<p>If one has a mediocre GPA (say between 3.0 to 3.3), but from a very good undergraduate institution (say U.S. News & World Report TOP 20), would the name/prestige of the school off-set the lower GPA? </p>
<p>I mean...suppose Person A receives a 3.7 from San Jose State University and Person B has a 3.3 from UC Berkeley. Would admissions treat the higher GPA more favorably - all things being equal - or would they realize freakin' Berkeley is MUCH harder than SJSU??? </p>
<p>Now let's take it a step further even and assume that Person B gets a 170+ on the LSAT. </p>
<p>Would combo of 170+ on LSAT and VERY GOOD undergrad school name offset a 3.3 GPA to allow them person to enter into a TOP law school (like TOP 15-20ish)?</p>
<p>p.s. …If undergraduate name DOESN’T matter, then why should ANYONE attend one of these prestigious and tough schools if they’re pre-med/pre-law/pre-xyz (graduate school) and risk getting a lower GPA? </p>
<p>Just asking out of genuine curiosity! Thanks!</p>
<p>a person with a 170 and a 3.3 is going to be a splitter. Splitter admissions are very harrd to predict. If the 3.7 form San Jose and the 3.3 from Cal had the same LSAT, the tip would go to San Jose.</p>
<p>Your best bet would be to go to your school’s career services offices and look at the law school grids. they will tell you the number of students that applied, the avg gps/lsat for your school and where students from your school applied and have been accepted.</p>
From everything I’ve read here and elsewhere, no. Law school admissions really does appear to be a numbers game. Look at the law school predictor and law school numbers sites, especially the graphs for individual schools on LSN, and they’ll give you an idea of what LSAT score is necessary with a 3.3 GPA for admission to individual schools.</p>
<p>Here and elsewhere, people with experience in LS admissions report that the adcoms are not looking first at your undergrad institution or your major - they’re looking at your stats. It makes sense to me that a very minor factor might be the rigor of the applicant’s undergrad program, but people who know much more than I do about the process say no.</p>
<p>As to why people would attempt tough majors at competitive schools - I can think of a few reasons. The more prestigious-selective schools have the best finaid. Many 18 y/os don’t know they’re headed for law school when they enter college and aren’t thinking about how best to position themselves for law school admissions. They don’t know that their GPA will trump ECs and other holistic factors in law school admissions. Many people like to challenge themselves and perform well in demanding situations. At the top law schools (and this extends beyond the T14) there are lots of students who attended those highly rigorous colleges - with rigorous majors - and managed to post the GPAs necessary for admission.</p>
<p>I don’t believe that the 3.3 GPA student from Berkeley is necessarily more, or even as, deserving of LS admission than the 3.7 student from San Jose.</p>
<p>Going to a “better” undergrad will help you for any non-medical, non-law graduate school, and it will also help you in the employment market if you don’t have an advanced degree. If you simply wanted to maximize your law school chances, it would make sense to go to the easiest school at which you can get straight A+s, but I don’t think most 18 year olds are mature enough or know enough to make that decision.</p>
<p>Hmm…I guess having attended a very selective institution as an undergrad and also having many friends and relatives attend very good schools that my perspective on the value of rigor in an academic program is a little bit different. </p>
<p>For example, looking at Introductory Physics at MIT/Cal Tech/Carnegie Mellon/Princeton, etc. and comparing the same class at …let’s say Cal State Long Beach…one really does or at least SHOULD notice the difference of rigor, accomplishment, and grading. </p>
<p>*<em>The volume of material in Cal Tech intro physics is greater.
