<p>Okay, I had a conversation last night with a couple of my friends about Law School and I agreed to put their information on here so we can continue our discussions.</p>
<p>Student 1:</p>
<p>Army Vet, Underserved Minority, 3.12 UG GPA, in Masters Program with 3.83 GPA. Professional work experience. Volunteered with latino and refugee programs, multi-lingual.</p>
<p>Student 2:</p>
<p>Underserved Minority, 3.2 UG GPA, considering graduate school because she really wants to be a lawyer and she knows she won't be able to get in many places or worthwhile with her 3.2 GPA. Volunteer experience with social justice and political recommendations with some experience working in professional environment.</p>
<p>Friend #1 got into grad school based upon a compelling personal story and USM status but has been top of the class in grad school and will graduate this spring. Could friend #2 do a similar story? Would the Law Schools look at the 3.8 Grad GPA rather than the 3.12 UG?</p>
<p>As Plantbottles stated, the LSDAS only looks at grades up to your first bachelors. </p>
<p>While having a masters is nice, it does not trump the undergrad gpa in law school admissions. Since most masters programs offer little financial aid other than loans, it you know that you will be attending law school, save the loans to pay for law school. </p>
<p>Military exp is going to be a great soft factor. Person # 1 needs to kill the LSAT. He will be a splitter, but it would be to his/her advantage to apply early in the cycle. If s/he can hit 168+ then apply priority admission to Duke or ED to UVA.</p>
<p>undergrad gpa matters to USNews (for their rankings), so that is the only gpa that law schools care about. A MA is just a minor plus factor. (btw: grad programs are grade-inflated by definition, so excellent grades are to be expected)</p>
<p>Yes, my son had a mediocre undergrad gpa of 3.1 but was valedictorian of a grad program. He bombed the LSAT. Every admission’s director at law schools noted that his grad school grades were almost irrelavant. They will look at it,but it won’t count in the formula used by law schools for admission.</p>
<p>As to the question above about a “3+2” program, meaning I assume a combined undergrad/grad program where you go to college for three years, start grad school in fourth year, and then get both your bachelor’s and graduate degree after completion of the fifth year which is also grad school courses.</p>
<p>In that case, all the grades count for law school and that is the exception to the rule that grad school grades do not count. Essentially, any grades you get before getting your first bachelor’s degree are the ones that count.</p>
<p>^Most who apply to law school do not have graduate degrees. The LSAC system for reporting grades and GPA is a sytem set up to centralize the process of determining a GPA for consideration for admission to law school. It cannot use post-bachelors grades and provide something that is close to the same for all. Also, traditonally law schools themselves have not considered graduate school grades because they are highly inflated – everyone in grad school gets As and at worst a B once in a while. That you have a graduate degree is a factor that is considered. However, the two most important factors remain LSAT and undergraduate grades/GPA and together they are 90% or more of everything considered for admission and LSAT score is usually more important than GPA.</p>
<p>The short answer is that earning a Master’s degree in Lit/Hume just for the fun of it is a recent occurrence. In past days, those that attempted a Masters were trying to bolster their resume for a PhD program or were in the Education field which offers an automatic salary increase for another degree. But in today’s economy, recent grads are having trouble finding jobs, so they stay in school for another year or two, hoping the economy will get better.</p>
<p>Or, look at it critically from the law school’s perspective. If they did offer bonus points to students with an MA, law school prospies would flood Masters programs attempting to boost their prospects at the professional school. But adding to drusba’s point, anything below a B- is considered a Fail in Grad school. Even B’s can be rare. So in the end, the law school adcom would have undergrad gpa and a bunch of 3.9 grad gpa’s. Since the adcom could not distinguish between those grad gpa’s…</p>