Top Law Schools

Is there any website or TLS forum thread that has info on the weight schools assign to the lsat and gpa? I know people generally say lsat 50% gpa 33-35%, but it's gotta vary from school to school, and I remember reading somewhere that schools do have formulas and some publish them.

Probably 67% LSAT & 33% GPA. But, it can vary, A few years ago Indiana was buying high GPAs.

MAPP wrote:Is there any website or TLS forum thread that has info on the weight schools assign to the lsat and gpa? I know people generally say lsat 50%, but it's gotta vary from school to school, and I remember reading somewhere that schools do have formulas and some publish them.

It really varies by school. Based on data I analyzed back in 2013 (only focusing on the T-14), Yale, Berkeley, and Stanford gave relatively more weight to GPA, while Georgetown, NYU, and Northwestern gave substantially more weight to LSAT scores. Cornell and Chicago were pretty much 50/50.

MAPP wrote:Is there any website or TLS forum thread that has info on the weight schools assign to the lsat and gpa? I know people generally say lsat 50%, but it's gotta vary from school to school, and I remember reading somewhere that schools do have formulas and some publish them.

Most recently I've heard 70%LSAT 30%GPA, but it varies.

What you want to be looking for is the formula a school uses for its admissions index. One such system is GPAx20+LSAT, so a 3.5gpa with a 170LSAT would give you a score of 240. You could then look at Harvard law and find that their median (if they used that formula) is 250.2 (3.86gpa & 173lsat medians), and that you wouldn't have much chance there with a 240 index, but that you would have a good shot at Texas (where the median is 240.6).

It isn't easy info to come by, but what you should be doing is looking for the formulas of these different law schools.

Check out http://www.mylsn.info for chances

Knowing school A weighs the LSAT as precisely 36.2758% vs school B weighing the LSAT at precisely 51.3796% isn't really going to do much for you IMO

elterrible78 wrote:

MAPP wrote:Is there any website or TLS forum thread that has info on the weight schools assign to the lsat and gpa? I know people generally say lsat 50%, but it's gotta vary from school to school, and I remember reading somewhere that schools do have formulas and some publish them.

It really varies by school. Based on data I analyzed back in 2013 (only focusing on the T-14), Yale, Berkeley, and Stanford gave relatively more weight to GPA, while Georgetown, NYU, and Northwestern gave substantially more weight to LSAT scores. Cornell and Chicago were pretty much 50/50.

Do you have an excel file or something for the data you analyzed?

Troianii wrote:

MAPP wrote:Is there any website or TLS forum thread that has info on the weight schools assign to the lsat and gpa? I know people generally say lsat 50%, but it's gotta vary from school to school, and I remember reading somewhere that schools do have formulas and some publish them.

Most recently I've heard 70%LSAT 30%GPA, but it varies.

What you want to be looking for is the formula a school uses for its admissions index. One such system is GPAx20+LSAT, so a 3.5gpa with a 170LSAT would give you a score of 240. You could then look at Harvard law and find that their median (if they used that formula) is 250.2 (3.86gpa & 173lsat medians), and that you wouldn't have much chance there with a 240 index, but that you would have a good shot at Texas (where the median is 240.6).

It isn't easy info to come by, but what you should be doing is looking for the formulas of these different law schools.

Any idea on where to look/what to google? I just did a quick google search and didn't see anything.

MAPP wrote:

Troianii wrote:

MAPP wrote:Is there any website or TLS forum thread that has info on the weight schools assign to the lsat and gpa? I know people generally say lsat 50%, but it's gotta vary from school to school, and I remember reading somewhere that schools do have formulas and some publish them.

Most recently I've heard 70%LSAT 30%GPA, but it varies.

What you want to be looking for is the formula a school uses for its admissions index. One such system is GPAx20+LSAT, so a 3.5gpa with a 170LSAT would give you a score of 240. You could then look at Harvard law and find that their median (if they used that formula) is 250.2 (3.86gpa & 173lsat medians), and that you wouldn't have much chance there with a 240 index, but that you would have a good shot at Texas (where the median is 240.6).

It isn't easy info to come by, but what you should be doing is looking for the formulas of these different law schools.

Any idea on where to look/what to google? I just did a quick google search and didn't see anything.

That's the tough part, but I'd recommend starting at the links below. These are things I've googled.

http://www.prelawhandbook.com/admission_index
http://www.deloggio.com/admproc/top.html

Schools rarely publish their index formula. This is one of the rough things about law school admissions, but the index formula used by the deloggio article is one which is a fair general indicator - LSAT+10xGPA, with the T14 ranging from 208-216.

