GPA boost for good schools? Forum

[liammial]

delete

[Tiago Splitter]

Get your applications ready now and do a little LSAT prep to stay fresh. If your score comes in below 170, retake in December. An extra point on the LSAT is worth far more than an earlier application, so don't worry about being late.

[Void]

Hi,
I just took the Oct LSAT and it went relatively poorly. Whereas I was testing in the 169-173 range, I think I scored somewhere around 167...
I have a 3.9 from Penn and nothing else in my application that is very special. (Also, what is a 3.9 from an Ivy weighted as, approximately? I'd imagine it's comparative to a 4.0+ from another school.)
I'd love to go to Columbia, NYU, or Chicago, but if I get a 166, for instance, am I just totally dead? In that case I'd want to retake, but I've read that it's significantly harder if you apply late. What to do? And what score should I hope for if I wanted to get into the other top 14 schools (I assume YHS are out)?

Thanks

Penn's an Ivy? I thought they just had a good football program. Maybe if you had a 3.9 and you played D1 ball, you'd have a shot.

Seriously though, your 3.9 is a 3.9. Great GPA but where you earned it is not heavily weighted.

[pupshaw]

Lol at a .1+ GPA bump coming from Penn.

[indo]

Lol at a .1+ GPA bump coming from Penn.

I thought all Ivy schools grade are inflated .

[midwest17]

(Also, what is a 3.9 from an Ivy weighted as, approximately? I'd imagine it's comparative to a 4.0+ from another school.)

Troll.

[tachikara]

My personal take is that late apps will affect scholarship numbers more so than admit chances. 3.9 is competitive anywhere grade-wise, and 170+ will start putting you in contention for YHS.

[liammial]

(Also, what is a 3.9 from an Ivy weighted as, approximately? I'd imagine it's comparative to a 4.0+ from another school.)

Troll.

No. In fact, I think you may be a troll. If you look at the hard numbers from an Ivy or other good school, you'll see that their students in general, by GPA, are wildly more successful at gaining acceptance to a given law school than that law school's numbers would suggest. At Penn you can see the GPA/LSAT breakdown of acceptances/rejections/matriculations at various law schools, and there appears to be a very significant boost given to GPA from a good school. For example, people applying from Penn with a 3.9 and a 166+ got into Penn Law School 100% of the time. That is, not a single one got rejected. Penn undergrads with a 3.9 and 168+ got into Columbia 100% of the time. Is that convincing enough?

[A. Nony Mouse]

But those are excellent GPAs that don't need a boost. 3.9 is pretty close to, for example, Penn's 75th percentile. Your evidence suggests that those schools favor high GPAs, not that going to an excellent UG got those applicants in. No one has ever said you need to have a 4.0 to get into Penn or Columbia.

There is some evidence that a few elite schools do give some boost, but I think "wildly more successful" and "very significant boost" are overstatements.

[midwest17]

(Also, what is a 3.9 from an Ivy weighted as, approximately? I'd imagine it's comparative to a 4.0+ from another school.)

Troll.

No. In fact, I think you may be a troll. If you look at the hard numbers from an Ivy or other good school, you'll see that their students in general, by GPA, are wildly more successful at gaining acceptance to a given law school than that law school's numbers would suggest. At Penn you can see the GPA/LSAT breakdown of acceptances/rejections/matriculations at various law schools, and there appears to be a very significant boost given to GPA from a good school. For example, people applying from Penn with a 3.9 and a 166+ got into Penn Law School 100% of the time. That is, not a single one got rejected. Penn undergrads with a 3.9 and 168+ got into Columbia 100% of the time. Is that convincing enough?

Nice necro.

Also, [citation needed]

[liammial]

No one has ever said you need to have a 4.0 to get into Penn or Columbia.

But people probably would say that you need a 4.0 to get into Penn or Columbia with a 166/168.

Nice necro.
Also, [citation needed]

A book in the Penn Law office...

[midwest17]

Nice necro.
Also, [citation needed]

A book in the Penn Law office...

Sounds legit.

[Tiago Splitter]

No one has ever said you need to have a 4.0 to get into Penn or Columbia.

But people probably would say that you need a 4.0 to get into Penn or Columbia with a 166/168.

You said 166+ and 168+, which would seem to include all the LSAT scores up to 180.

