GPA decline addendum Forum

[hotdoglaw]

I first majored in computer science and, after a year, dropped it. My gpa was 2.85. I switched to an English major and my gpa for the next year was a 3.88. My lsac gpa is 3.44. I wrote an addendum basically saying I switched majors because I wasn't passionate about computer science, but found a new passion in English, etc. Is this a compelling reason? Will law schools look at me as 3.44 (strictly numerical) or will they consider my latter gpa as more indicative of my abilities? Or is it just sort of a gamble?

[hotdoglaw]

Is there anybody out there?

[Kiersten1985]

you really gave this 5 minutes?

[hotdoglaw]

you really gave this 5 minutes?

Technically less than 1 minutes

[T14_Scholly]

Law schools give strong consideration to upward grade trends, and for all intents and purposes will view your undergraduate GPA as a 3.88.

[hotdoglaw]

Law schools give strong consideration to upward grade trends, and for all intents and purposes will view your undergraduate GPA as a 3.88.

I hope that you're right.

[hotdoglaw]

Does anyone else have any experience with this?

[09042014]

Law schools give strong consideration to upward grade trends, and for all intents and purposes will view your undergraduate GPA as a 3.88.

I hope that you're right.

He is fucking with you. You've got a 3.44. Switching into an easier major isn't going win them over.

The only GPA excuse that I've seen work(were she placed above her LSAC GPA) was a girl on LSN who had her parents be killed during one year.

[hotdoglaw]

Law schools give strong consideration to upward grade trends, and for all intents and purposes will view your undergraduate GPA as a 3.88.

I hope that you're right.

He is fucking with you. You've got a 3.44. Switching into an easier major isn't going win them over.

The only GPA excuse that I've seen work(were she placed above her LSAC GPA) was a girl on LSN who had her parents be killed during one year.

Point taken. Though I disagree that English is an easier major.

[hotdoglaw]

Law schools give strong consideration to upward grade trends, and for all intents and purposes will view your undergraduate GPA as a 3.88.

I hope that you're right.

He is fucking with you. You've got a 3.44. Switching into an easier major isn't going win them over.

The only GPA excuse that I've seen work(were she placed above her LSAC GPA) was a girl on LSN who had her parents be killed during one year.

So basically my parents beings still alive is what is holding me back? Those bastards....

[09042014]

Law schools give strong consideration to upward grade trends, and for all intents and purposes will view your undergraduate GPA as a 3.88.

I hope that you're right.

He is fucking with you. You've got a 3.44. Switching into an easier major isn't going win them over.

The only GPA excuse that I've seen work(were she placed above her LSAC GPA) was a girl on LSN who had her parents be killed during one year.

So basically my parents beings still alive is what is holding me back? Those bastards....

I know right?

[IAFG]

Though I disagree that English is an easier major.

lol

[hotdoglaw]

Law schools give strong consideration to upward grade trends, and for all intents and purposes will view your undergraduate GPA as a 3.88.

I hope that you're right.

He is fucking with you. You've got a 3.44. Switching into an easier major isn't going win them over.

The only GPA excuse that I've seen work(were she placed above her LSAC GPA) was a girl on LSN who had her parents be killed during one year.

So claims like:
[We take into consideration] the pattern of your academic performance. For example, a poor start in college may be offset by substantially improved academic performance.
are generally not followed through with?

[Unitas]

Law schools give strong consideration to upward grade trends, and for all intents and purposes will view your undergraduate GPA as a 3.88.

I hope that you're right.

He is fucking with you. You've got a 3.44. Switching into an easier major isn't going win them over.

The only GPA excuse that I've seen work(were she placed above her LSAC GPA) was a girl on LSN who had her parents be killed during one year.

So claims like:
[We take into consideration] the pattern of your academic performance. For example, a poor start in college may be offset by substantially improved academic performance.
are generally not followed through with?

Nope, they don't care. Your GPA trend doesn't increase a school's ratings at all.

[09042014]

Law schools give strong consideration to upward grade trends, and for all intents and purposes will view your undergraduate GPA as a 3.88.

I hope that you're right.

He is fucking with you. You've got a 3.44. Switching into an easier major isn't going win them over.

The only GPA excuse that I've seen work(were she placed above her LSAC GPA) was a girl on LSN who had her parents be killed during one year.

So claims like:
[We take into consideration] the pattern of your academic performance. For example, a poor start in college may be offset by substantially improved academic performance.
are generally not followed through with?

No they aren't followed through with. If you have an LSAT above their median it will be a soft factor.

[T14_Scholly]

If you have an LSAT above their median it will be a soft factor.

Speculation-stated-as-a-certainty alert.

[hotdoglaw]

Though I disagree that English is an easier major.

lol

To combat grade inflation at my University, 20% of English majors in any given course earn an A to A-, 60% earn a B+ to B- and 20% earn below. Computer science majors on the other hand have no such requirements. So I don't think it is really easier; consistently staying in the top 20% is not a piece of cake.

[foxyeconomist]

My best guess - as a fellow applicant who started with a low GPA and had a 4.0 for the last two years - is that if your LSDAS GPA is not too low to be written off entirely by a school, they will consider that your grades improved. If I were you, I would have attached an addendum about why your GPA improved, other than switching majors. Because - even if it's not - your grades could make it look like English was simply an easier major.

[hotdoglaw]

My best guess - as a fellow applicant who started with a low GPA and had a 4.0 for the last two years - is that if your LSDAS GPA is not too low to be written off entirely by a school, they will consider that your grades improved. If I were you, I would have attached an addendum about why your GPA improved, other than switching majors. Because - even if it's not - your grades could make it look like English was simply an easier major.

