Top Law Schools

Dumb question, but my school doesn't rank and doesn't provide any cutoffs other than Dean's List. I was pretty confident in saying I was top 25% after first semester because my GPA was just shy of Dean's List (which is top 20). Unfortunately, the second semester was not kind, and GPA is now 3.497(stupid ConLaw). Curve is 3.3 and Dean's List cutoff was 3.7.

If asked in an application, should I say top third? Would that be considered lying? I think if I stated it outright in my cover letter or something it might be, but some apps asking that question will give options like - top 10, top 20, top third, top half, and bottom half - and no option to skip the question. I contacted the academic office and asked for the top third cutoff, and they declined. Is this a big deal? I figured most places are just asking to get a rough idea how you stack up and aren't going to nitpick something like that, but I figured I'd err on the side of caution and ask for opinions.

(Rising 2L at a top 20 if it matters)

If your school goes out of its way to hide class ranks, don't try and guess yours.

That will make you stick out among applicants from your school in a probably bad way, and you may be wrong, which would be unethical to do (lying, albeit unintentionally, about your class rank).

Your school's handbook likely has clear rules on how students may present their GPAs. If your school has declined to give you that information, it's probably because it's against the school's policies.

If you can't skip the question then they have to know some people will be estimating. If you're really concerned you could always just put that it's an estimate because your school doesn't release rankings in the comments section of the online apps.

Yeah, if the school doesn't disclose the information, you can't put it on your materials. You have to pick the category you know you belong to, which is top half. (In your materials you can list the median and DL GPA, if you want, to give context, but for the automated questions you're stuck with top half.)

Anonymous User wrote:Dumb question, but my school doesn't rank and doesn't provide any cutoffs other than Dean's List. I was pretty confident in saying I was top 25% after first semester because my GPA was just shy of Dean's List (which is top 20). Unfortunately, the second semester was not kind, and GPA is now 3.497(stupid ConLaw). Curve is 3.3 and Dean's List cutoff was 3.7.

If asked in an application, should I say top third? Would that be considered lying? I think if I stated it outright in my cover letter or something it might be, but some apps asking that question will give options like - top 10, top 20, top third, top half, and bottom half - and no option to skip the question. I contacted the academic office and asked for the top third cutoff, and they declined. Is this a big deal? I figured most places are just asking to get a rough idea how you stack up and aren't going to nitpick something like that, but I figured I'd err on the side of caution and ask for opinions.

(Rising 2L at a top 20 if it matters)

If this is on a firm's online application and you have to answer to submit, then I think you should err on the side of caution and put top half. You're probably around the cut-off for top third and I doubt anything negative happens if you put that but it's better to err on the side of caution

Anonymous User wrote:Dumb question, but my school doesn't rank and doesn't provide any cutoffs other than Dean's List. I was pretty confident in saying I was top 25% after first semester because my GPA was just shy of Dean's List (which is top 20). Unfortunately, the second semester was not kind, and GPA is now 3.497(stupid ConLaw). Curve is 3.3 and Dean's List cutoff was 3.7.

If asked in an application, should I say top third? Would that be considered lying? I think if I stated it outright in my cover letter or something it might be, but some apps asking that question will give options like - top 10, top 20, top third, top half, and bottom half - and no option to skip the question. I contacted the academic office and asked for the top third cutoff, and they declined. Is this a big deal? I figured most places are just asking to get a rough idea how you stack up and aren't going to nitpick something like that, but I figured I'd err on the side of caution and ask for opinions.

(Rising 2L at a top 20 if it matters)

Just put 3.5. That is a high number.

It's against policy to round up. I'll stick with top half. My fault for the complacency anyway.

Thanks everyone!

I wouldn't put it on there for two reasons. First, if there aren't any other distinctions for your rank and you aren't given your exact rank, that likely means the only people putting their rank on their apps and resumes are top 20% (Dean's List) people from your school, and employers have likely gotten used to that. So if I were an employer and I saw top 33% or top 50% on your app and I never saw it on any other app from your school, it'd be a red flag to me.

Second, it'll end up hurting your app. Like other people say, you'd have to be careful what percentile you pick. You can't really say top third cause your GPA isn't really that close to top 20%. If you now go down to top 50%, it makes it seem like you're only average (middle of the class) as opposed to whatever you are right now. Say an employer has a 3.45 cut off for your school. It looks at your app and sees you meet it but then notices top 50% and is like, "nah, that's actually lower than what we're looking for."

You didn't get top 20%. It's ok. Just put down your GPA and move on. You'll survive.

sparty99 wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:Dumb question, but my school doesn't rank and doesn't provide any cutoffs other than Dean's List. I was pretty confident in saying I was top 25% after first semester because my GPA was just shy of Dean's List (which is top 20). Unfortunately, the second semester was not kind, and GPA is now 3.497(stupid ConLaw). Curve is 3.3 and Dean's List cutoff was 3.7.