Even if we look only at 166-167 at Penn no one is saying what you think they're saying:



Columbia looks worse but how many of the people you are referring to were sub-170? Again, you said 168+ and 3.9+, which includes a lot of people with phenomenal numbers. I do think there is probably a small boost but 3.9+ puts you above the median GPA at every school in the country and in this era of desperate law schools will do a lot of good regardless of LSAT score. By the way what did you end up scoring?

[PepperJack]

I think the topic is debatable at that range. If a school's median is a 3.8, A has a 3.9 from Harvard and B has a 4.0 from a TTTT and they have identical LSAT scores -> some schools may take A over B. They are both above a median, and the Harvard may be better equipped for the challenges and curve of law school. Anecdotal, but I'm familiar with a few T-14s, and a disproportionate amount of the Harvard, Yale and Princeton crowd graded onto law review. The undergrad prestige also helps with OCI so raises the candidate's chance (however slightly) of boosting the big law/fed clerkship #'s. If they're both over the 75th percentile, I think there is a GPA boost. I agree there's no boost for below median GPA's.

[midwest17]

I think the topic is debatable at that range. If a school's median is a 3.8, A has a 3.9 from Harvard and B has a 4.0 from a TTTT and they have identical LSAT scores -> some schools may take A over B. They are both above a median, and the Harvard may be better equipped for the challenges and curve of law school. Anecdotal, but I'm familiar with a few T-14s, and a disproportionate amount of the Harvard, Yale and Princeton crowd graded onto law review. The undergrad prestige also helps with OCI so raises the candidate's chance (however slightly) of boosting the big law/fed clerkship #'s. If they're both over the 75th percentile, I think there is a GPA boost. I agree there's no boost for below median GPA's.

Maybe, but it'd be pretty dumb, given how close that 3.9 from Harvard is getting to Harvard's ugrad median...

[jbagelboy]

No one has ever said you need to have a 4.0 to get into Penn or Columbia.

But people probably would say that you need a 4.0 to get into Penn or Columbia with a 166/168.

You said 166+ and 168+, which would seem to include all the LSAT scores up to 180.

Even if we look only at 166-167 at Penn no one is saying what you think they're saying:



Columbia looks worse but how many of the people you are referring to were sub-170? Again, you said 168+ and 3.9+, which includes a lot of people with phenomenal numbers. I do think there is probably a small boost but 3.9+ puts you above the median GPA at every school in the country and in this era of desperate law schools will do a lot of good regardless of LSAT score. By the way what did you end up scoring?

TLS loves to beat this dead horse, huh.

I actually by that Penn (because its their own undergrads), Columbia, and Harvard may just be slightly more prone to accept a Penn (or other top UG) 3.9+/below median LSAT student than another applicant with similar numbers from a less comparable school. In fact, I'm more prone to by the argument that just below median GPAs/just below median LSATs receive the only real boost here. This isn't a golden rule by any stretch - adcoms look at a whole host of softs other than where someone went to college. Still, there is compelling evidence that for below median applicants just at these schools, Ivy or Ivy-level makes a difference.

Take a look at CLS last cycle on LSN. Nearly every non-URM applicant "around the edges" of the medians, that is, below either gpa or LSAT median or both, went to a top UG. As a sampling:
http://lawschoolnumbers.com/blergblergblerg http://lawschoolnumbers.com/Dun http://lawschoolnumbers.com/gogetit http://lawschoolnumbers.com/mb123 http://lawschoolnumbers.com/naboma http://lawschoolnumbers.com/amsong http://lawschoolnumbers.com/splitter87 http://lawschoolnumbers.com/WNationals27 http://lawschoolnumbers.com/LawGirl56 http://lawschoolnumbers.com/vengefulscientist http://lawschoolnumbers.com/klmhs1204

you can go through yourself and look at the graph and these profiles if you don't trust me, I don't really care. Obviously aside from URM's, applicants from top schools as a class of admits are the largest and closest outliers (from the 3.7+/171+ box).

Still, OP, by the basic logic of medians, your 3.9 is a 3.9.. it's a great GPA and you'll go far on it, but TCR here is retake, not rely on your largely negligible (or maybe just a little relevant at a few schools) pedigree boost.

