How much can a GPA addendum help? Forum

[Triveal]

Say you have a semester or year on your transcript that is just way below the others. It's clearly an anomaly. You have a valid reason for this, and you write about it in an addendum. How does this affect your chances, in the cases where 1. you're somewhat below both medians, 2. you're right on both medians, 3. you're above LSAT median but below GPA median?

Thanks.

[hichvichwoh]

Say you have a semester or year on your transcript that is just way below the others. It's clearly an anomaly. You have a valid reason for this, and you write about it in an addendum. How does this affect your chances, in the cases where 1. you're somewhat below both medians, 2. you're right on both medians, 3. you're above LSAT median but below GPA median?

Thanks.

The best way to think about it is as a tiebreaker between you and someone else with the same stats and no addendum. If your addendum/reason is valid, you might get a boost over someone with the same stats, but that's about it. It will have no effect on which of those three categories you fall in, as an adcomm will not treat your GPA as higher than it is because you wrote an addendum.

[Rahviveh]

Say you have a semester or year on your transcript that is just way below the others. It's clearly an anomaly. You have a valid reason for this, and you write about it in an addendum. How does this affect your chances, in the cases where 1. you're somewhat below both medians, 2. you're right on both medians, 3. you're above LSAT median but below GPA median?

Thanks.

The best way to think about it is as a tiebreaker between you and someone else with the same stats and no addendum. If your addendum/reason is valid, you might get a boost over someone with the same stats, but that's about it. It will have no effect on which of those three categories you fall in, as an adcomm will not treat your GPA as higher than it is because you wrote an addendum.

This sounds reasonable in theory, but I bet these hypothetical "tiebreaker" situations rarely ever come into place. There's enough applicants out there that decisions can be made without this situation coming about.

Also, just about EVERYONE with borderline (or worse) GPA's is going to be writing an addendum with some silly reason about why it's not "reflective". The scope of "validity" for a good addendum is very small - only extreme, severe medical conditions will make a difference based on some of the anecdotes I've heard.

That said - it doesn't hurt to write one, since there's little effort involved. My rule of thumb is, the less effort it takes to do something in your application, the less it's going to matter. Essays, addenda etc fall into that category. LSAT scores and GPA are another story entirely.

[CanadianWolf]

Probably keeps your file alive if the explanation is convincing.

[CanadianWolf]

This is a significant difference when applying to some Canadian law schools which discard one's lowest GPA year.

[bp shinners]

3. you're above LSAT median but below GPA median?

Because of math, this is probably the one where it'll have the greatest effect.