Help! My Grades

<p>I just finished my first semester at an IVY and my grades are A, B, and C, which is a 3.0. Am I screwed for top law schools? I'm really worried now. I definitely did not slack off this semester, I just took some really hard classes.</p>

<p>Did you get rid of the intro courses first or did you just decide to take the upper level courses? I don't believe LSs will ding you for a mediocre first semester at an ivy... just work on your grades for the other 7 semesters and show an improvement. GPA is very important in LS admissions.</p>

<p>Sure they'll ding you. In the eyes of the law school adcom, bad grades are bad grades - it doesn't matter when, where, or why you got them, as long as you got them. That's the unfortunate nature of law-school admissions. </p>

<p>Bottom line - get better grades, whether that's by working harder (the best solution, although obviously a lot easier said than done). Or by simply taking easier classes, or cross-registering at a partner school that grades easier (for example, I strongly recommend that MIT prelaws who want to boost their GPA should cross-register at Harvard as often as possible, although obviously not vice versa). Take classes during the summer when grading tends to be easier. Heck, if it comes down to it, take an easy class at a JC and transfer the credits over. </p>

<p>The bottom line is that you gotta do what you gotta do to get top grades. I know that's reductionist and simplistic but, hey, so is law-school admissions. If you can get top grades by simple and sheer hard work, then that's what you should do. But if you can't, then sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.</p>

<p>Don't despair. Here's what one law school (the University of Illinois) had to say:</p>

<p>"Upward Trends in Grades </p>

<p>"While grade point average is significant, and while everyone would like a perfect "straight A" average, the truth of the matter is that very few people are likely to accomplish this goal. While "straight A" grades are not necessary for admission to law school, naturally one wants to do as well as possible. However, making the adjustment to college and choosing the wrong major initially are just two factors that can result in disappointing grades at the outset of one's college career. Many students who are used to being on the Honor Roll in high school and who are aiming for law school might find themselves with grades they would regard as disastrous in their first or second year as undergraduates because they were "barking up the wrong tree, academically speaking." Similarly, a student might have no intention of going to law school, and then discover as a junior that better grades are needed because he or she has realized Law School is a goal.</p>

<p>"Fortunately, law schools do pay attention to an individual's academic improvement. Therefore, a student should NOT despair if he or she experiences initial grade problems. [In fact, if one has to have academic difficulties, it is better to have them early in one's program of study than to have grades deteriorate over the course of time.] </p>

<p>"The point to be emphasized, then, is to try to diagnose any classroom problems and to try to do something about them, so that you can improve your grades. Accordingly, there are a variety of services and organizations that can assist you in solving problems and improving performance."</p>

<p>Out of curiosity, are you the same person as "juliet?"</p>

<p>Her post belows seems oddly similar: <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=19528%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=19528&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>"What do I need on LSAT?</p>

<p>I am at a IVY league school and I think I will end up with a 3.0-3.1 GPA. What do you think I need on LSAT to get into UFL Law school? I am a state resident. Thanks"</p>

<p>Thanks for the advice everyone so far. I was actually looking for reassurance to make sure I haven't screwed up my chances for a top 10 law school. But no, i'm not juliet, I'm a freshman, and a guy. I'm going to do some massive course hunting next semester so I won't make the same mistakes as I did this one.</p>

<p>morphx, do you go to Dartmouth?</p>

<p>no. I go to Brown.. hence the non + and - on my grades.</p>

<p>A young lady I know from harvard with a 3.1 and a 162 has been dinged by all the top 14 to which she applied this fall. She is now working on plan B.</p>

<p>Okay, I just asked about Dartmouth because you listed 3 courses :)</p>

<p>Well - not to be entirely sarcastic - but isn't a 3.1 a) well in the bottom 25% of GPAs for the top 14 anyway b) entirely... bad? for Harvard, land of 1/2 of grades being an A or an A- and c) isn't a 162 really low for the top 14 law schools? I know a Harvardian who was concerned about his 3.56 being low! (By the way, he did get into HLS, but was dinged at many other top programmes - despite a whopping 179 LSAT.)</p>

