How did U. Chicago get its GPA median up so fast? Forum

[Vincent]

I suspect that the GPA mean reported to you by LSAC when you apply is the school's overall mean GPA,

Huh? How? Why?

LSAC only receives official transcripts of LS wannabes. I haven't read a lot of college transcripts but of those that I have seen, none have a college's overall mean/median/whatever GPA. Moreover, some/many colleges only calc their ranks by individual colleges, such as Arts & Sciences, Biz, Eng, Education, Nursing, etc. Such Unis do not total up the scores across their individual college disciplines. (Of course, those colleges with D1 athletics have to crunch their total numbers for reporting purposes to the NCAA, but those are closely-held state secrets. No way LSAC would get their hands on those reports.)

If that's the case, are STEM majors at even more of a disadvantage? An engineering GPA of 3.5-3.6 is pretty decent from a good engineering school, but if the LSAC score report received says that the average GPA for LS applicants is 3.7 from that particular school, then the student looks like a below average student (even though that student may be in the top quartile of engineering students).

Of course, I can hope that law schools understand this, but numbers are numbers are numbers.

One random data point for you from Cal:

Average GPA applying to law school is in the 3.40-3.59 range, according to LSAC. In one of my STEM majors, the average major GPA from 5 years ago was reportedly a 2.2; 3.3 got you honors eligibility. We had 2-3 graduate with honors this year, in a class of around 100. In my other STEM major, 3.5 got you honors eligibility; maybe 40 graduated with honors out of a class of several hundred.

Then there were the music majors, who self-reportedly had a department average of 3.9 - their department's view, according to several of them: "Our graduates aren't going to be getting jobs with just a music major anyways; let's not handicap them with a low GPA too..."

[Dr. Dre]

Why is the shitty liberal cesspool that is UC Berkeley even mentioned ITT?

[20141023]

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[Dr. Dre]

Why is the shitty liberal cesspool that is UC Berkeley even mentioned ITT?

(because the educational quality of American law schools can be measured by the beauty of the buildings)

[Big Dog]

I also think it's odd that you treat undergraduate median GPA as some tight-lipped secret...

Not me. It's the college's themselves, in which many don't rank and don't publish median GPA's.

when there is a lot of publicly available data, mostly volunteered by the schools themselves, offering just that.

Source, please? And if it was so "readily available", why would not the Professor -- originator/owner of gradeinflation.com -- not just post the links? (He is always looking for sources.)

are STEM majors at even more of a disadvantage? An engineering GPA of 3.5-3.6...

Absolutely. An unhooked applicant to HYS or even CC is gonna need a high LSAT to even get a look.

btw: Cal-Philosophy also has a rather low average GPA, particularly for a lit discipline. (Cal's PL department GPA is even lower than MCB, where a lot of the premeds hang out.)

Maybe this just means that the people applying to law school are representative of the whole school, but I don't think you believe that.

Actually, I never thought about it bcos it doesn't matter, at least to me. And to get back to the point of this thread, if Chicago now wants a 3.8+ for unhooked matriculants, and I don't have a number that high, it really doesn't matter what my undergrad college medians' is, since I am not competing with them, but the national pool of applicants, which includes those from directional state u's with a 4+.

[Borg]

Why is the shitty liberal cesspool that is UC Berkeley even mentioned ITT?

(because the educational quality of American law schools can be measured by the beauty of the buildings)

Right, because you're such a special little genius with your 167.

[John_rizzy_rawls]

Right, because you're such a special little genius with your 167.

(thinks intellect is measured by a standardized test)

Seriously, get a hold of your life. Because some aspie dipshit gets 4 more questions right doesn't give them the right to question anyone else's intelligence.

And Dre, Boalt is undoubtedly one of the best law schools in the country. Shit on UCI and California, but including Stanford/Berkeley/UCLA/USC in that trolling is patently stupid.

