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I took a precal class at the local community college during one high school summer to try to redeem the D I received in the class, but I received a D again. I never reported this grade, and never really saw this grade, have had no access to this grade, etc. It's basically completely slipped my mind.

Does this suddenly matter for law school applications? Someone told me they look at everything including that. So am I supposed to submit this? It was from a school I never attended and just one class I never reported, etc. What do I do?

Please don't quote any of this.

Ugh.

^ That is great to hear. That's pretty much my situation.

Maybe when people are saying it matters they are only referencing those who took CC classes and reported them to their UG school? Or people who transferred, etc. Because no one knows I took the class except for my parents, lol.

warandpeace wrote:^ That is great to hear. That's pretty much my situation.

Maybe when people are saying it matters they are only referencing those who took CC classes and reported them to their UG school? Or people who transferred, etc. Because no one knows I took the class except for my parents, lol.

Ugh.

Not reporting seems like a SPECTACULARLY bad idea (not to mention dishonest and unfair to other applicants who do report their bad CC grades, as LSAC rules require). I'm not an expert on how these things work, but my understanding is that bar examiners do a very thorough investigation of your educational history. If you registered for the class with your legal name and social security number, I'd imagine there's probably some sort of record of it.

Yes, it sucks that your GPA will take a hit because of mistakes you made in high school. Plenty of people are in that boat. I imagine that GPA hit sucks a lot less than going through law school, taking on a fair amount of debt, and then not passing C&F. Just do the right thing and report it.

francesfarmer: I would seriously recommend coming clean to your law school about the CC grade. Just because this didn't come out in the application process, doesn't mean you're in the clear.

Here's what LSAC's website says, for reference (emphasis added):

LSAC’s Credential Assembly Service (CAS) includes the processing of your undergraduate and graduate transcripts once you have them sent directly to LSAC from each institution you attended. Request transcripts to be sent to LSAC from your:

• undergraduate degree-granting institution
• graduate degree-granting institution(s)
• law/medical/professional institutions
• institutions where college-level courses were taken while in high school
• institutions where summer or evening courses did not count toward a degree
• institutions that have closed
• institutions from which you have only withdrawn or incomplete grades
• institutions where you have recently enrolled
• overseas study.

Everything oxie said. Bar examiners will find out about any college classes you've taken. It's one of the easier investigations they'll conduct on you. Even setting the morality issue aside, trying to get away with not reporting is sheer madness. Perhaps you'll get into a better school, but you might also very well find yourself having six figures of debt and being unable to ever practice law. If your former law school rescinds your degree, they will notify the Dept. of Ed., and I believe your full loan amount then becomes due immediately. You will also immediately owe any scholarship money you received as well. You will default because you cannot pay back $250-300K all at once (unless you're already rich), but the debt is non-dischargeable. This will utterly ruin your life. Even if you don't care about lying, self-preservation should be more than sufficient as an incentive to disclose.

To chime in with what everyone else said: Yes, it absolutely matters. You may not think it fair that LSAC has decided your high school foolishness should follow you all the way to your law school apps, but there is nothing to do about it now.

Also, please keep this in perspective. We are talking about one D out of all the grades you have from college. Your GPA will probably not take that great of a hit. When I submitted my transcripts, I had four A grades from community college courses, and it only boosted my GPA by 0.05 points.

Report. Report. Report.

CC classes count. Dual-credit courses for college count.

Iroh wrote:To chime in with what everyone else said: Yes, it absolutely matters. You may not think it fair that LSAC has decided your high school foolishness should follow you all the way to your law school apps, but there is nothing to do about it now.

Also, please keep this in perspective. We are talking about one D out of all the grades you have from college. Your GPA will probably not take that great of a hit. When I submitted my transcripts, I had four A grades from community college courses, and it only boosted my GPA by 0.05 points.

One D can do a lot of damage, though. I had a single D- on a one-credit course and it brought down my GPA from 3.9 to 3.87. One credit. :O

That said, I completely agree. You must report all your grades.

I submitted my CC classes from high school (which included more than one C/D) it brought my LSAC GPA down by .06. Still got into a very GPA centric law school, and I dont have to live with the stress of having a failure to disclose ding on my C&F app

Brettanomyces wrote:

Iroh wrote:To chime in with what everyone else said: Yes, it absolutely matters. You may not think it fair that LSAC has decided your high school foolishness should follow you all the way to your law school apps, but there is nothing to do about it now.

