Top Law Schools

So I have a 3.1 GPA, which is definitely low for my top choice law schools I'm applying to. All of them are in the 3.4-3.6 median range. I think I will be fine LSAT wise for these schools, but I'm definitely worried about my GPA. However, the 3.1 is really misleading because of how drastically I improved my grades my last four semesters of college compared to the first four. So my question is this, will law schools who want higher GPA's give me the benefit of the doubt since I averaged about a 3.5 the last four semesters or does that not really matter? Has anyone been in a similar situation? I'm particularly interested in hearing from people that applied to the NYC schools: Fordham, Cardozo, Brooklyn, ect... Also, I was a music major in undergrad and I know a lot of people see it as a "soft" major (believe me it's not). Does anyone know if law schools weigh certain majors more then others? Thanks!

lawyered! wrote:So I have a 3.1 GPA, which is definitely low for my top choice law schools I'm applying to. All of them are in the 3.4-3.6 median range. I think I will be fine LSAT wise for these schools, but I'm definitely worried about my GPA. However, the 3.1 is really misleading because of how drastically I improved my grades my last four semesters of college compared to the first four. So my question is this, will law schools who want higher GPA's give me the benefit of the doubt since I averaged about a 3.5 the last four semesters or does that not really matter? Has anyone been in a similar situation? I'm particularly interested in hearing from people that applied to the NYC schools: Fordham, Cardozo, Brooklyn, ect... Also, I was a music major in undergrad and I know a lot of people see it as a "soft" major (believe me it's not). Does anyone know if law schools weigh certain majors more then others? Thanks!

While upward grade trending and tougher major are good, 1) Your GPA will still be a 3.1, which is what goes into the USNWR rankings, and 2) schools you apply to may not know music is a difficult major, and even if they did, you still have a 3.1. These soft factors may help you nominally against people with similar numbers as you, but they don't have as much of an impact as you would like. You're gonna have to live with this 3.1. You have a couple of options: 1) Work for a bit to distance yourself from your GPA. It sounds like you want to go to law school in the fall of 2011, so this may not be an option, or 2) destroy the LSAT, or at least try to get a score higher than these schools' medians, preferably above their 75%tiles. This will give you a much better better shot.

Good luck; it's not impossible.

A 3.1 music major? I've read grade inflation articles about several top universities, all of which give the most inflated GPAs to music majors (Northwestern's average is 3.9!). It must hurt you even more if your university goes against this trend.