Top Law Schools

Curious as to the above. I did my UG at UCL in the United Kingdom but I only came out with a lower second honours. They don't do GPA conversions but the transcript comes with a mark-grade conversion table, so will LSAC just take the letter grade equivalents and convert them into a GPA score?

Since it's an international transcript would schools place less weighting on the "GPA" side than they would for an applicant coming from a US institution?

Reason I ask is I understand LSAC takes failed courses into consideration as well and considering I had to repeat two years of my UG I have quite a lot of fails listed on my transcript. The rest are well. I guess it averages out as C's, with a smattering of D's, only one A and a couple of B's. So being conservative I would imagine it converts to something like a 2.5.

LSAT is 164 on first go. Pretty much bang on what I was PTing.

What realistically are my chances of getting into any school? Just to put things into perspective my dream reach school would be UC Hastings and then the rest are all around the T100 mark; USF, Santa Clara, Chapman, and Golden Gate would be my "safety".

Anyone care to give me a reality check? Can I get away without retaking the LSAT? I worry if I wait to take the Dec one I'll lose whatever advantage I get of applying earlier, with no guarantee of improving.

All thoughts and opinions welcome, thanks.

You could still apply early and take the December LSAT.
I think you could explain that in your addendum and I'm also sure that law schools are not entirely ignorant of other education system. Diversity is also a plus in your application and maybe try to use that in your application essay or somewhere else.

I didn't really get the answer I wanted here, possibly because I phrased the question poorly. I was interested in the actual mechanics of what LSAC specifically does to international transcripts and how schools view that end result.

In case anyone else ever stumbles across this thread with the same question in mind, the answer is that, apparently, LSAC will not process international transcripts to create a GPA so UG performance consequently matters significantly less than LSAT score.

Source

I only wish I hadn't missed December registration.

you don't get a GPA, which is great because your lower second doesn't fuck you up.
As a general rule, if your LSAT is below 25% you have no chance, above 75% you should be in and at median you're a toss-up.

However, allegedly some of the top schools do care.

Above 75% for all but two of the schools I was considering, one of which is Cal so I wouldn't have gotten in anyway.

None of the rest are T14. Maybe I'll even get some money out of the deal!