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I have seen a lot of these posts but mine may require more thought.

So I am above a 3.0 at my law school but just under the top 50% cut off. I believe it is approximately 0.063 points from the top 50% of the class. Should I leave out my GPA or include it on my resume?

Not including the GPA is a bigger red flag (imo) than including a median-ish gpa. Include the GPA, but don't include the ranking.

njkga wrote:Not including the GPA is a bigger red flag (imo) than including a median-ish gpa. Include the GPA, but don't include the ranking.

I disagree. Some schools don't let you add your gpa on your resume. So excluding it is totally fine. And given that your gpa is less than stellar, I'd leave it off. All that info is readily available on your transcript.

If your gpa is the first thing an Interviewer sees, they're going to view your entire resume with an underwhelmed eye. You don't want that.

Anonymous User wrote:

njkga wrote:Not including the GPA is a bigger red flag (imo) than including a median-ish gpa. Include the GPA, but don't include the ranking.

I disagree. Some schools don't let you add your gpa on your resume. So excluding it is totally fine. And given that your gpa is less than stellar, I'd leave it off. All that info is readily available on your transcript.

If your gpa is the first thing an Interviewer sees, they're going to view your entire resume with an underwhelmed eye. You don't want that.

OP, if you do not attend a school that prohibits the listing of law school GPAs on resumes, you should keep it on. It definitely would raise eyebrows, moreso than the medianish GPA (which may not raise eyebrows at all).

I thought the “no GPA on resume” rule was just for OCI?

A. Nony Mouse wrote:I thought the “no GPA on resume” rule was just for OCI?

Interested in this too. I went to NYU - never put GPA while in school, but do I list it now in my resume? Was pretty below median at ~3.25 (self calculated). No actual GPA is listed on my official transcript.

A. Nony Mouse wrote:I thought the “no GPA on resume” rule was just for OCI?

That's my impression (from a school that does that). You might just need to note that it's an unofficial GPA if your school doesn't formally report it.

Yeah, it’s one thing if your school doesn’t report your GPA (though in that case I probably wouldn’t list it at all).

FWIW when I lateraled I left my sub-3.0 GPA off of my resume despite my being at or above median. Not sure if keeping it off helped or hurt but I imagine that having sub-3.0 would be a red flag automatically. I got interviews at some pretty big firms and was never asked about it.

Anonymous User wrote:

A. Nony Mouse wrote:I thought the “no GPA on resume” rule was just for OCI?

Interested in this too. I went to NYU - never put GPA while in school, but do I list it now in my resume? Was pretty below median at ~3.25 (self calculated). No actual GPA is listed on my official transcript.

Also NYU. I put it on resume and LinkedIn now as "GPA: 3.XXX (unofficial)."

I think with below-median it's your call whether it's a good idea to include it. In undergrad, I heard a mix of advice that was usually "If your GPA is over 3.3" (B+ territory) include it" but others said 3.5+ and others said 3.0+.

I think since NYU has the EIW non-inclusion rule, you can get away with leaving it off if you don't want it there. If you do want it there, I just wouldn't list any known-percentiles.

I think the no GPA rule (for schools that have such a rule) is just for OCI. I think such a rule exists for schools that use a bidding/lottery system for OCI.

This was accidentally Anon, this is njkga

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:

A. Nony Mouse wrote:I thought the “no GPA on resume” rule was just for OCI?

Interested in this too. I went to NYU - never put GPA while in school, but do I list it now in my resume? Was pretty below median at ~3.25 (self calculated). No actual GPA is listed on my official transcript.

Also NYU. I put it on resume and LinkedIn now as "GPA: 3.XXX (unofficial)."

Don't do this. It looks weird and would just draw my attention to the fact that you got relatively lousy grades at NYU.

For grads of the top 10 or so law schools, I don't expect to see (and often don't see) GPAs on resumes. There are four schools that don't even have traditional grades. If you went to NYU, it's fine to leave your GPA off your resume.

*deleted*

I was leaning towards placing my GPA. It is between a 3.0 and 3.1. Maybe for bigger law firms I will leave it out.

Does this change when you graduate? Never really thought about it but thinking on it, having GPA on your resume when you've been out of school for awhile seems odd.

Could be wrong though.

rpupkin wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:

A. Nony Mouse wrote:I thought the “no GPA on resume” rule was just for OCI?

Interested in this too. I went to NYU - never put GPA while in school, but do I list it now in my resume? Was pretty below median at ~3.25 (self calculated). No actual GPA is listed on my official transcript.

Also NYU. I put it on resume and LinkedIn now as "GPA: 3.XXX (unofficial)."

Don't do this. It looks weird and would just draw my attention to the fact that you got relatively lousy grades at NYU.

For grads of the top 10 or so law schools, I don't expect to see (and often don't see) GPAs on resumes. There are four schools that don't even have traditional grades. If you went to NYU, it's fine to leave your GPA off your resume.

Yep, from just about any other school you are insane to leave gpa off (unless it’s 2.xx). The small firm I worked at during law school just assumed the person’s grades sucked.

Also don’t put gpa on LinkedIn.

So my school was very, "Put it on at all costs or it will signal you are not doing super-well," but interestingly, several of my friends who did tests with some resumes with GPA and some without got much better response rates when it was not on their resume. FWIW, their GPAs were 3.0ish to 3.4ish, so not horrid, but not top of the class. This is not a completely either-or question--do some beta tests!

I understand putting your GPA on your resume if the job doesn't request a transcript... but as someone who just came out, it seems like a lot of places want a transcript. Is there any point then?

I've had 2 small firm jobs, both of them wanted transcripts so I didn't put GPA on my resume.

how do people stylize the GPA when theres only a cutoff by GPA and not ranking:

i.e.

top 10%=3.1, GPA=3.2

What's the way that's typically written?

Kummel wrote:how do people stylize the GPA when theres only a cutoff by GPA and not ranking:

i.e.

top 10%=3.1, GPA=3.2

What's the way that's typically written?

GPA: 3.2 (Top 10%)

Keep it simple, keep it honest. Noting where the exact Top 10% cutoff is adds little (if any) value, and makes it clunky.

We've done a bit of interviewing for in-house gigs. A quick glance shows GPA's on about 25% of resumes for the last post advertised. Some other candidates did have honors designations with no GPA listed. I don't think it impacted candidates one way or another.

albanach wrote:We've done a bit of interviewing for in-house gigs. A quick glance shows GPA's on about 25% of resumes for the last post advertised. Some other candidates did have honors designations with no GPA listed. I don't think it impacted candidates one way or another.

But would you agree that it would hurt a candidate's chances if you saw "2.X" GPA?

Anonymous User wrote:

albanach wrote:We've done a bit of interviewing for in-house gigs. A quick glance shows GPA's on about 25% of resumes for the last post advertised. Some other candidates did have honors designations with no GPA listed. I don't think it impacted candidates one way or another.

But would you agree that it would hurt a candidate's chances if you saw "2.X" GPA?

It certainly wouldn't help. I think (particularly if you have work experience) that the only time it does help is when the GPA is obviously high - i.e. 3.7+.