How difficult is it to keep a 3.0 GPA in Law school? Opinion Forum

[Progress01]

Sorry if I'm posting in the wrong section.

For everyone who's already done 1L or maybe even graduated...How hard is it to keep a 3.0 in LS? I assume very difficult, but I want opinions.
Got an acceptance this week from a school I didn't think I would get in. Also got offered 75% scholarship per year. The stipulation? I have to stay in the top 1/3 of my class. While scrutinizing my financial packet, I see specifically, I MUST have a minimum of a 2.3 GPA at the end of the fall 1L semester to get the rest of it for the spring semester.

Now I'm sitting here wondering...How DIFFICULT is it to keep a 2.3? This school grades on a C+/B- curve. I don't understand these curves yet. Explain that type of curve to me? This is one of the schools notorious for students losing their scholarships.

[daryldixon]

Sorry if I'm posting in the wrong section.

For everyone who's already done 1L or maybe even graduated...How hard is it to keep a 3.0 in LS? I assume very difficult, but I want opinions.
Got an acceptance this week from a school I didn't think I would get in. Also got offered 75% scholarship per year. The stipulation? I have to stay in the top 1/3 of my class. While scrutinizing my financial packet, I see specifically, I MUST have a minimum of a 2.3 GPA at the end of the fall 1L semester to get the rest of it for the spring semester.

Now I'm sitting here wondering...How DIFFICULT is it to keep a 2.3? This school grades on a C+/B- curve. I don't understand these curves yet. Explain that type of curve to me? This is one of the schools notorious for students losing their scholarships.

It depends on the school. If they section stack (which many of the "notoriously hard to keep scholarship" schools do) then it is very hard.

[Tiago Splitter]

A C+/B- curve means the median student will be at about a 2.5 GPA, so it will be very difficult to get a 3.0 at that school. A 2.3 would be slightly below median, but that only lets you keep the scholarship for second semester. Assume you have a 1/3 chance of finishing in the top third and being able to keep your scholarship.

Law school is largely a scam, but the school you are considering sounds like an especially notorious offender. You won't want to hear it, but you really need to retake the LSAT and aim for better schools. No school worth attending puts such awful stipulations on their scholarships.

[IAFG]

In an environment quite unlike college, where everyone is intensely focused on landing in the top 1/3, and 2/3 must by definition fail at this task, it is quite difficult.

[BigZuck]

What school is this?

[Progress01]

What school is this?

Akron.

[goldeneye]

Frankly, it doesn't matter what this school's curve is. This is clearly a TTT with the stipulation and you probably should not attend under any circumstances.

[BigZuck]

Akron is a really bad law school. Paying 140K for a 42% chance at getting a lawyer job (the vast majority of which will pay like 50K tops) is just simply not worth it. You have to bring your numbers up if you want to become a lawyer.

Source:
http://www.lstscorereports.com/?school=akron

[20141023]

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[rwhyAn]

Akron had the lowest percentage of students retaining their scholarships of all law schools at 21%. See link below. Expect to pay sticker years two and three.

http://www.abajournal.com/mobile/articl ... holarships

[20141023]

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[Tiago Splitter]

I had never know about this before, but according to this, median at Akron was 2.78 (for the class of 2012).

Doesn't make a difference for OP as his requires top third, but that median could get fluffed up during 2L and 3L.

[20141023]

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[Clearly]

I had never know about this before, but according to this, median at Akron was 2.78 (for the class of 2012).

Doesn't make a difference for OP as his requires top third, but that median could get fluffed up during 2L and 3L.

The link also shows the GPA for the top 3rd (3.05), but as you said, we only know the final GPA of people when they graduate and not during the 1L year, which isn't very useful.

For some reason I'd ever made the connection before, but the USNWR is really what caused schools to offer conditional scholarships because financial aid accounts for 1.5% of a school's overall score, and a school can offer $1 million in financial aid at the very beginning, but even if they take away 50% of that after 1L year, the USNWR still counts them as having "offered" $1 million. This is the same exact thing that schools are doing with school-funded positions - offering students something just long enough to get it counted in their USNWR score and then taking it away as soon as they no longer have a use for the students. It kind of makes you wonder if the schools have a deal with the people at USNWR to prevent them from changing the methodology, because you'd normally figure that if your rankings system had a clear flaw, you'd want to take care of it as quickly as possible.

Even MMORPG mods are stricter than USNWR's staff because if you find a glitch and take advantage of it in an MMORPG, not only will they patch it and fix the bug, but they will often retroactively punish (or even temporarily ban) people who took advantage of the system.

You do statistics, AND play mmorpgs!?

[romothesavior]

Akron is a terrible school in a tiny legal market located in a state with a ton of other law schools. Your odds of keeping your scholarship are very poor and your odds of getting a decent job are even worse. Avoid this decision like the plague.

Retake and reapply or don't go.