Top Law Schools

Good day everyone!

I have a specific concern, and I hope other members who have previously applied to law schools will be able to tell me about siilar situations and help me out.

Here are my numbers:

168 GPA
4.08 gpa out of 4.33 (roughly equals a 3.79 in the 4.0 American system).

During the last year of my undergrad degree, I experiences sickness (during the Fall : mono + burnout) and the sudden death of my father (during Spring). I have two medical notes attesting of these circumstances.

Overall, I know I still have a very good GPA, but because of those circumstances that happened during my last year, I got a couple of "bad" grades (A-s and B+s during the Fall and one C+ during Spring - a stupid teacher who refused to postpone my exam who was scheduled one day after the burial. uh). Anyways.

I am applying to UCLA, U. of Miami, Harvard and Stanford.

I have submitted addendums to all of the law schools to which I am attending and included the medical notes in my application.

I know that with these numbers, I can get in UCLA and U. of Miami easily. However, my numbers put me in either waitlist or not very strong applicants for Stanford and Harvard. But I am pretty sure that if those circumstances wouldn't have happened, my GPA would have been something like 4.20 out of 4.3 (about a 3.90)

How do you think top law schools like Stanford and Harvard will take into consideration my circumstances? If you would have any relevant experience you would wish to share with me, I would greatly appreciate!

your lsat is the problem buddy not your gpa

Unless you're a URM it's your lsat that will hurt you. If you could retake and do better I would think Stanford at least would consider looking past your gpa. Harvard is more strict but it's possible.

Also, sorry to hear about your father and that unbelievably douchey prof.

Don't schools not give a fuck about non-US GPAs?

YourCaptain wrote:your lsat is the problem buddy not your gpa

completely true. i don't want to sound unsympathetic, but no good will come from using it as an excuse/reason. writing excuses for your 4.08 gpa is like writing an addendum for a 175 LSAT. if will come off in the wrong way. no matter what the reason is, it will come off as extremely neurotic and weird.

mountaintime wrote:

YourCaptain wrote:your lsat is the problem buddy not your gpa

completely true. i don't want to sound unsympathetic, but no good will come from using it as an excuse/reason. writing excuses for your 4.08 gpa is like writing an addendum for a 175 LSAT. if will come off in the wrong way. no matter what the reason is, it will come off as extremely neurotic and weird.

Oh ok! Well I wrote the addendum because the general trend of my GPA was downward and I thought it looked bad, even if overall I have a good GPA... Anyways, I guess worst case scenario they'll just say that my addendum + medical note does not change much their opinion of my GPA because they already had a good opinion of it or something.

Yes I realize my LSAT is a little bit low for Stanford/Harvard... I figured that if I got it with my numbers, I would be in the lowest they would accept (somewhere between 0 - 20 percentile). Anyways, I guess we'll see what happens soon!

paratactical wrote:Don't schools not give a fuck about non-US GPAs?

I don't know for Europe/Asia/etc but mine is from Canada and ever since our University and GPA system is pretty similar, I'm pretty sure they'll consider it the same way as a US one!