Top Law Schools

Most posts seem to say that the LSAT is a bit more strongly weighted in admissions than the UGPA.

Any idea (approx., of course) just how much a good LSAT can pull up a person's "low" GPA and generate an overall admissible (sp?/word choice?) package?

I.e., Could a 3.3/178 get like UPenn?

But, on teh flip side, could a 3.88/163 get UPenn?

scifiguy wrote:Most posts seem to say that the LSAT is a bit more strongly weighted in admissions than the UGPA.

Any idea (approx., of course) just how much a good LSAT can pull up a person's "low" GPA and generate an overall admissible (sp?/word choice?) package?

I.e., Could a 3.3/178 get like UPenn?

But, on teh flip side, could a 3.88/163 get UPenn?

look at the graphs on mylsn.info.
The answer is yes to the first and possibly but less likely on the second. Though neither is a sure thing, and the high LSAT/Low GPA splitters were accepted more often than reverse splitters, and 3.88 is on the low end of what they would consider, reverse splitters at Penn had GPAs more in the 3.93-4.14 range

My guess is that if you're a reverse splitter, they will actually go through your coursework and see how challenging it was. They can't be having people with 3.85 in Ballroom Dancing and a significantly sub-25th LSAT.

RhymesLikeDimes wrote:My guess is that if you're a reverse splitter, they will actually go through your coursework and see how challenging it was. They can't be having people with 3.85 in Ballroom Dancing and a significantly sub-25th LSAT.

I don't think that guess would be correct. Generally, majors tend to not matter as far as GPA goes... it's the numbers game that matters. Still, when deciding between people with similar numbers, the type of coursework may tip the scales (along with other soft factors).

In general it is, but there is such a surplus of high-GPA students (there are TTT dumps with a 75th GPA well over 3.5) that if you are going to ignore a mediocre LSAT, then you have hundreds of 3.9/160 students to consider. At that point, I would think a breakdown of "what is 3.9 really?" would be needed.

The average stat is 60% LSAT, 40% GPA. That changes a bit, school-to-school, but it's a good rule of thumb. CA schools will be the biggest outliers with the import they place on GPA.

The splitter decision really comes down to which numbers they need to shore up their averages, as how far you are above/below the 75/25 doesn't matter to that calculation. With grade inflation being what it is, though, high GPAs are a dime a dozen.

So from your examples, the first person is, in my opinion, much more likely to get into UPenn than the second person.