LSAC GPA question Forum

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jhd125

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LSAC GPA question

Post by jhd125 » Wed Jul 18, 2012 11:50 am

Can someone explain how this works to me? I'm in a dilemma. I decided on law school later on in my college career. My grades are mediocre (As and Bs), but I go to a liberal arts school that requires us to take a math and science course. Now, those are not my areas. I am very strong in my major courses, and early on in college when I attempted my first math course..I took a WD because I didn't want it to hurt my GPA.

Now that later down the road I decided to apply to law school, I'm concerned that this will hurt me. I thought that a WD would look better than a poor grade. Should I write an addedum? Its blatantly clear that all of my major courses are very strong, and my two math and science courses show weak grades. Help.

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Nova

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Re: LSAC GPA question

Post by Nova » Wed Jul 18, 2012 11:54 am

AFAIK,

If the withdrawal does not penalize your UGPA, and doesnt show up on your transcripts as 0.00, then it will not be factored into your LSAC GPA.

jhd125

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Re: LSAC GPA question

Post by jhd125 » Wed Jul 18, 2012 12:01 pm

it does show up at 0.00 under credit hours. so its viewed as an F?

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Nova

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Re: LSAC GPA question

Post by Nova » Wed Jul 18, 2012 12:12 pm

jhd125 wrote:it does show up at 0.00 under credit hours. so its viewed as an F?
Well, no, sorry, i should have been more clear. I meant 0.00 as the grade. If its 0.00 credits, you should be fine.

bbsg

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Re: LSAC GPA question

Post by bbsg » Wed Jul 18, 2012 12:38 pm

http://www.lsac.org/policies/transcript ... zation.asp
Grades Excluded From Conversion:

Withdraw, Withdraw/Pass—only if the issuing school considers the grade nonpunitive. . .

. . . Withdrawal grades that signify failure (such as WF=Withdraw/Fail, WU=Withdrew Unsatisfactory, WNP=Withdrew Not Passing) if the issuing school considers the grade nonpunitive. The total number of credits assigned to these grades will appear on the applicant's academic summary, but will not be included in the GPA calculation. . .

Failing Grades

. . .Any grade notation that signifies failure (such as No Credit, No Credit/Fail, Not Passing, Incomplete/Fail, Withdraw/Fail, Unsatisfactory, Fail, etc.) is converted to zero on the 4.0 scale and is included in the calculation of the GPA, even if the issuing school considers the grade to be nonpunitive. Failure is defined as credit attempted but not earned. If a transcript is not clear about credit attempted, LSAC staff will contact the registrar at the issuing school to confirm whether course credit was attempted. Incomplete and Withdraw grades considered punitive by the issuing school will be included in the conversion. The only exception to this policy is for No Credit, Withdraw/Fail, repeated courses, and incomplete grades specifically explained [above].

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jhd125

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Re: LSAC GPA question

Post by jhd125 » Wed Jul 18, 2012 3:26 pm

thanks. now, my school has a very odd credit system. we are only able to take 4 credits a semester and each course is worth 1 credit. will this affect how a normal LSAC GPA is calculated?

All I really want to know is whether your actual GPA is normally higher than the LSAC gpa.

bbsg

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Re: LSAC GPA question

Post by bbsg » Thu Jul 19, 2012 5:00 pm

jhd125 wrote:thanks. now, my school has a very odd credit system. we are only able to take 4 credits a semester and each course is worth 1 credit. will this affect how a normal LSAC GPA is calculated?

All I really want to know is whether your actual GPA is normally higher than the LSAC gpa.
Some people go up, some people go down, some people stay the same. It sounds like the weighting isn't very ambiguous at your school so I honestly wouldn't expect any surprises there.

Keep in mind LSAC will count any other college work you did (summer course at a US college while in grade 12? Report it. That one transfer credit you like to pretend you never actually took four states over? Count it). Retook a course? Count both (unless it falls under the 'excluded' section I linked to).

If you don't have credits except for your undergrad credits, then just keep in mind the GPA is calculated with:
A+ = 4.33
A = 4
A- = 3.67
B+ = 3.33
B = 3.00
B- = 2.67
C+ = 2.33
etc etc.

If your school uses the same weighting as this, then you'll stay the same. Some schools go 4.3/4.0/3.7, so if you have a lot of A-'s you will take a bit of a hit (unless you have an equal number of A+'s to balance it). Some schools go 4.0/4.0/3.7, so any A+'s provide a huge boost (I know people who have had their LSAC GPA be an entire tenth of a point higher than their UG GPA under this system -- 3.75 to 3.85, etc.).

In my anecdotal experience most people see a higher LSAC GPA, but this is because most of the schools near me have a 4.0/4.0/3.7 system and the students I know applying to law school have at least one A+ every year.

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