[20141023]

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[RodneyRuxin]

Guys, can you please stop arguing about whether Boalt is a great law school or not? I used the search function and found a post that pretty much proves that it is a wonderful place to receive a legal institution, in case anyone is curious. This should resolve any disputes you may have about the school.

How does one go about receiving a legal institution?

[Dr. Dre]

Which one of the following arguments exhibits a pattern of reasoning most similar to that exhibited by Regulus' argument?

(A) Jen is the best because Juan said so.
(B) Cancer is correlated to smoking, so smoking causes cancer.
(C) The professor will grade tomorrow if we behave. The professor did not grade so it can be concluded that we did not behave.
(D) There is a high probability a tsunami will engulf our town. Therefore, we need to evacuate this town in two days.
(E)

[20141023]

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[Borg]

Right, because you're such a special little genius with your 167.

(thinks intellect is measured by a standardized test)

Seriously, get a hold of your life. Because some aspie dipshit gets 4 more questions right doesn't give them the right to question anyone else's intelligence.

And Dre, Boalt is undoubtedly one of the best law schools in the country. Shit on UCI and California, but including Stanford/Berkeley/UCLA/USC in that trolling is patently stupid.

Awww sounds like someone else didn't do so well on the LSAT. My argument isn't that it's some sort of measure of intelligence, just that someone who (under other circumstances) would be lucky to get into Georgetown shouldn't go around acting like he's special or has any business commenting on the educational quality of a school like Berkeley.

[20141023]

.

[jvincent11]

Right, because you're such a special little genius with your 167.

(thinks intellect is measured by a standardized test)

Seriously, get a hold of your life. Because some aspie dipshit gets 4 more questions right doesn't give them the right to question anyone else's intelligence.

And Dre, Boalt is undoubtedly one of the best law schools in the country. Shit on UCI and California, but including Stanford/Berkeley/UCLA/USC in that trolling is patently stupid.

Awww sounds like someone else didn't do so well on the LSAT. My argument isn't that it's some sort of measure of intelligence, just that someone who (under other circumstances) would be lucky to get into Georgetown shouldn't go around acting like he's special or has any business commenting on the educational quality of a school like Berkeley.

Actually, since Dre is a URM, he will likely get into some top schools even with a 167/3.7; for example, PRgradBYU from TLS got into Stanford with a 165/3.7ish this cycle. I am not sure if "under other circumstances" means "if Dre was white," but as things stand, he has a pretty decent chance of getting into some top schools.

Dre is also retaking (from what I remember) so watch out Borg

[Borg]

Right, because you're such a special little genius with your 167.

(thinks intellect is measured by a standardized test)

Seriously, get a hold of your life. Because some aspie dipshit gets 4 more questions right doesn't give them the right to question anyone else's intelligence.

And Dre, Boalt is undoubtedly one of the best law schools in the country. Shit on UCI and California, but including Stanford/Berkeley/UCLA/USC in that trolling is patently stupid.

Awww sounds like someone else didn't do so well on the LSAT. My argument isn't that it's some sort of measure of intelligence, just that someone who (under other circumstances) would be lucky to get into Georgetown shouldn't go around acting like he's special or has any business commenting on the educational quality of a school like Berkeley.

Actually, since Dre is a URM, he will likely get into some top schools even with a 167/3.7; for example, PRgradBYU from TLS got into Stanford with a 165/3.7ish this cycle. I am not sure if "under other circumstances" means "if Dre was white," but as things stand, he has a pretty decent chance of getting into some top schools.

Yes, obviously that's what I'm talking about. Without the URM boost he'd be screwed.

[Dr. Dre]

This thread sucks now.

[untar614]

well then back on-topic, let's think through the best way to play the numbers game with admissions.