*</em>The testing of that material is also more rigorous. </p>
<p>I’ve heard of “weaker” schools with science or math classes where the professor literally walks you through elementary problems (the extend of that course’s material - no "tough material) and tests are given in a way that students can literally just do the same practice problems they did all semester (even memorize the “steps” to solving equations and get by with a plug and chug approach without ever having to be challenged to solve complex problems without a set “formula”). </p>
<p>Rigor is real in these situations. It’s concrete and there’s a difference in the demands of MIT/Berkeley, etc. students versus a Cal State/San Jose State type of school with the same classes. I tend to believe that a Cal or MIT student could potentially easily get a 4.0 (or some other high GPA) at San Jose STate or Cal State Long Beach, but that the rigor of the program at MIT or Cal makes it so that they occassionally get B’s. And even then that “B” may be worth more, because they had to push themselves to learn to solve problems without a set formula they can easily memorize and regurgitate. </p>
<p>Whereas, I don’t have the same confidence that the 3.7 SJSU or Cal State student could necessarily attain the same grades at MIT or Berkeley that he or she got from the “weaker” school. </p>
<p>I could be wrong…just writing off the top of my head at the moment, but also using past experience to guide my logic/thoughts. I just think the real difference in rigor makes a difference on grades and that grades aren’t not the same across institutions. And and such they should be weighted differently in admission. </p>
<p>Having said that, I realize it might be hard to come up with a scale that factors in a school’s reputation or a program of study’s rigor for graduate school admissions. A flat and straight scale may be easier to do for mass application reviews.</p>
<p>Not hard at all, but politically incorrect. Cal-Boalt used to have such a scale, which added points to more rigorous undergrads. Of course, that meant mostly private schools, which tend to favor wealthy applicants. It also meant that while favoring wealthy NE colleges, Stanford and Caltech, for example, Boalt was ‘disfavoring’ students from the local Cal States and judos. Not very smart politically. Once the admissions process was discussed in the LA Times, Boalt quickly apologized and dropped it. (That was 10+ years ago.)</p>
<p>Well…but the fact remains that there IS a difference in rigor oftentimes. </p>
<p>I agree that there are other factors at play too and that’s very insightful of you to note the potential wealth advantage of people at the Ivy’s or top privates. I can see how maybe someone from a low-income family, who got into a top private without a solid scholarship, chooses to attend a school closer to home to save money and help their family out.</p>
<p>Good point. </p>
<p>But still…the difference of rigor in coursework would still be true in many cases independent of those other factors and a person with a 3.7 from Cal State Long Beach may not be able to attain that GPA at Cal Tech, MIT, …Princeton, etc. </p>
<p>3.7 Cal Tech …VERY DIFF imho from 3.7 Cal State Long Beach </p>
<p>I guess the LSATs and MCATs and other standardized tests do help counter-balance that a bit. Although wealth influences those numbers too at times. Someone rich can just go take a $1K+ prep class and maybe boost their score by X points from that extra help/resource.</p>
<p>So what? Adcoms just don’t (or can’t) care. A 3.7 from Cal State will beat a 3.3 from UC nearly every time (assuming same LSAT). Similarly, a 3.7 from a ‘Studies’ major from Cal will easily beat a 3.3 Engineering major from Cal. </p>
<p>Law schools are concerned about their rankings, and gpa is a reported field.</p>
<p>Those are just facts of life that one must just learn to accept if one is gonna play the game.</p>
<p>I went to a lower level school (rank 50 to 70), and majored in mathematics. I consider myself a strong student, yet I took plenty of classes that kicked my butt. My professors took their subjects very seriously and didn’t let us get away with anything. Combine that with the fact that I choose specific classes that I knew had tough professors (because I actually cared about learning the subject, not just getting credit).</p>
<p>So if you were to tell me that I’d be punished for going to a school where I got a half scholarship and took tough classes with serious professors… You can imagine how I’d react.</p>
<p>Besides, when you compare this issue with the fact that some people get an entire .333 boost to their grades because of A+ versus A, it’s insignificant.</p>
<p>Another thing on top of difference in rigor in specific classes has to do with difference in rigor of program requirements. </p>
<p>E.g.,</p>
<p>At Princeton, you MUST do a senior research thesis in sociology…and other social sciences (if I’m not mistaken), in order to graduate. It’s a 30-page research paper that requires going out and formulating a research question, designing the protocol, collecting data, and analyzing the results in a scientific way. …</p>
<p>A friend of mine from a “lower ranked” school did NOT have to do an original research paper to graduate with his sociology degree (I think he just had some kind of a senior seminar, but that wasn’t an original research paper). Instead, his school had an Honors Program that required the independent research paper that was the equivalent to Princeton’s basic program requirement for ALL students. </p>
