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Do Law schools consider major when assessing GPA?
Posted: Sun Feb 09, 2014 11:55 am
by Medic_J
Do law schools take difficulty of major into account when assessing GPA? I was a neuroscience major at UCLA. (3.15 gpa, 160 lsat).
Re: Do Law schools consider major when assessing GPA?
Posted: Sun Feb 09, 2014 12:07 pm
by Tiago Splitter
Medic_J wrote:Do law schools take difficulty of major into account when assessing GPA? I was a neuroscience major at UCLA. (3.15 gpa, 160 lsat).
Not really, because the USNews rankings only use GPA median, not GPA median with an adjustment for hard/easy GPAs. Your major can be a tiebreaker against someone with very similar numbers who had an easier major, but that's about it. Your best bet is to show that you really are a smart dude and that your GPA alone isn't reflective of your ability to succeed by retaking the LSAT and scoring much higher.
Re: Do Law schools consider major when assessing GPA?
Posted: Sun Feb 09, 2014 1:55 pm
by Cicero76
No
Re: Do Law schools consider major when assessing GPA?
Posted: Tue Feb 18, 2014 10:06 am
by SPerez
Yes, schools absolutely do consider it. However, the extent to which it plays a factor in the ultimate decision depends on the school. E.g. Harvard will be probably a micron more impressed by your 3.1/160 than a Crim. Justice major from a directional school's 3.1/160...as they send you both deny letters. On the flip side, a school with a 150 median will take both of them happily. It's where you fall close to the middle that it would make the most difference, but again, it's just one factor among many at that point since you are being compared to other similar splitters (making the fact that you're below median a wash).
Dean Perez