cGPA or last two years? Forum

[prayingtogod]

only having been interested in american law schools recently i don't know much about it. i'm canadian.
do american law school look at cumulative undergrad gpa or just the last two? or is it different for all schools?

i've been looking at university of hawaii at manoa law, and it doesn't say how they view my gpa...
i also saw they offer a dual JD program with UBC in vancouver. is that something you apply for after finishing 1st or 2nd year or apply directly into that program right away? and to which school do you apply for the dual JD program just Hawaii first, or UBC or both?

i'd love to hear any additional info if ya'll have any too. thanks in advance!

[A. Nony Mouse]

They all look at cumulative GPA, because that's what's used when calculating rankings. As for the program with UBC, your best bet is just to call either school and ask (if the info isn't on their website).

[sandwich]

They all look at cumulative GPA, because that's what's used when calculating rankings. As for the program with UBC, your best bet is just to call either school and ask (if the info isn't on their website).

... but it's also worth noting that it's an odd form of cumulative GPA.

Check out the LSAC site for full details (there are a few odd situations that don't come up enough to warrant a full discussion here), but the important points are:

They take ALL classes. Even if your school lets you replace bad grades with better grades, the LSAC will count both. Even if you did community college classes 15 years ago in middle school, the LSAC will count them. Even if you school has an academic forgiveness policy, the LSAC will calculate those classes into the GPA. They really, really, take everything.

But only up until you earn your first bachelor's degree. After you graduate with a bachelor's, no more classes count. Doesn't matter if you GPA doing your BA was a 2.0, and then you do 19 Ph.D.'s afterwards and get 19 straight 4.0's, your LSAC GPA will be a 2.0.

They also calculate +/- grades. an A+ is a 4.33, an A- is a 3.67. If you school doesn't give out A+ grades, oh well. Your max is a 4.0, whereas someone else's max might be a 4.33

For me, because I took a combo of semester and quarter grades, I used this calculator: http://www.lawschoolpredictor.com/wp-co ... ulator.htm

Keep in mind that strange situations exist. I think they don't calculate remedial classes, and there is conflicting information about how they treat W's (there are definitely some people who got penalized for supposedly non-punitive W's, and some people who had "punitive" w's not count, although I think that for the most part they are reasonably consistent). If you have ANY strange situations, it's worth it to look at the LSAC gpa guidelines and see if you can figure out how to boost your GPA.