MAPP wrote:

Troianii wrote:

MAPP wrote:Is there any website or TLS forum thread that has info on the weight schools assign to the lsat and gpa? I know people generally say lsat 50%, but it's gotta vary from school to school, and I remember reading somewhere that schools do have formulas and some publish them.

Most recently I've heard 70%LSAT 30%GPA, but it varies.

What you want to be looking for is the formula a school uses for its admissions index. One such system is GPAx20+LSAT, so a 3.5gpa with a 170LSAT would give you a score of 240. You could then look at Harvard law and find that their median (if they used that formula) is 250.2 (3.86gpa & 173lsat medians), and that you wouldn't have much chance there with a 240 index, but that you would have a good shot at Texas (where the median is 240.6).

It isn't easy info to come by, but what you should be doing is looking for the formulas of these different law schools.

Any idea on where to look/what to google? I just did a quick google search and didn't see anything.

It's on the LSAC website -- log in, go to the Apply section, click on Credentials and then Transcripts and on your right there's a link to a PDF of the Admissions indexes for every school that opts to publish them (quite a few).

The thing is, it's sort of hard to look at the formulas and get a feel for the balance because they all vary widely in terms of how they equate the two numbers (since 120-180 and 1.0-4.0 are very different numerical scales...)

ETA: Just took my own advice - plugged my own numbers into the formulas for the schools that I'm applying to that publish their formulas there (only 4/10 - most of the T14 isn't on there) - and then for comparison, plugged in each school's 25th GPA/LSAT and 75th GPA/LSAT as well. Gives a pretty good sense of what those schools will think of my numbers, I guess.

ltbenn wrote:

MAPP wrote:

Troianii wrote:

MAPP wrote:Is there any website or TLS forum thread that has info on the weight schools assign to the lsat and gpa? I know people generally say lsat 50%, but it's gotta vary from school to school, and I remember reading somewhere that schools do have formulas and some publish them.

Most recently I've heard 70%LSAT 30%GPA, but it varies.

What you want to be looking for is the formula a school uses for its admissions index. One such system is GPAx20+LSAT, so a 3.5gpa with a 170LSAT would give you a score of 240. You could then look at Harvard law and find that their median (if they used that formula) is 250.2 (3.86gpa & 173lsat medians), and that you wouldn't have much chance there with a 240 index, but that you would have a good shot at Texas (where the median is 240.6).

It isn't easy info to come by, but what you should be doing is looking for the formulas of these different law schools.

Any idea on where to look/what to google? I just did a quick google search and didn't see anything.

It's on the LSAC website -- log in, go to the Apply section, click on Credentials and then Transcripts and on your right there's a link to a PDF of the Admissions indexes for every school that opts to publish them (quite a few).

The thing is, it's sort of hard to look at the formulas and get a feel for the balance because they all vary widely in terms of how they equate the two numbers (since 120-180 and 1.0-4.0 are very different numerical scales...)

ETA: Just took my own advice - plugged my own numbers into the formulas for the schools that I'm applying to that publish their formulas there (only 4/10 - most of the T14 isn't on there) - and then for comparison, plugged in each school's 25th GPA/LSAT and 75th GPA/LSAT as well. Gives a pretty good sense of what those schools will think of my numbers, I guess.

Thanks. When trying to answer his question I found that lsac said it's available, but it didn't say where, and I guess I was just looking in all the wrong places after I logged in.

I plugged my numbers into a school's index formula, and the result was 3.26. When I plugged in the school's median numbers, I got 3.23. I'm probably in, right? Or is there more to it than that? Would they only care about WE, PS, etc...if your number is below 3.23? Also, does anyone know if they use the index to figure scholarship amounts?

ltbenn wrote:

MAPP wrote:

Troianii wrote:

MAPP wrote:Is there any website or TLS forum thread that has info on the weight schools assign to the lsat and gpa? I know people generally say lsat 50%, but it's gotta vary from school to school, and I remember reading somewhere that schools do have formulas and some publish them.

Most recently I've heard 70%LSAT 30%GPA, but it varies.

What you want to be looking for is the formula a school uses for its admissions index. One such system is GPAx20+LSAT, so a 3.5gpa with a 170LSAT would give you a score of 240. You could then look at Harvard law and find that their median (if they used that formula) is 250.2 (3.86gpa & 173lsat medians), and that you wouldn't have much chance there with a 240 index, but that you would have a good shot at Texas (where the median is 240.6).

It isn't easy info to come by, but what you should be doing is looking for the formulas of these different law schools.

Any idea on where to look/what to google? I just did a quick google search and didn't see anything.

