Academic probation? Forum

[deereynolds]

I'm about to post something kind of long, but I would appreciate any advice as I am freaking out a bit:

I have just completed my 4th year of college and I have one more semester left. I will be applying to law school for the fall of 2015. As I have been gathering more information about applying, I realized that I will have to disclose on my applications that I was on academic probation. I should mention that I started off as a pre-med student and I did not intend on going to law school at the beginning. However, I have realized since then what my interests really are and I want to become an attorney.

My grades were not the best and during the fall semester of my junior year, I ended up being placed on academic probation. At the time, I was taking a very difficult biology class and an organic chemistry lab class. I was also taking an online abnormal psychology class that had a 9 month term, so I did not finish that class until that summer. In the biology and organic lab classes, I got a C- and C and my gpa fell below a 2.00 that semester, resulting in academic probation. However, after that semester I got my stuff together and I declared a psychology major (which I really love). I got much better grades starting that spring and I ended up getting an A in the abnormal psych class, which did end up bringing my gpa up for that semester.

Because academic records are only reviewed at the end of the semester and I did not finish that abnormal psych class until after that spring semester was over, I still had the academic probation on my record, even though I was doing much better.

I'm just wondering if having something like this will hinder my chances of getting into a law school. Since declaring my major, my grades have improved considerably and I am working on doing well on the LSAT. Overall, I have improved as a student since I started college. Even though I know I will have to submit an explanation for my academic probation, realizing that I have to disclose it is making me worry quite a bit now. Sorry for the ramble-y post.

I thought I should also add that I have a 3.1 gpa. I'm hoping that if I score well enough on the LSAT that it will make up for my gpa.

[bropulous]

I don't have any special knowledge about this, but my guess is that the academic probation itself won't matter much. Your grades for that semester are already on your transcript, and I don't know why law schools would care that your undergrad school labeled that "academic probation." Of course, law schools will care about the grades themselves.

[malleus discentium]

If the probation was just an automatic thing because your grades were in a certain range, the schools are unlikely to care except to the extent that they already care about the poor grades themselves. The probation itself is probably not going to have an effect on your cycle and there's nothing you can do about it now so no sense in worry about it.

[ScottRiqui]

Agree with above posters - "academic probation" isn't punitive or indicative of a character flaw, and the grades that resulted in the probation are already captured in your transcripts/GPA.