Graduate GPA vs. Undergraduate GPA Forum

tjstefono · Post by **tjstefono** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 4:29 pm

I'm planning on applying to Law School soon and was curious which GPA will be more significant in my acceptance to Law school. After undergraduate I went to graduate school. As in an undergraduate my GPA was around 3.2 range. However, my GPA when I finished my MA was in the 3.8 range. Will they take both into consideration or will only my undergraduate matter, or graduate matter?

joeshmo39 · Post by **joeshmo39** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 4:34 pm

Undergraduate matters much, much, much, much more than graduate GPA. The USNWR ranks solely based undergraduate GPA. I high graduate GPA is virtually useless. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

rinkrat19 · Post by **rinkrat19** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 4:36 pm

Law school admissions are 98% LSAT + UGPA. Everything else is soft factors, which are just tiebreakers.

Graduate school is a soft factor only. Law school ranking calculations include the median undergraduate GPAs of their incoming classes. Having students with high grad school grades doesn't do them any good.

Plus, aren't grad school GPAs wildly inflated?

094320 · Post by **094320** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 7:14 pm

KevinP · Post by **KevinP** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 7:23 pm

Similar to what others have mentioned; for the purpose of law school admission, your GPA will be seen as a ~3.2. However, your MA will be seen as a soft but it will most likely only matter as a tiebreaker.

AntipodeanPhil · Post by **AntipodeanPhil** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 8:46 pm

I think people are exagerating a very little here. IMO, LSAT + UG GPA count for about 80-90%, not 98%. You can see that other factors count for significantly more than 2% when you look at the LSN graphs for the T14.

Consider

http://michigan.lawschoolnumbers.com/stats/1011/
http://chicago.lawschoolnumbers.com/stats/1011/
http://berkeley.lawschoolnumbers.com/stats/1011/

Your MA GPA isn't going to count for much at all, for the reasons listed above, but the fact that you have an MA might help - depending on a variety of factors, like where it is from, whether it fits with your degree plans, et cetera.

tjstefono · Post by **tjstefono** » Tue Sep 13, 2011 4:10 pm

Thanks for the info. I just needed to know what where my LSAT's needed to be to get into a top 40 school. I can't imagine my MA will hurt me, but its good to know it will be based off of my undergraduate GPA so I don't set any wildly unrealistic fantasies for myself.

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