It's on the LSAC website -- log in, go to the Apply section, click on Credentials and then Transcripts and on your right there's a link to a PDF of the Admissions indexes for every school that opts to publish them (quite a few).

The thing is, it's sort of hard to look at the formulas and get a feel for the balance because they all vary widely in terms of how they equate the two numbers (since 120-180 and 1.0-4.0 are very different numerical scales...)

ETA: Just took my own advice - plugged my own numbers into the formulas for the schools that I'm applying to that publish their formulas there (only 4/10 - most of the T14 isn't on there) - and then for comparison, plugged in each school's 25th GPA/LSAT and 75th GPA/LSAT as well. Gives a pretty good sense of what those schools will think of my numbers, I guess.

Nice! This is pretty cool. However, like you said, there are a lot of elite schools that don't release the formula. The column A and B multipliers are straightforward, but what is with the multiplier in column C (+Contant)?

Scalvert wrote:I plugged my numbers into a school's index formula, and the result was 3.26. When I plugged in the school's median numbers, I got 3.23. I'm probably in, right? Or is there more to it than that? Would they only care about WE, PS, etc...if your number is below 3.23? Also, does anyone know if they use the index to figure scholarship amounts?

I'd say do what Itbenn said and also plug in the 25th and 75th percentiles.

MAPP wrote:

ltbenn wrote:

MAPP wrote:

Troianii wrote:

MAPP wrote:Is there any website or TLS forum thread that has info on the weight schools assign to the lsat and gpa? I know people generally say lsat 50%, but it's gotta vary from school to school, and I remember reading somewhere that schools do have formulas and some publish them.

Most recently I've heard 70%LSAT 30%GPA, but it varies.

What you want to be looking for is the formula a school uses for its admissions index. One such system is GPAx20+LSAT, so a 3.5gpa with a 170LSAT would give you a score of 240. You could then look at Harvard law and find that their median (if they used that formula) is 250.2 (3.86gpa & 173lsat medians), and that you wouldn't have much chance there with a 240 index, but that you would have a good shot at Texas (where the median is 240.6).

It isn't easy info to come by, but what you should be doing is looking for the formulas of these different law schools.

Any idea on where to look/what to google? I just did a quick google search and didn't see anything.

It's on the LSAC website -- log in, go to the Apply section, click on Credentials and then Transcripts and on your right there's a link to a PDF of the Admissions indexes for every school that opts to publish them (quite a few).

The thing is, it's sort of hard to look at the formulas and get a feel for the balance because they all vary widely in terms of how they equate the two numbers (since 120-180 and 1.0-4.0 are very different numerical scales...)

ETA: Just took my own advice - plugged my own numbers into the formulas for the schools that I'm applying to that publish their formulas there (only 4/10 - most of the T14 isn't on there) - and then for comparison, plugged in each school's 25th GPA/LSAT and 75th GPA/LSAT as well. Gives a pretty good sense of what those schools will think of my numbers, I guess.

Nice! This is pretty cool. However, like you said, there are a lot of elite schools that don't release the formula. The column A and B multipliers are straightforward, but what is with the multiplier in column C (+Contant)?

Not a multiplier - that's a constant added to the formula.
So if you were to write out the full equation it should look something like (A*LSAT)+(B*GPA)+C=Your index number.

MAPP wrote:

Scalvert wrote:I plugged my numbers into a school's index formula, and the result was 3.26. When I plugged in the school's median numbers, I got 3.23. I'm probably in, right? Or is there more to it than that? Would they only care about WE, PS, etc...if your number is below 3.23? Also, does anyone know if they use the index to figure scholarship amounts?

I'd say do what Itbenn said and also plug in the 25th and 75th percentiles.

So I plugged in the 25th and 75th percentiles as well as the medians and then compared where my numbers fell.
A lot of the formulas have very small ranges (Northwestern, for example, came out to 25th percentiles at 10.978 and 75th percentiles at 11.576) to it's hard to get a feel for how far away you are from a certain point without a frame of reference.

Check out www.mylsn.info for chances?

ltbenn wrote: Not a multiplier - that's a constant added to the formula.
So if you were to write out the full equation it should look something like (A*LSAT)+(B*GPA)+C=Your index number.

Ah, yeah makes sense. So using Columbia's formula with hypothetical perfect scores would be: (0.045*180)+(0.559*4.0)+(-5.512) = maximum index number of 4.824

MAPP wrote:

ltbenn wrote: Not a multiplier - that's a constant added to the formula.
So if you were to write out the full equation it should look something like (A*LSAT)+(B*GPA)+C=Your index number.