Also, please keep this in perspective. We are talking about one D out of all the grades you have from college. Your GPA will probably not take that great of a hit. When I submitted my transcripts, I had four A grades from community college courses, and it only boosted my GPA by 0.05 points.

One D can do a lot of damage, though. I had a single D- on a one-credit course and it brought down my GPA from 3.9 to 3.87. One credit. :O

That said, I completely agree. You must report all your grades.

Good point, I wasn't thinking. I just recalculated my LSDAS GPA by adding a 3 credit D class, just to see the result, and my GPA dropped 0.07! Which is not insignificant, but not worth the potential C&F problems.

Not submitting all your transcripts is on par (in terms of dumbness) with lying about URM status or not disclosing a major C&F violation. The only way you might be able to get away with it is if you ask your old community college to remove your SS number from their records (they're not actually required by law to have it, at least in California/probably most states). Otherwise, all your information gets reported to the National Student Clearinghouse, and state bar committees get full access to that. Every state bar I'm aware of requires you to waive your FERPA rights.

I have an F and a B on a transcript from my high school CC days, and I considered not reporting it and taking my chances with the bar. Unfortunately, the consequences of doing that are just way too high and way too likely to justify, so I ended up sending in the transcript anyway. Turns out for me it didn't matter, since LSAC didn't calculate my GPA regardless, but it was still definitely worth it. For what it's worth, these grades would have dropped by GPA from a 4.0 to a 3.71

IF YOU ARE ALREADY IN LAW SCHOOL

Please, please, please do yourself a huge favor and disclose this to your law school now. If it's something you can reasonably say you just "forgot about" or you didn't think you had to, the school might laugh it off and tell you to read more carefully next time. If they kick you out, so be it -- it's better to be out now than having paid three years worth of tuition. If you say nothing, you will probably get caught, and when you get caught, you will almost definitely never be allowed to practice law.

SemperLegal wrote:I submitted my CC classes from high school (which included more than one C/D) it brought my LSAC GPA down by .06. Still got into a very GPA centric law school, and I dont have to live with the stress of having a failure to disclose ding on my C&F app

Woah.

Not disclosing this would be a spectacularly bad idea.

francesfarmer wrote:

warandpeace wrote:^ That is great to hear. That's pretty much my situation.

Maybe when people are saying it matters they are only referencing those who took CC classes and reported them to their UG school? Or people who transferred, etc. Because no one knows I took the class except for my parents, lol.

Yeah, I figured I wouldn't report it because I didn't get credit from my UG for the CC class. I don't know if it's still against the rules to not report it. Probably.

You are very possibly screwed. Have fun passing the bar!

rinkrat19 wrote:

francesfarmer wrote:

warandpeace wrote:^ That is great to hear. That's pretty much my situation.

Maybe when people are saying it matters they are only referencing those who took CC classes and reported them to their UG school? Or people who transferred, etc. Because no one knows I took the class except for my parents, lol.

Yeah, I figured I wouldn't report it because I didn't get credit from my UG for the CC class. I don't know if it's still against the rules to not report it. Probably.

You are very possibly screwed. Have fun passing the bar!

So, who should I call about this? LSAC? My law school? The CC? I really didn't even think of it.

Wait, how did OP manage to get a D in precalc...twice?

.

francesfarmer wrote:Ugh I'm panicking now. Should I just call my future law school and beg? Get the CC to wipe my record and then disclose that I went there?

You're going to have to provide a transcript from the CC. I would get on the horn with Dean Iwerebon or someone else with authority in CLS admissions. If you genuinely didn't know that it was required, then plead ignorance while accepting full responsibility for your lack of diligence, and then beg for forgiveness. I'm not going to advise you to lie about your motives if you did this knowingly.

Ok. Thanks. I will figure it out.

warandpeace wrote:I took a precal class at the local community college during one high school summer to try to redeem the D I received in the class, but I received a D again. I never reported this grade, and never really saw this grade, have had no access to this grade, etc. It's basically completely slipped my mind.

Does this suddenly matter for law school applications? Someone told me they look at everything including that. So am I supposed to submit this? It was from a school I never attended and just one class I never reported, etc. What do I do?

Please don't quote any of this.

Yea, you're going to have too. LSAC is going to ask for those transcripts. I took two in High school as well, and had to submit that transcript.

Uh oh, looks like your hand has been forced, OP.