Top Law Schools

Supposedly, LSAC claims to use a standardized method to essentially "re-calculate" your GPA. Here's what gets me - if my undergrad school was legit (top 50 school, accredited, etc.) then what place does "LSAC" have to retool my GPA? Let's keep in mind, LSAC is nothing more than a third party vendor. It's not an institution of higher learning and therefore shouldn't really have any business messing with the awarded GPA's from accredited schools in the U.S.

Am I ticked - yes, to some extent. Although my undergrad GPA went up on LSAC, my cumulative GPA dropped over .5 points! What a racket! I know my acceptance chances are still good, but why should I be sweating this. I say LSAC needs to get out of the way and just let the Law Schools do there own evaluation. Honestly, Is it really that hard to read a transcript and glean a GPA from an applicant's record? Regardless, I'm still listing my GPA from my official transcript - as far as I'm concerned, LSAC's numbers are pretty much erroneous.

Any similar stories?

You can list whatever number you want, but the LSAC calculated GPA is the one USNWR uses for rankings, so that's the only one they really care about.

You're supposed to write the GPA your undergrad gave you on the resume.
As for the cumulative GPA, that's just the way it is. In hindsight, many people shouldn't have slacked off at their first college or while taking college classes through their high school.

When you're dealing with 100s of applicants, many of whom have attended a number of different colleges/universities, as well as having taken college-level classes before going to college and so on, yes, actually, it is a pain in the ass for adcomms to look at transcripts and "glean" a GPA. LSAC saves law schools from having to try to calculate what a cumulative GPA looks like when you're combining courses from a bunch of different schools, and it does so consistently across all law school candidates. If law schools didn't want the service, LSAC wouldn't provide it.

How is it a pain for admissions to "glean" a GPA? Perhaps "Glean" was too strong a word. Maybe I should have said "look at the bottom of your transcript a read the words 'Graduate GPA'."

Look, if they honestly read your PS, Resume and addendum crap, you're saying it's too much for them to read "3.89" on the bottom of a one page transcript? I'll agree that for international schools, it makes sense for a third party to wash your transcript. But for accredited U.S. schools (some who have been in business much longer than LSAC), it seems a bit overarching.

Just my 2 Cents

Big Mike wrote:How is it a pain for admissions to "glean" a GPA? Perhaps "Glean" was too strong a word. Maybe I should have said "look at the bottom of your transcript a read the words 'Graduate GPA'."

Look, if they honestly read your PS, Resume and addendum crap, you're saying it's too much for them to read "3.89" on the bottom of a one page transcript? I'll agree that for international schools, it makes sense for a third party to wash your transcript. But for accredited U.S. schools (some who have been in business much longer than LSAC), it seems a bit overarching.

Just my 2 Cents

Did you read anything I said about the many students with transcripts from multiple institutions? Where they probably completed different numbers of credit hours on possibly different grading scales?

.

tough shit life isn't fair