Upward trend in GPA--do schools give that any weight? Forum

[Yeshia90]

Given my 3.53 GPA and 174 LSAT, I'm on the bubble at most of the T10--LSP gives me a coin flip shot everywhere from Columbia to Penn, and I'm hardly a lock at UVA, Duke, or Northwestern. But given that I'll be on the edge, will it help at all that my junior year GPA was close to a 4.0, and that every semester of my college career my GPA has improved? I assume that I'll be waitlisted, and should I keep the trend going, I'll have close to a 3.6--does that matter at all to the schools, or is my 3.53 the same as someone who's had a 3.5 since his first semester? Not to be too personal, but my PS will be overcoming depression after the death of a family member--would schools look down if I tried to address my slow start through my PS?

[CanadianWolf]

An upward GPA trend is expected; law schools get concerned with downward trends, however.