Ah, yeah makes sense. So using Columbia's formula with hypothetical perfect scores would be: (0.045*180)+(0.559*4.0)+(-5.512) = maximum index number of 4.824

Yup - you can then see that the LSAT score makes up 78.48% of the variable value (ie, without the constant taken into consideration) and GPA is only 21.52%.

ltbenn wrote:

MAPP wrote:

ltbenn wrote: Not a multiplier - that's a constant added to the formula.
So if you were to write out the full equation it should look something like (A*LSAT)+(B*GPA)+C=Your index number.

Ah, yeah makes sense. So using Columbia's formula with hypothetical perfect scores would be: (0.045*180)+(0.559*4.0)+(-5.512) = maximum index number of 4.824

Yup - you can then see that the LSAT score makes up 78.48% of the variable value (ie, without the constant taken into consideration) and GPA is only 21.52%.

I know, that's crazy! I wonder if you contacted admissions for some of these schools that don't publish and asked them outright for their forumula if they would give it to you

ltbenn wrote:

MAPP wrote:

Scalvert wrote:I plugged my numbers into a school's index formula, and the result was 3.26. When I plugged in the school's median numbers, I got 3.23. I'm probably in, right? Or is there more to it than that? Would they only care about WE, PS, etc...if your number is below 3.23? Also, does anyone know if they use the index to figure scholarship amounts?

I'd say do what Itbenn said and also plug in the 25th and 75th percentiles.

So I plugged in the 25th and 75th percentiles as well as the medians and then compared where my numbers fell.
A lot of the formulas have very small ranges (Northwestern, for example, came out to 25th percentiles at 10.978 and 75th percentiles at 11.576) to it's hard to get a feel for how far away you are from a certain point without a frame of reference.

Shouldn't the median work as a good reference point (i.e. if your personal index falls inbetween the median and 75th percentile you should be pretty good to go)

MAPP wrote:

ltbenn wrote:

MAPP wrote:

Scalvert wrote:I plugged my numbers into a school's index formula, and the result was 3.26. When I plugged in the school's median numbers, I got 3.23. I'm probably in, right? Or is there more to it than that? Would they only care about WE, PS, etc...if your number is below 3.23? Also, does anyone know if they use the index to figure scholarship amounts?

I'd say do what Itbenn said and also plug in the 25th and 75th percentiles.

So I plugged in the 25th and 75th percentiles as well as the medians and then compared where my numbers fell.
A lot of the formulas have very small ranges (Northwestern, for example, came out to 25th percentiles at 10.978 and 75th percentiles at 11.576) to it's hard to get a feel for how far away you are from a certain point without a frame of reference.

Shouldn't the median work as a good reference point (i.e. if your personal index falls inbetween the median and 75th percentile you should be pretty good to go)

What I find confusing is that even though my index number is slightly above the school's median index number, mylsn shows me with a 52% chance of admittance.

Scalvert wrote:

MAPP wrote:

ltbenn wrote:

MAPP wrote:

Scalvert wrote:I plugged my numbers into a school's index formula, and the result was 3.26. When I plugged in the school's median numbers, I got 3.23. I'm probably in, right? Or is there more to it than that? Would they only care about WE, PS, etc...if your number is below 3.23? Also, does anyone know if they use the index to figure scholarship amounts?

I'd say do what Itbenn said and also plug in the 25th and 75th percentiles.

So I plugged in the 25th and 75th percentiles as well as the medians and then compared where my numbers fell.
A lot of the formulas have very small ranges (Northwestern, for example, came out to 25th percentiles at 10.978 and 75th percentiles at 11.576) to it's hard to get a feel for how far away you are from a certain point without a frame of reference.

Shouldn't the median work as a good reference point (i.e. if your personal index falls inbetween the median and 75th percentile you should be pretty good to go)

What I find confusing is that even though my index number is slightly above the school's median index number, mylsn shows me with a 52% chance of admittance.

Yeah I'm not the biggest fan of mylsn, the sample size is just so small.

Isn’t this Lsat+10(gpa) formula flawed for splitters, though?

I would imagine schools would prefer a 164/2.5 to a 149/4.0, but they get the same index score.

Anyway I hope it’s less helpful for splitters haha

You just necroed a three year old thread that doesn’t at all reflect admissions calculus today.

With splitters (and reverse splitters), both numbers must be considered in context for the given school. But there isn’t a single index score associated with a numbers combo.

More importantly, this was an unnecessary necro.

@uva2b

Fair point. Still, it’s an interesting topic.

I expect much more criticism incoming for the necro. Tread lightly, forum watchdogs! It’s a stressful time of year for applicants!