A quick question regarding GPA calculation Forum

[divergence]

I spoke with a school academic advisor today and she told me American law schools generally look at the best 90 credits. However, based on what I've learned from this forum I knew that was wrong so I told her that I wish that were true but that's not how it works in the states.

And then she got upset and told me she's in contact with people from LSAC and that I was wrong.

My understanding was that all prospective law school applicants are supposed to submit their grades to LSAC and law schools take GPAs calculated by LSAC at face value.

In other words, American law schools don't use the "best 90 credits" to calculate students' GPA (as my advisor claims), right?

[stig2014]

I spoke with a school academic advisor today and she told me American law schools generally look at the best 90 credits. However, based on what I've learned from this forum I knew that was wrong so I told her that I wish that were true but that's not how it works in the states.

And then she got upset and told me she's in contact with people from LSAC and that I was wrong.

My understanding was that all prospective law school applicants are supposed to submit their grades to LSAC and law schools take GPAs calculated by LSAC at face value.

In other words, American law schools don't use the "best 90 credits" to calculate students' GPA (as my advisor claims), right?

For better or worse, they calculate your entire cumulative GPA; not the best 90. I think I've heard that maybe some Canadian schools look at best 90, but not U.S.

[zhenders]

Yeah, that's just patently false; she can "be in contact" all she wants, but you should stop listening to her now. If she doesn't even know how the LSAC calculates your ugpa, I wouldn't trust anything she says. Every undergrad credit you have -- it doesn't matter if you've attended 9 different schools and have 450 credit hours -- goes into the calculation.

Look for an LSAC gpa calculator; others can probably point you to one.

In fairness, she may be referring to the idea that when analyzing a bad gpa, schools will be somewhat more understanding if you bombed your freshman year vs. your senior year -- but that has nothing to do with your LSAC ugpa, which is the actually important thing.


ETA: just think about the idiotic logic of what she told you. By that logic, there would be NO distinction between a 3.75 gpa and a 4.0 -- because if you're only looking at the best 90 credits (out of a standard 120-130), both cases would be all As.

That advisor should literally fire herself.

[divergence]

I spoke with a school academic advisor today and she told me American law schools generally look at the best 90 credits. However, based on what I've learned from this forum I knew that was wrong so I told her that I wish that were true but that's not how it works in the states.

And then she got upset and told me she's in contact with people from LSAC and that I was wrong.

My understanding was that all prospective law school applicants are supposed to submit their grades to LSAC and law schools take GPAs calculated by LSAC at face value.

In other words, American law schools don't use the "best 90 credits" to calculate students' GPA (as my advisor claims), right?

For better or worse, they calculate your entire cumulative GPA; not the best 90. I think I've heard that maybe some Canadian schools look at best 90, but not U.S.

Yeah. Some Canadian law schools only look at your B2 GPA or let you drop your lowest 15 credits or something. I told my advisor that it's not like that in the States but she wouldn't listen! It's amazing how certain people can be so obstinate about things they don't even know for sure!

[divergence]

Yeah, that's just patently false; she can "be in contact" all she wants, but you should stop listening to her now. If she doesn't even know how the LSAC calculates your ugpa, I wouldn't trust anything she says. Every undergrad credit you have -- it doesn't matter if you've attended 9 different schools and have 450 credit hours -- goes into the calculation.

Look for an LSAC gpa calculator; others can probably point you to one.

In fairness, she may be referring to the idea that when analyzing a bad gpa, schools will be somewhat more understanding if you bombed your freshman year vs. your senior year -- but that has nothing to do with your LSAC ugpa, which is the actually important thing.


ETA: just think about the idiotic logic of what she told you. By that logic, there would be NO distinction between a 3.75 gpa and a 4.0 -- because if you're only looking at the best 90 credits (out of a standard 120-130), both cases would be all As.

That advisor should literally fire herself.

It's good to know that I wasn't wrong. She was so stubborn that she almost made me believe she was right.

[flowering]

.

[seashell.economy]

So many undergrad academic advisers and pre-law advisers have outdated-or just straight up wrong-information.

[ihenry]

90 credits of A and 30 credits of A- (3.7) gives you 3.925. That is saying a 3.925 when taking all courses into account could be equivalent to 4.0 when counting top 90 credits. Actual numbers may vary because you may get more A's or some B's. And it says nothing about 3.925 for highest 90 credits because that's a different frame of comparison.