[liammial]

dlt

[midwest17]

No. In fact, I think you may be a troll. If you look at the hard numbers from an Ivy or other good school, you'll see that their students in general, by GPA, are wildly more successful at gaining acceptance to a given law school than that law school's numbers would suggest. At Penn you can see the GPA/LSAT breakdown of acceptances/rejections/matriculations at various law schools, and there appears to be a very significant boost given to GPA from a good school. For example, people applying from Penn with a 3.9 and a 166+ got into Penn Law School 100% of the time. That is, not a single one got rejected. Penn undergrads with a 3.9 and 168+ got into Columbia 100% of the time. Is that convincing enough?

Ok, so let's assume that this is accurate, and let's look at the Columbia data (because favoring students from your own school is a separate issue).

First of all, getting into Columbia with a 3.9/168 isn't crazy. That's a 75/25 reverse-splitter, so the GPA might carry the low LSAT even without an "Ivy" boost. Per myLSN, a lot of people with 3.9/168-169 got waitlisted; very few got outright denied. (We don't have info on their final outcomes).

Also, how many data points did this book have? And how did it gather its data? Self-reported, or did it have every single Penn undergrad who applied to law school?

Basically, the data that's publicly available suggests that there's basically no benefit to having a prestigious undergraduate degree. I'm going to accept that over some mysterious private book in some random Penn office.

Also, my initial reaction was mostly driven by the idea in your original post that the benefit would go to "Ivy league" schools and not go to anywhere else. If admissions committees were going to weigh different GPAs differently, they would be smarter about it than that: bumps for people who went to MIT and Cal Tech, for instance, and a negative bonus for people who went to Harvard.

Anyways, my guess is that any observed benefit of undergrad prestige would go away if we had a good way to control for quality of softs. People at Ivy Leagues have a better shot at getting good internships, etc.

[liammial]

No. In fact, I think you may be a troll. If you look at the hard numbers from an Ivy or other good school, you'll see that their students in general, by GPA, are wildly more successful at gaining acceptance to a given law school than that law school's numbers would suggest. At Penn you can see the GPA/LSAT breakdown of acceptances/rejections/matriculations at various law schools, and there appears to be a very significant boost given to GPA from a good school. For example, people applying from Penn with a 3.9 and a 166+ got into Penn Law School 100% of the time. That is, not a single one got rejected. Penn undergrads with a 3.9 and 168+ got into Columbia 100% of the time. Is that convincing enough?

Ok, so let's assume that this is accurate, and let's look at the Columbia data (because favoring students from your own school is a separate issue).

First of all, getting into Columbia with a 3.9/168 isn't crazy. That's a 75/25 reverse-splitter, so the GPA might carry the low LSAT even without an "Ivy" boost. Per myLSN, a lot of people with 3.9/168-169 got waitlisted; very few got outright denied. (We don't have info on their final outcomes).

Also, how many data points did this book have? And how did it gather its data? Self-reported, or did it have every single Penn undergrad who applied to law school?

Basically, the data that's publicly available suggests that there's basically no benefit to having a prestigious undergraduate degree. I'm going to accept that over some mysterious private book in some random Penn office.

Also, my initial reaction was mostly driven by the idea in your original post that the benefit would go to "Ivy league" schools and not go to anywhere else. If admissions committees were going to weigh different GPAs differently, they would be smarter about it than that: bumps for people who went to MIT and Cal Tech, for instance, and a negative bonus for people who went to Harvard.

Anyways, my guess is that any observed benefit of undergrad prestige would go away if we had a good way to control for quality of softs. People at Ivy Leagues have a better shot at getting good internships, etc.

Oh, obviously a 3.9 at MIT means more than a 3.9 at Harvard.

The data was of every single student at Penn who applied to law school in the previous academic year. Penn has a similar book with numbers from past years. There are many data points, but each particular data point (LSAT/GPA combo) is a small sample, yes.

What "data that's available" suggests there's no advantage?

[lawschool22]

The problem is it's very hard to separate cause and correlation. Sure, maybe in a case of two applicants with identical numbers the one from the ivy school got accepted. But there could be a host of other factors at play. Perhaps the ivy kid was more driven in general (and that's how she got into an ivy) and had better extra-curriculars. Or maybe the ivy kid leveraged the ivy education into impressive post-undgergrad work experience, and that tipped the scales. The ivy kid might have had a lower student-teacher ratio, allowing her to cultivate a closer relationship with a prof and earned a spectacular LOR.

