Just curious, has anyone ever gotten a 4.0 at UChicago? Also, I want to attend a HYS law school after college and based off many forums, the average GPA at UChicago is way lower than the median gpa’s at the HYS schools. Do they take undergrad difficulty into account?
Not sure, but according to their 2015-Outcomes report, 85% of those who applied to top 14 law schools were accepted, and 66 were accepted to H/Y/Col/S/Ch/NYU (page 5)
I’m sure some people do but if it is going to stress you out trying to keep a 4.0 you would be happier at another school.
Why so much concern a 4.0, will 3.95 put you into a big disadvantage even if you can make it? I don’t think so. If you like the school and are willing to learn, go for it. College is for students to learn some thing that is wanted in the society, you do not have to be perfect to survive. As matter of fact, Gates and Jobs had failed to complete the college yet they are still very successful.
Our son had no problem getting into one of those higher ranked schools for graduate studies. His GPA was far from perfect but he had near perfect GRE score. I feel that research work he did during summer breaks helped him as well.
There does seem to be some debate on this on CC. Some people chime in that where you go to undergrad makes no difference to law schools as they look heavily on the GPA and LSAT. Others say get work experience then apply. Still others cite some stats that appear to weigh the undergrad institution heavily in admissions to top law schoools.
I really have no advise here other than if it’s going to stress you out, it may be better to go elsewhere. I think that even for undergrads at UChicago who may want to go to grad or law school, the experience at UChicago is worth the risk.
My D is also interested in law school as are some of her friends. But I don’t think anyone is mired in angst about the decision to come to UChicago.
UChicago is really really hard and it will ding your GPA. I can’t know for sure that all law schools will take this into account but for some they might.
First apply and see if you get in. No sense worrying if it is for non. Good luck!
From my observation of my DD and her friends, I don’t think UChicago is super difficult. You just don’t expect a perfect GPA in college, like in HS and it is perfectly ok. You want to work hard, do your best, but just cannot expect 100% GPA from any school.
Do not count on it.
First year I thought things were okay. Hard, yes, but okay, and I was taking very hard classes. I would have told you a perfect GPA is pretty much not feasible for nearly everyone. Looking around me, some people thought things were fine, most people thought school was hard but manageable, and a few people were really struggling.
Somehow, second year is harder. Now think it’s impossible without very very careful management of which classes you’re taking. Even people who pulled off near a 4.0 with relatively little effort their first year are nowhere near that.
So unless you are a genius by UChicago standards (you can only really know this if you go to a competitive affluent magnet/prep school and are off the charts there), forget about it. It isn’t going to happen.
I don’t think you can know that even if you went to a competitive affluent magnet/prep school and were off the charts. Depending on what courses you take, college at UChicago can be a lot like PhD programs elsewhere in that there’s a shift from asking/expecting you to be an excellent student to asking/expecting you to be a creative/insightful/flexible/ambitious/independent/self-critical thinker. And these two skill-sets (or orientations) are somewhat different.
The top Law Schools definitely care about the rigor of your undergraduate school and take the school’s difficulty and grade inflation (or deflation) into account when assessing what your GPA means. They have an “Academic Summary” of each college that tells them all of those figures.
Here’s a blog post by the former dean of admissions at UChicago Law School discussing this.
If you don’t want to read it, just be aware that having a somewhat lower GPA from UChicago will not hurt your chances at all. However, you still need to have done well vis a vis the other students at UChicago.