<p>I wanted to get your opinion....</p>
<p>I have 3.6 gpa, but only scored a 146 on the lsat. Do you think I have any chance of getting into law school?</p>
<p>Ricz - I disagree, at least from the undergrad standpoint. In my undergrad/grad courses, the "failing" grade for grad students was anything less than a B-. Does that mean that the professor only gives out As and Bs? NO!!! The professors usually give out the same mix of 1/2 As/Bs and 1/2 C+s and below. The problem is that the grad students are often taking only that one course, and they have plenty of time to study and do well. What ends up happening is that the grads get the As and Bs, and the undergrads get mostly Cs and Ds, with a few of them getting better grades. </p>
<p>Example: let's say you have 10 grad students and 24 undergrads (which is a pretty accurate ratio). The professor will make the median a B-/C+, so 17 students will get As and Bs. Of those 17 students, 10 are grad students - almost always. Therefore, 7 undergrads break a C+, and the remaining 17 get a C+ or below. </p>
<p>That was just my experience, but I can't imagine that it is too unusual, at least for the sciences (which grade on a curve).</p>
<p>harasgnib: depends entirely on what your undergrad school is and which law schools you want to go to. Regardless, I would really suggest re-taking the LSAT, because that score will put you in the bottom 25% of almost every school in the country.</p>
<p>ariesathena - it's not a matter of who studies more and who can get a higher grade. Graduate students earn either an A, B or C - that's it at most schools. A "C" grade is the same as a "D" grade for an undergrad - barely passing. Undergraduates on the other hand can earn an A, B, C, D or F. So you cannot combine the gpa's of both undergrads and grads and use it as a reflection on the undergraduate gpa of an institution. That's my point.</p>
<p>My point is that grad courses don't necessarily have grade inflation. In my above example, the overall GPA of that class - a 2.5 - is the same overall GPA that you get in other courses. The overall GPA of the undergrads is about a 2.0, which is much lower than other courses. I guess I missed the part where a 2.5 median is grade inflation.... It's not like the undergrads get graded separately and still get their 2.5 median, so then undergrad median = 2.5, grad median = 3.4 or whatever, and overall median might be a 2.9 - no, undergrads get nailed with Cs and Ds, and the grad students, for the most part, get As and Bs. </p>
<p>Your point was that "any school's grad courses are slightly inflated compared to those at the undergraduate level?" It's simply not true of every school. Some professors, knowing that their grads must get As and Bs, only give out those grades. Others use the above method, which gives the same median in that course as in other courses. Not grade inflation in the latter case, and it does happen.</p>
<p>I'll make it simple...you cannot (as sakky has done) use an undergraduate point average for Stanford when you include grades earned by graduate students. It doesn't matter what professors feel they need to give to their students regarding grades. What matters is that there are five possible grades an undergraduate can earn and three that a graduate student can earn - you cannot combine all the earned grades and state it is a reflection of the undergraduate gpa.</p>
<p>Ricz: You have missed the point. We are not talking about graduate students applying to law school, but undergraduates who have taken graduate courses.</p>
<p>Eric, you need to go back and read sakky's posts and I'm afraid you have missed the point. The bottom line is that sakky claimed that Stanford law school applicants have higher gpa's than Berkeley applicants. I asked him to provide statistics and he used a university-wide document regarding Stanford student gpa's which included both undergraduate and graduate student gpa's. Obviously much of the data used may include graduate students that do not take undergraduate courses so you cannot include that data as an undergradaute gpa.</p>
<p>regarding the BERKELEY vs YALE thing..</p>
<p>so i go to an institution at a similar level of berkeley (ucla)... would it be misleading to think that if i fell into the average GPA and LSAT for the elite law schools that i'd have a chance of getting in? are these average spots "reserved" for ivy league students? do i have to earn the 75th percentile GPA and LSAT to even stand a chance of getting into the elite law schools because i come from UCLA and not an ivy?</p>
<p>I personally view UCLA in higher regard than most ivies. I feel students work a lot harder and often face a curve that is sometimes absent at the ivies. Again, kfc, this is my opinion and I'm certain the likes of sakky and the engineer law student will have something else to say. When I see a student with a 3.5 from an ivy or maybe an Emory, USC or whatever I am not nearly as impressed as I am with the student from Michigan, Berkeley, UCLA with the same gpa.</p>
<p>UCLA is not on the same level as Berkeley, at least regarding law school admissions. (For things like medical school...well, that's something else.) As sakky has shown before, look at the amount of UCLA graduates at UCLA Law School - UCLA is being beaten on its own turf by Berkeley and Stanford.</p>
<p>"I feel students work a lot harder and often face a curve that is sometimes absent at the ivies." Ricz, if you are who you say you are, I'd be interested to know whether you have now taken Princeton off that curveless list. Have you seen this? <a href="http://web.princeton.edu/sites/career/data/Grading_Policies.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://web.princeton.edu/sites/career/data/Grading_Policies.pdf</a> Your thoughts?</p>
<p>aparent: If you read the earlier posts in this thread, you will see that, based on his responses to my questions on the same topic, ricz had no idea what this was. This seriously hurts his credibility.</p>
<p>Hello parent - this was big news in higher education and was all over the trade papers when Princeton made the announcement. However, while I applaud the direction Princeton is taking they are still not demanding a strict curve which would require the same number of A grades as failing grades. The policy only puts a cap on A grades (35%). If this is considered a step away from grade inflation you can imagine the generousity of grades at other similar schools.</p>
<p>This continues to show ricz' unreliability in these matters. The news was not just over the 'trade papers' (which ones, he does not mention), it was also on the mainstream media, including CNN.</p>
<p>... as well as newsweek.</p>
<p>anyway, ericmeng, at least for the data that i do have, UCLA is sometimes comparable to berkeley. at harvard law, it is berkeley with 36 and UCLA with 35. at georgetown law, berkeley and UCLA both have 16. </p>
<p>my question is though, if UCLA is viewed as lower than berkeley, and if it requires such a high GPA from berkeley in order to get into say harvard law, then what kind of GPA will a UCLA student need to get into harvard law? 4.0? if so, what's the point of going to UCLA when i could earn a 4.0 at a slightly less competitive yet respected institution and same LSAT? is the UCLA GPA not worth the same as GPA from other similar institutions (berkeley, michigan, virginia, etc)?</p>
<p>Huh. I didn't know that. Well perhaps UCLA also has a preference for non-UCLA students.</p>
<p>I'm sure that the UCLA GPA is worth just the same as a Berkeley GPA though. In fact, I severely doubt this so called different schools, different GPA case that ricz is putting forward - there is a difference in how it is looked at, but I am pretty sure it does not work the way ricz says it works.</p>
<p>sources for the data that i cited regarding berkeley and UCLA matriculation at harvard and georgetown law:
<a href="http://www.law.harvard.edu/admissions/jd/colleges.php%5B/url%5D">http://www.law.harvard.edu/admissions/jd/colleges.php</a>
<a href="http://www.law.georgetown.edu/admissions/jd_profile.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.law.georgetown.edu/admissions/jd_profile.html</a></p>
<p>i was actually referring to your comment ericmeng:</p>
<p>"UCLA is not on the same level as Berkeley, at least regarding law school admissions. "</p>
<p>I know.</p>
<p>One kink in this comparison, however. UCLA has about 26,000 undergraduates, while Berkeley has 23,000.</p>
<p>I'm sure that graduating from UCLA will not be a problem.</p>
<p>Well,</p>
<p>Year 2003-2004
At harvard law, UCLA outnumbered berkeley more than 10.</p>