<p>WHY IS EVERYONE USING THE WORD DINGED?!?!?!?!?! It's driving me crazy :).</p>

<p>I don't have Harvard prelaw data, but I do have Yale prelaw data. I don't think there is going to be much difference between Harvard and Yale prelaw data (does anybody care to disagree?), so I think the Yale data is good as a point of reference.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.yale.edu/career/students/gradprof/lawschool/media/statistics2003.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.yale.edu/career/students/gradprof/lawschool/media/statistics2003.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Forget about just the top 14 law schools, Yale prelaws aren't guaranteed admission to any law school, and certainly not if their grades/LSAT's are low. For example, I see that at Fordham Law School (a decent, but certainly not an elite law school), over half of all Yale prelaws who applied got rejected. Furthermore the average Yale prelaw who did get admitted to Fordham had an average LSAT of 164.5 and an average GPA of 3.47. I've never even heard of Brooklyn Law School, but apparently more than a third of all Yale prelaws who applied there got rejected, and those who were admitted had an average LSAT of 164.3 and an average GPA of 3.15. </p>

<p>Furthermore obviously any data that talks about the % who is admitted clearly is talking about only those students who apply. Many students who want to go to law school don't bother to apply because they know that their grades and their GPA are too weak. </p>

<p>The point is that the data demonstrates that going to Yale (or, by extension, Harvard) not only does not guarantee you admission to a top-tier law school, heck, it doesn't even guarantee you admission to a no-name law school. After all, look at what happened to all those Yale prelaws who applied to Brooklyn Law School ... and got rejected. Even if you go to Yale or Harvard, you still have to pull top grades and top LSAT scores.</p>

<p>aries....yes, those are weak numbers. i was just answering the OP's orig question about what the impact of a 3.0 from an Ivy might be.
btw, the harvard girl will get into lots of schools, they'll just not be T14s.
I mention that because as a brown student, she may be thinking about the same such law schools.</p>

<p>I have a question, since you all seem so knowledgeable about this: is there any way of knowing how your college is viewed, grade inflation wise? I know the jokes about Harvard and Stanford, but I don't know how Dartmouth is viewed by law school admissions.</p>

<p>I don't have the data with me (I can post it up later though; I'm not at my usual computer), but there are around 230 Harvardians at HLS and around 100 Yalies. So Harvardians do get into HLS at very high rates (though the numbers for Yalies and Harvardians at YLS is about the same; some nepotism perhaps on Harvard's part), though going to these schools is far from a guarantee of getting in.</p>

<p>Dartmouth, I think, doesn't quite have as much inflation as HYP do; I don't know if that helps or hurts pre-laws there, but, even when you adjust for class size, there are much less Dartmouth alums at elite law schools than HYP alums; this fact could be due to a lower number of applicants, of course--just food for thought.</p>

<p>Again, as point of reference, in the year 2003, 19% of Yale prelaws who applied to YLS got admitted. 27% of Yale prelaws who applied to HLS got admitted.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.yale.edu/career/students/gradprof/lawschool/media/statistics2003.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.yale.edu/career/students/gradprof/lawschool/media/statistics2003.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Of course, these numbers don't have anything to say about those Yale prelaws who don't apply to YLS or HLS. Obviously, you are only going to apply to law schools like that if you actually think you have a reasonable chance of getting in. The top 2 law most popular schools for Yale prelaws to apply to were not YLS or HLS, but rather Columbia and NYU. Hence, this demonstrates that at least some Yale prelaws chose not to submit applications to HLS or YLS, probably because they didn't think they had any serious chance of getting in. </p>

<p>I would also point out that Harvard College has about 25% more students than does Yale College (6500 vs. 5200), so you would obviously expect more Harvard College representation at any law school, just because it has more people.</p>

<p>Wow, only 19% of Yale grads got into Yale Law!</p>

<p>These GPAs are insane! No wonder these people start at like $125,000 a year.</p>

<p>First off, a 3.0 isn't a bad GPA. It isn't a great GPA by top law school standards by any means, but there are in fact people at top schools with lower GPA's. It just means you have to do better on your LSAT. </p>

<p>Secondly, you can obviously pull up that GPA over your next few years, and they will look more at your later years anyway. Doing this at any ivy may be even easier than doing it elsewhere. </p>

<p>I would advise you to take at least a couple easy courses each term, in addition to any more challenging courses you take. That way, you can always average at least a 3.5 or so, which should pull you up well.</p>