<p>Often elite schools require more for graduation than “lower” schools do or that may actually be an “honor” program at the “lower ranked” school.</p>
<h2>I’m not saying that there’s an easy formula to figure this all out, nor am I discrediting the grades or experiences of students at “lower” ranking schools …but only wishing that admissions committees would take into consideration a school and/or program’s rigor. </h2>
<p>neu - I don’t think a TOP 50-ish school is a “low” ranking school at all. And I agree that people may take challenging classes at these institutions and just looking at a person’s school name may not tell the whole story. </p>
<p>Having said that, I think an example of where real differences in rigor and expectations may come into play is say with Cal Tech’s Math 1a that is required of all students (of all majors). There are strands of real analysis in it - the proof based approach - that would be considered an UPPER level class or topic for students in math at other universities. And this is an INTRO and REQUIRED course at Cal Tech. </p>
<p>I do think that Cal Tech’s Math 1a is tougher than say San Jose State’s INTRO math class (whatever it is). And the same goes with many other classes I’m sure.</p>
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<p>My opinion on this is by no means set in stone or complete at this point…still learning and understanding things as I go along so just throwing out thoughts/ideas. :)</p>
<p>My brother from Princeton is here visiting. He said you sounded quite elitist and need a reality check.</p>
<p>Honestly, law schools simply do not factor rigor in that much. If you’re so worried about the rigor, tough luck. Perform well. You wanted to go to school there. If you have the same LSAT, the kid has obviously got some chops coming from Long Beach or wherever he/she may come from. Your undergraduate institution does not reflect everyone’s intelligence there. My brother’s best friend went to CSUN and is at Harvard. I like to bring this up because he is performing just as well as anyone there. And he very much deserved to be there, no matter what. </p>
<p>The LSAT is the equalizer. You do worse than a Cal State student, good luck. I frequently look at a website called Top-Law-Schools and this guy who went to an Ivy for undergrad coming out with a 3.4 did bad on the LSAT and ended up at Loyola Los Angeles. He did not have a leg up over the other applicants and doing worse than someone on the LSAT the Cal State kid deserves the advantage. Still, he worked his butt off his first year and was able to transfer to Boalt. So, all is not lost for the mediocre student < 3.5 GPA. There are ways to get around it.</p>
<p>CalTech may get multipliers for graduate school admissions but not really elsewhere. No one is doubting that it is much harder at X institution than Y to achieve Z grade. The fact of the matter is you can go into ANY major, ANY college and apply. You are just expected to do well in what you picked. So, I suggest if you have a mediocre GPA and you somehow arrive at the decision as a senior that “Oh hey, I’d like to attend law school now” that no matter how much you argue, the process will remain unchanged and you will have to live with your success so far at your school. People coming from Cal or UCLA with decent GPA’s is not unheard of. My brother went to UCLA for undergrad, but he decided to go to graduate school rather than law school.</p>
<p>Would admissions committees really favor the University of Phoenix grad w/o taking into consideration the rigor of programs and schools? </p>
<p>Maybe it’s just me, but if I were sitting on the Harvard adcom and was forced to take one of the two purely on only these stats, then the 3.3 from Cal Tech in math student would be the one I’d take. …I may even be wondering why the UP student’s GPA was not higher (sort of half joking and half not)? </p>
<p>Although, I can see where people are coming from too that the LSAT is probably closer to being a universal, unbiased measure of law aptitude than grades (those can be inflated from taking easier classes or easier profs…subjective grading…a lot of other things).</p>
<p>But, hopefully you guys see where I’m coming from too. …Good discusssion so far. Very interesting to me.</p>
<p>btw: Phoenix is probably a bad example (by design?). Academics are prestige-hounds by nature, and for-profit schools are not highly thought of in the academic world.</p>
<p>Don’t underestimate the importance of connections after law school. If John Smith goes to Wesleyan and has a 3.3 and David Brown goes to UVA for undergrad and has a 3.8, but both do well at NYU Law School and get interviews at Firm A in midtown, John Smith will get hired because Firm A already has 5 associates from Wesleyan and they advocate for others. Now, when they both interview at Firm H downtown, David will get the nod because Firm H has been hiring from UVA for a hundred years.</p>
<p>How would you know ahead of time what the hiring department personnel would favor? …Can you find out this stuff ahead of time? …I’m referring to what schools they are connected to (as alumni). </p>
<p>When I’ve applied for internships I never knew ahead of time (maybe b/c I didn’t check, lol?) what the interviewer’s almer mater was or what the school networks of the employees were.</p>
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