If asked in an application, should I say top third? Would that be considered lying? I think if I stated it outright in my cover letter or something it might be, but some apps asking that question will give options like - top 10, top 20, top third, top half, and bottom half - and no option to skip the question. I contacted the academic office and asked for the top third cutoff, and they declined. Is this a big deal? I figured most places are just asking to get a rough idea how you stack up and aren't going to nitpick something like that, but I figured I'd err on the side of caution and ask for opinions.

(Rising 2L at a top 20 if it matters)

Just put 3.5. That is a high number.

Do not do this. This is bad advice. If your GPA is 3.497 you can put 3.4 or 3.49 but you cannot put 3.5 if your GPA is 3.4x. Rounding up by 3 thousandths is not worth a potential honor code violation.

Anonymous User wrote:

sparty99 wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:Dumb question, but my school doesn't rank and doesn't provide any cutoffs other than Dean's List. I was pretty confident in saying I was top 25% after first semester because my GPA was just shy of Dean's List (which is top 20). Unfortunately, the second semester was not kind, and GPA is now 3.497(stupid ConLaw). Curve is 3.3 and Dean's List cutoff was 3.7.

If asked in an application, should I say top third? Would that be considered lying? I think if I stated it outright in my cover letter or something it might be, but some apps asking that question will give options like - top 10, top 20, top third, top half, and bottom half - and no option to skip the question. I contacted the academic office and asked for the top third cutoff, and they declined. Is this a big deal? I figured most places are just asking to get a rough idea how you stack up and aren't going to nitpick something like that, but I figured I'd err on the side of caution and ask for opinions.

(Rising 2L at a top 20 if it matters)

Just put 3.5. That is a high number.

Do not do this. This is bad advice. If your GPA is 3.497 you can put 3.4 or 3.49 but you cannot put 3.5 if your GPA is 3.4x. Rounding up by 3 thousandths is not worth a potential honor code violation.

I don't know if this is a serious post, but if so, it's a really bad one. You can definitely put 3.5. There's no rule that says that you can't follow general principles of rounding when cutting down digits of your GPA.

Pretty sure most schools don't allow rounding up, actually. Your GPA is what the school reports to you, in the decimal points it reports to you. There are probably people at this person's school who have a 3.5 - their GPA is not the same as those other people's GPA (like I personally don't give a shit about the difference between a 3.497 and a 3.5, but when a school calculates ranks those two GPAs are different.)

Yeah my school was real strict with the no rounding up. I literally had a 3.X99 one semester and they said I couldn't do it for my resume. Glad I asked, because I kind of just assumed it would be alright at that point.

Yeah, rounding up is a bad idea and would have been a violation of the honor code at my law school.

Honor code issues aside (which seem dumb, but I guess schools can hold that over you while you're still in school), I don't see an issue rounding or estimating. I would not blink twice if I got a resume during OCI or a callback that said top 15% (estimated) or was 3.5 when the unofficial transcript said 3.499.

I think u r at my school and they pretty clearly tell us not to do this. Just email your career services person for guidance (obviously some of them are more helpful than others).

PMan99 wrote:Honor code issues aside (which seem dumb, but I guess schools can hold that over you while you're still in school), I don't see an issue rounding or estimating. I would not blink twice if I got a resume during OCI or a callback that said top 15% (estimated) or was 3.5 when the unofficial transcript said 3.499.

I mean, you wouldn't, but you're not going to care if someone puts 3.499, either, whereas people who do care will think putting 3.5 is NAGL. (Also the issue is in part that the school will care.)

lurker816 wrote:I think u r at my school and they pretty clearly tell us not to do this. Just email your career services person for guidance (obviously some of them are more helpful than others).

Same school, and you're correct. I posted upthread that it was against policy but forgot to identify myself as OP. I'm just not gonna mention it at all if I can help it. (honestly I was just trying to find a way to make it sound better - TOPsomething sounded preferable to 3.4something ) If I have to make a selection to submit, I'll just explain in a comment as advised earlier. Moral of story: Don't tank your GPA 2nd semester, and no worries.

Anonymous User wrote:

lurker816 wrote:I think u r at my school and they pretty clearly tell us not to do this. Just email your career services person for guidance (obviously some of them are more helpful than others).

Same school, and you're correct. I posted upthread that it was against policy but forgot to identify myself as OP. I'm just not gonna mention it at all if I can help it. (honestly I was just trying to find a way to make it sound better - TOPsomething sounded preferable to 3.4something ) If I have to make a selection to submit, I'll just explain in a comment as advised earlier. Moral of story: Don't tank your GPA 2nd semester, and no worries.

Feel you, I had the opposite trend but a similar GPA and probably got screwed by the same con law class. I'm not sure which markets you're targeting but in NY a lot of the local schools have worse curves + 3.4x sounds better than it may actually be rank-wise. GL!