Usually the rhetoric is that major doesn't matter, rather grades do. I would have thought that a writing/reading intensive major would be a plus.

[Unitas]

My best guess - as a fellow applicant who started with a low GPA and had a 4.0 for the last two years - is that if your LSDAS GPA is not too low to be written off entirely by a school, they will consider that your grades improved. If I were you, I would have attached an addendum about why your GPA improved, other than switching majors. Because - even if it's not - your grades could make it look like English was simply an easier major.

Usually the rhetoric is that major doesn't matter, rather grades do. I would have thought that a writing/reading intensive major would be a plus.

Nah, you went from an objective major to a subjective major. Now all you had to do was make friends with professors instead of learning material.

I am not trying to say this mean or knock English majors at all. I just hate English classes.

[hotdoglaw]

My best guess - as a fellow applicant who started with a low GPA and had a 4.0 for the last two years - is that if your LSDAS GPA is not too low to be written off entirely by a school, they will consider that your grades improved. If I were you, I would have attached an addendum about why your GPA improved, other than switching majors. Because - even if it's not - your grades could make it look like English was simply an easier major.

Usually the rhetoric is that major doesn't matter, rather grades do. I would have thought that a writing/reading intensive major would be a plus.

Nah, you went from an objective major to a subjective major. Now all you had to do was make friends with professors instead of learning material.

I am not trying to say this mean or knock English majors at all. I just hate English classes.

Or, rather than regurgitate objective, reproducible material, an English major must present new material in an articulate and thoughtful fashion; learning to write well is far more difficult than learning java script. This is why there are text books on java programming, but not on how to write well (at least in any significant sense).

Also, you don't just buddy up with a professor. There is a curve and, although lots of people do assignments well, only a small number of students receive As. I think this is why a lot of people claim favoritism/buddying-up with professors; because it is an easy way to account for having written a good paper and not receiving an A on it versus computer science where the same demonstration of understanding would have earned such a grade.

[Unitas]

My best guess - as a fellow applicant who started with a low GPA and had a 4.0 for the last two years - is that if your LSDAS GPA is not too low to be written off entirely by a school, they will consider that your grades improved. If I were you, I would have attached an addendum about why your GPA improved, other than switching majors. Because - even if it's not - your grades could make it look like English was simply an easier major.

Usually the rhetoric is that major doesn't matter, rather grades do. I would have thought that a writing/reading intensive major would be a plus.

Nah, you went from an objective major to a subjective major. Now all you had to do was make friends with professors instead of learning material.

I am not trying to say this mean or knock English majors at all. I just hate English classes.

Or, rather than regurgitate objective, reproducible material, an English major must present new material in an articulate and thoughtful fashion; learning to write well is far more difficult than learning java script. This is why there are text books on java programming, but not on how to write well (at least in any significant sense).

Also, you don't just buddy up with a professor. There is a curve and, although lots of people do assignments well, only a small number of students receive As. I think this is why a lot of people claim favoritism/buddying-up with professors; because it is an easy way to account for having written a good paper and not receiving an A on it versus computer science where the same demonstration of understanding would have earned such a grade.

Uh you in fact proved my point, a lot of people do assignments well probably equally well. Only certain people receive A's. Meaning teachers base grades to some degree on how much they like students. I am an econ major where we have to write well, defend whatever position we take - several sides are usually right depending on how you look at it-, and people are graded on how well they do that. you can look at various students grades and see why they did worse than another students. With english you can't do that.

I should note I've never gotten below an A in any English class. I will also say that a lot of my papers were no better than the B students. It was just my ideas were better to the teacher, but the actual paper didn't differ much.

Also, if you want to talk about OP pm me.

[r6_philly]

Point taken. Though I disagree that English is an easier major.

It is apparently easier than computer science.

[r6_philly]

before I appear to be an ass I want to qualify that it is good that you switched into something you can excel at, it is a good quality to not beat a dead horse. But it has to be easier for you because you did better. Unless you just didn't really apply yourself at CS but then it wouldn't be something you want to tell law school (that you didn't care). So it would be better if you just tell (if you want to send an addendum anyway) that you found that CS is not for you, you were trying hard but failing, switched to English which is what you really like and can excel at, yada yada... But still if you fail CS, it is tough to explain, because if you tried hard then it means you are bad at strict logic. If you didn't try then ... I said that already.

[maudlinstreet]

Also not to beat a horse to death, but...

I majored in both English and math, and I'd like to think I was pretty decent at both of them. That being said, majoring in English was SO much easier than majoring in something like math. Higher level math classes (and I assume computer science classes) take so much time and effort, unless you're a complete genius. I would just write my essays the night before for English class and get A's on them, and I went to a reputable school so it's not like my classmates were a joke or anything. For those who haven't experienced something like Real Analysis or Partial Differential Equations, it's pretty hard to understand just how complicated and difficult some of this stuff can be.

The thing about English class is that if you go to class, you don't even really need to read the books you're assigned - I would just sort of skim the passage I was writing about, bang out an essay using what I remembered from class, and receive an A or A-. If I had tried that in math, I would have gotten a straight D. I don't agree that you need some "great analytical mind" in order to write English papers - you simply have to come up with a couple of interesting ideas or regurgitate what was said in class in a provocative way.

Edit: I think it's a good idea for you to write an addendum. I'm not sure it'll make a huge difference in your cycle, but an explanation for the massive shift in your GPA as well as your change in major is probably a good idea. I think it'll be a decent "soft" to your 3.44.