Upward GPA Trend Forum

[bnssweeney]

Hello everyone. I had a question regarding GPAs and admissions.

My first year of undergrad went terribly thanks to biology/chemistry classes, and at the end of my first year my GPA was a 2.75. However, after I changed my major to Psychology, I ended up performing better my sophomore year and received a 3.8. My cumulative GPA is now at a 3.2, and I expect it will to keep climbing. I am entering my junior year, so I do have some time to bring it up before I begin to apply. I will be graduating a semester early from my undergrad and will be applying Fall 2015 to law schools (although I do not think graduating early has any bearing on admissions results whatsoever).

At the end of my undergrad career, my GPA obviously will not be as high as I would have hoped thanks to a rough first year. Do adcomms take an upward GPA trend into account, or is the final GPA really all that matters?

[spleenworship]

Hello everyone. I had a question regarding GPAs and admissions.

My first year of undergrad went terribly thanks to biology/chemistry classes, and at the end of my first year my GPA was a 2.75. However, after I changed my major to Psychology, I ended up performing better my sophomore year and received a 3.8. My cumulative GPA is now at a 3.2, and I expect it will to keep climbing. I am entering my junior year, so I do have some time to bring it up before I begin to apply. I will be graduating a semester early from my undergrad and will be applying Fall 2015 to law schools (although I do not think graduating early has any bearing on admissions results whatsoever).

At the end of my undergrad career, my GPA obviously will not be as high as I would have hoped thanks to a rough first year. Do adcomms take an upward GPA trend into account, or is the final GPA really all that matters?

They don't care about upward trend. They do care somewhat about downward trend. Mostly, however, you need to get the best GPA and LSAT you can. Also, don't graduate early. Take classes more slowly to get better grades, or stick around an extra semester and take stupid easy A classes to make up for last year.


In case you missed it, the only real factors for anyone outside of HYS is GPA + LSAT.

[Chrstgtr]

Do they care about the trend? Maybe.
Do they care enough to view your upward trend as being better than someone who had a more consistent but higher ending GPA? No.

I could only see it mattering if your GPA is the same as someone else who was more consistent.

[harveyspecter993]

Why not delay graduation to get your GPA as high as possible. Look at the median GPA of the highest ranked school you intend to apply to and then calculate how many As you would need to get there. Just don't take 1st and 2nd year classes because it looks bad on a transcript to be doing them in junior year and above.

[Clearly]

Why not delay graduation to get your GPA as high as possible. Look at the median GPA of the highest ranked school you intend to apply to and then calculate how many As you would need to get there. Just don't take 1st and 2nd year classes because it looks bad on a transcript to be doing them in junior year and above.

Do you have ANYTHING to support this allegation?

[harveyspecter993]

Why not delay graduation to get your GPA as high as possible. Look at the median GPA of the highest ranked school you intend to apply to and then calculate how many As you would need to get there. Just don't take 1st and 2nd year classes because it looks bad on a transcript to be doing them in junior year and above.

Do you have ANYTHING to support this allegation?

I've read on another forum about law schools asking people to explain why they took lower level courses in upper years. Some law schools take the difficulty of one's program into account so personally speaking, I don't think it would help to have a transript littered with 1st and 2nd year courses. That's just my two cents

[Nucky]

I wasn't in the room when Adcomms went over my app, but I do think my upward trend was a factor since I outperformed my numbers. My upward trend was very strong though. Basically two years of straight A's.

Kill the LSAT and perform well in whatever you have left of school and you should be fine. Sounds like the LSAT will be your key though so just make sure you don't attend until you rock it.

[bnssweeney]

I know raising my GPA is important and another semester would help me, but graduating early would save me a lot of money. I also take summer classes at a local college and have some college classes from high school through a local college that I believe would contribute to my LSAC GPA.

Thanks for the quick responses everyone.

[SplitMyPants]

Why not delay graduation to get your GPA as high as possible. Look at the median GPA of the highest ranked school you intend to apply to and then calculate how many As you would need to get there. Just don't take 1st and 2nd year classes because it looks bad on a transcript to be doing them in junior year and above.

Do you have ANYTHING to support this allegation?

I've read on another forum about law schools asking people to explain why they took lower level courses in upper years. Some law schools take the difficulty of one's program into account so personally speaking, I don't think it would help to have a transript littered with 1st and 2nd year courses. That's just my two cents

I can only assume that, seeing as it is a numbers game, this would hurt about as much as an upward trend would help - ie it is an extremely distant consideration.

[spleenworship]

They don't care what your courses are, with the exception of HYS.

I took "Sociology of Video Games" for God's sake, got an A, never heard anything about it. I went to three different colleges, had a huge upward trend (2.17 end of sophomore year, 4.1 end of senior year), got As in hard sciences and Cs in shit like painting. NONE OF IT MATTERED. I performed exactly like my numbers said I would. I knew a guy on TLS who took half 100 level courses his senior year to boost his GPA - went to a T10.

And when they let me and him in they were less desperate than they are now. Unless you are applying to the very top where they can still afford to be picky, everyone else in the 22 spots below them only cares about your final GPA and LSAT. They don't care about the classes you took. They don't care about your trend. These are all tiebreakers at best. And the only people who have to worry about tiebreaking are the the marginal people who are at the bottom of their applicant pile. If you finish with a 3.7 and get a 171 none of the lower T-14 will give two flying farts about anything else provided they can cross it off a list (i.e. you wrote a reasonably understandable PS, you have some volunteer activities, you don't have any felonies (that last one is actually really important but 99% of the people on TLS don't need to worry about it so I didn't mention it)).

tl;dr - if your GPA and LSAT are high enough to be auto-admit, you don't need to worry about trend or courses.