Let's assume a class of 200 and the target %iles are 3.7/3.9/3.95 and 170/172/173

Admit 49 people with 4.0s but low LSATs. These will keep your GPA 75th up, and can be sticker bitches.
Admit 49 people with LSAT >173 but crap GPAs. Maybe toss some of them tiny scholarhships if their GPAs arent too bad.
Use Rubies to get 20 people above both 75th %iles
Give nice scholarships to 32 people above both medians
Then finish up with 50 people above both 25th %iles, maybe fill up some URM slots here


If you really just want to game the numbers, you could take some really extreme splitters for the first 2 groups who likely won't have better offers so you could probably pull at sticker. 2.0/174 and 4.0/160, probably not getting money at other t14s anyway. Of course this assumes a sufficient number of people in these categories exist and are willing to attend, which may not be the case.

[Clearly]

well then back on-topic, let's think through the best way to play the numbers game with admissions.

Let's assume a class of 200 and the target %iles are 3.7/3.9/3.95 and 170/172/173

Admit 49 people with 4.0s but low LSATs. These will keep your GPA 75th up, and can be sticker bitches.
Admit 49 people with LSAT >173 but crap GPAs. Maybe toss some of them tiny scholarhships if their GPAs arent too bad.
Use Rubies to get 20 people above both 75th %iles
Give nice scholarships to 32 people above both medians
Then finish up with 50 people above both 25th %iles, maybe fill up some URM slots here


If you really just want to game the numbers, you could take some really extreme splitters for the first 2 groups who likely won't have better offers so you could probably pull at sticker. 2.0/174 and 4.0/160, probably not getting money at other t14s anyway. Of course this assumes a sufficient number of people in these categories exist and are willing to attend, which may not be the case.

Thing is, this isn't at all how Chi does it lol.

[untar614]

well then back on-topic, let's think through the best way to play the numbers game with admissions.

Let's assume a class of 200 and the target %iles are 3.7/3.9/3.95 and 170/172/173

Admit 49 people with 4.0s but low LSATs. These will keep your GPA 75th up, and can be sticker bitches.
Admit 49 people with LSAT >173 but crap GPAs. Maybe toss some of them tiny scholarhships if their GPAs arent too bad.
Use Rubies to get 20 people above both 75th %iles
Give nice scholarships to 32 people above both medians
Then finish up with 50 people above both 25th %iles, maybe fill up some URM slots here


If you really just want to game the numbers, you could take some really extreme splitters for the first 2 groups who likely won't have better offers so you could probably pull at sticker. 2.0/174 and 4.0/160, probably not getting money at other t14s anyway. Of course this assumes a sufficient number of people in these categories exist and are willing to attend, which may not be the case.

Thing is, this isn't at all how Chi does it lol.

Oh, I wasn't saying they do. As one of the top 5 schools, they should be able to attract more students with high gpas and lsat scores. I was just giving a hypothetical for the potentially easiest way for one to game to stats, since they only use %iles and not means.

[Clearly]

well then back on-topic, let's think through the best way to play the numbers game with admissions.

Let's assume a class of 200 and the target %iles are 3.7/3.9/3.95 and 170/172/173

Admit 49 people with 4.0s but low LSATs. These will keep your GPA 75th up, and can be sticker bitches.
Admit 49 people with LSAT >173 but crap GPAs. Maybe toss some of them tiny scholarhships if their GPAs arent too bad.
Use Rubies to get 20 people above both 75th %iles
Give nice scholarships to 32 people above both medians
Then finish up with 50 people above both 25th %iles, maybe fill up some URM slots here


If you really just want to game the numbers, you could take some really extreme splitters for the first 2 groups who likely won't have better offers so you could probably pull at sticker. 2.0/174 and 4.0/160, probably not getting money at other t14s anyway. Of course this assumes a sufficient number of people in these categories exist and are willing to attend, which may not be the case.

Thing is, this isn't at all how Chi does it lol.

Oh, I wasn't saying they do. As one of the top 5 schools, they should be able to attract more students with high gpas and lsat scores. I was just giving a hypothetical for the potentially easiest way for one to game to stats, since they only use %iles and not means.

I got ya, All good.