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Currently a 3L with a 3.75 GPA at a T14 headed to NY biglaw and trying to decide how much I should autopilot for my last semester. I already know I want to lateral to a secondary market after a couple of years in NY (one to three years depending how well I can stomach the hours). Would a 3.80 make any tangible difference compared to a 3.75? In terms of latin honors, I'm already at cum laude and raising my GPA to a 3.80 would not tip me over to magna.

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Sat Jan 22, 2022 2:42 am

Currently a 3L with a 3.75 GPA at a T14 headed to NY biglaw and trying to decide how much I should autopilot for my last semester. I already know I want to lateral to a secondary market after a couple of years in NY (one to three years depending how well I can stomach the hours). Would a 3.80 make any tangible difference compared to a 3.75? In terms of latin honors, I'm already at cum laude and raising my GPA to a 3.80 would not tip me over to magna.

Firms probably wouldn't even care about a .2 or .3 difference in GPA a couple years out. That far out, it's all about the firm/experience you had post-grad. Don't sweat the difference and enjoy your last semester.

Assuming your current GPA reflects five semesters of grades, wouldn’t you need to get a 4.05 this semester to pull your cumulative GPA up to a 3.8? ((3.75 * 5 + 4.05) / 6 = 3. Is that even possible at your school? Even if so, that sounds super hard, especially given what sounds like a pretty speculative upside (i.e., appealing to a firm that is too snooty for your already great GPA but could be convinced by an absolutely killer showing spring 3L.)

I say don’t sweat it and enjoy life.

I know some firms continue to consider grades even for laterals, but I cannot imagine the difference between 3.75 and 3.8 being material.

(Re feasibility - the OP may be planning to take more credits this semester than previous semesters and so the grades will be worth more than 1/6 of his GPA.)

No firm is going to care about a 3.8 vs. a 3.5, let alone a 3.75.

It's hard to think of something less important (without being totally immaterial to the hiring process) than a GPA delta of 0.05

I mean, you could moot this issue by only listing out to one decimal point lmao

hdr wrote: ↑

Sat Jan 22, 2022 11:27 am

No firm is going to care about a 3.8 vs. a 3.5, let alone a 3.75.

I disagree, I think that a firm will care about a 3.8 vs a 3.5, especially only one year out of law school. However, I do not think that a 3.8 vs a 3.75 is an issue.

Would only matter if you were at Columbia and badly wanted to get Kent once for your law firm bio.

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Sat Jan 22, 2022 7:38 pm

Would only matter if you were at Columbia and badly wanted to get Kent once for your law firm bio.

None of this matters in the long run … but I don’t understand why we need to have our own weird honors (Stone/Kent), versus using a system that would be universally intelligible (cum laude/magna/summa). Or keeping what we have but adding order of the coif. vENeRatEd TRaDiTioN, I guess.