomas (MN) GPA: 3.38 LSAT: 153 105 candidates.

My understanding is that the mean GPA is comprised of only students from that university who are applying to law school. This is important because universities are often divided into "colleges" or "schools" which calculate their own mean or median GPAs. Typically, engineering schools' GPA is lower than the university GPA rendering comparison to those applying to law school almost meaningless.

I called LSAC twice today & asked whether the mean or median school GPA included only those applying to law school or all university students. Somewhat surprisingly, I received two different answers from two different LSAC reps.

CanadianWolf wrote:My understanding is that the mean GPA is comprised of only students from that university who are applying to law school. This is important because universities are often divided into "colleges" or "schools" which calculate their own mean or median GPAs. Typically, engineering schools' GPA is lower than the university GPA rendering comparison to those applying to law school almost meaningless.

I called LSAC twice today & asked whether the mean or median school GPA included only those applying to law school or all university students. Somewhat surprisingly, I received two different answers from two different LSAC reps.

So, we still don't know? I hope it's the mean of the entire university, 3.27 is pretty shitty...

I think what schools are primarily interested in is seeing how much a school inflates GPAs, so the entire university would make the most sense.

Again, my understanding is that it only compares those students from the same college or university applying to law school.

The LSAC representative that confirmed my understanding stated that LSAC would have no way of knowing an entire university's mean or median GPA. Additionally, some universities calculate mean GPA by college or school within the university, yet all mean GPAs on LSAC's academic summary report are identical whether one is an engineering major or an English major.

In my opinion, a university-wide mean GPA is worthless information for universities, but fine for colleges. Nevertheless, the GPA on the academic summary report from LSAC compares only those applying to law school from that college or university.

Ikki wrote:

CanadianWolf wrote:My understanding is that the mean GPA is comprised of only students from that university who are applying to law school. This is important because universities are often divided into "colleges" or "schools" which calculate their own mean or median GPAs. Typically, engineering schools' GPA is lower than the university GPA rendering comparison to those applying to law school almost meaningless.

I called LSAC twice today & asked whether the mean or median school GPA included only those applying to law school or all university students. Somewhat surprisingly, I received two different answers from two different LSAC reps.

So, we still don't know? I hope it's the mean of the entire university, 3.27 is pretty shitty...

Above average actually...

Law schools should only be interested in comparing law school applicants' GPAs from that particular undergraduate school.

Patriot1208 wrote:

Corwin wrote:LOL at the grade inflation at the Ivys.

You do realize that it is extremely flawed to assume that a higher average gpa means it is easier to get a higher grade, right?

Such a high average GPA means the program isn't hard enough by definition. It doesn't matter whether Brown's undergrad programs are harder compared to other schools. What matters is whether Brown's programs are hard enough for the students attending Brown. And apparently they aren't.

Reed College is an example of one of only a few schools that does grading right.