These are just some of the things that could have happened that are independent of the mere fact that her 3.9 was from an ivy. It's also worth mentioning that any of the above could be done at a non-ivy, the point is when you only look at the school attended, none of this is visible. Each of these factors could have been what swayed the identical-numbered ivy applicant to an acceptance, and not the institution itself.

[Total Litigator]

I ended up with a 168, didn't retake because I'm super busy with school, applied a week ago, hoping it all works out. Would have retaken probably, but my advisor told me an increase of a point or two wouldn't matter. Would love you guys to let me know my chances. Ended up applying to Columbia and up, may do the Harvard app just for the hell of it. So, final stats: 3.9 from an Ivy, 168, no amazing extracurriculars. I think my personal statement was good.

And Penn/Columbia were just examples. This seems to be the case at every school I looked at (the top 14, basically). Not trying to be combative, but the guy above dismissed me as a troll when he seemed totally wrong himself. (I also remember every 3.9 with 167+ getting into UChicago, for instance.)

EDIT: And the for those who commented above, that includes quite a few people who literally got that lowest LSAT score, who you would normally assume wouldn't be getting in. So it's hard to argue the numbers don't show a boost. Although, maybe it's more of an LSAT boost, since, as others have stated, a 3.9 is already high enough. Perhaps a +2 or +3 LSAT boost is more apt.

Your advisor is wrong. The difference between a 168, a 169, and a 170 is substantial... That being said, retaking is only smart if you're sure your score would improve.

[Creditisgood]

The problem is it's very hard to separate cause and correlation. Sure, maybe in a case of two applicants with identical numbers the one from the ivy school got accepted. But there could be a host of other factors at play. Perhaps the ivy kid was more driven in general (and that's how she got into an ivy) and had better extra-curriculars. Or maybe the ivy kid leveraged the ivy education into impressive post-undgergrad work experience, and that tipped the scales. The ivy kid might have had a lower student-teacher ratio, allowing her to cultivate a closer relationship with a prof and earned a spectacular LOR.

These are just some of the things that could have happened that are independent of the mere fact that her 3.9 was from an ivy. It's also worth mentioning that any of the above could be done at a non-ivy, the point is when you only look at the school attended, none of this is visible. Each of these factors could have been what swayed the identical-numbered ivy applicant to an acceptance, and not the institution itself.

LS22:

I would like to see LS give more merit to an UG from a non Ivy or public university than a kid from an Ivy school with comparable numbers. For the same reason you mentioned: Classes are bigger, teachers, counselors are overworked. They have to knock on more doors, send more mails and network on their own because their schools do not open doors for them. They have to be efficient, independent and driving. Those are top skills that they will need in a professional environment.

[lawschool22]

The problem is it's very hard to separate cause and correlation. Sure, maybe in a case of two applicants with identical numbers the one from the ivy school got accepted. But there could be a host of other factors at play. Perhaps the ivy kid was more driven in general (and that's how she got into an ivy) and had better extra-curriculars. Or maybe the ivy kid leveraged the ivy education into impressive post-undgergrad work experience, and that tipped the scales. The ivy kid might have had a lower student-teacher ratio, allowing her to cultivate a closer relationship with a prof and earned a spectacular LOR.

These are just some of the things that could have happened that are independent of the mere fact that her 3.9 was from an ivy. It's also worth mentioning that any of the above could be done at a non-ivy, the point is when you only look at the school attended, none of this is visible. Each of these factors could have been what swayed the identical-numbered ivy applicant to an acceptance, and not the institution itself.

LS22:

I would like to see LS give more merit to an UG from a non Ivy or public university than a kid from an Ivy school with comparable numbers. For the same reason you mentioned: Classes are bigger, teachers, counselors are overworked. They have to knock on more doors, send more mails and network on their own because their schools do not open doors for them. They have to be efficient, independent and driving. Those are top skills that they will need in a professional environment.

There are some definite points to be made by that argument. I think this probably illustrates the point well. Where you went to UG doesn't make a lick of difference. No matter who you are or where you end up, it is what you do with the circumstances that you are in that speaks to your character and ethic. That is why I do not think (and haven't seen evidence to the contrary) that admissions offices give much weight in either direction to UG. It just isn't that predictive on its own, when you control for all other variables (which is nearly impossible to do). You can have superstars come from any UG.

[KD35]

Saw this as partially relevant...

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2013/ ... traE.email

[lawschool22]

Saw this as partially relevant...

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2013/ ... traE.email

Very interesting.