how accurate is the lsac.org LSATGPA calculator for chances?

<p>i want to know just how accurate is this thing?
[url=<a href="http://officialguide.lsac.org/UGPASearch/Search3.aspx?SidString=%5DLSATGPA%5B/url"&gt;http://officialguide.lsac.org/UGPASearch/Search3.aspx?SidString=]LSATGPA[/url&lt;/a&gt;]
i tried a variety of options with ridiculously low lsats (150 and below) and low gpas (3.0 and below), and some of the results seemed a bit far-fetched. i mean... with a 150 lsat and a 3.0 gpa there were still 70 schools with a 25% chance or better for admission. it seems that it might weigh lsat more heavily than gpa, which i guess is probably true in general. </p>

<p>example: increasing the gpa from 3.0 to 3.8 with a 150 lsat increases the number of viable schools to 120, while keeping gpa at 3.0 but increasing lsat to 160 makes it about 150 viable schools.</p>

<p>are there really 120 viable schools for an lsat at 150? i doubt it... even with a perfect gpa, a 150 lsat will probably limit your options to about 50 or so lowbrow schools IMO, right?</p>

<p>It's not very accurate. It treats each variable separately. So if about 25% of students with 150 LSATs get in (with really high GPAs) and 25% of applicants with 3.0 GPAs (with really high LSATs) get in, then the machine will spit out that you have 25% odds of admission.</p>

<p>It's much better near the means of schools. But, then, it doesn't really add any information for you. If you want a reasonable chartplot, use lawschoolnumbers.com. It's self-selected and a few of the profiles are downright fictional, but it's actually not bad for its intended purpose: using a GPA and LSAT to predict an admission. It's very bad for gaining data like admissions rates, mean LSATs, etc.</p>

<p>yup, bluedevil mike is spot on. i found the LSATGPA calculator before i stumbled onto lawschoolnumbers and found the former to overestimate my chances at most of the schools i'm looking at...for example, i'm a 3.37 / 170, and LSATGPA tells me i'm like 35% at UCLA, 50% at Gtown, 25% at Michigan, and 35% at NWestern, all of which seem really exaggerated to me. I feel like they should each be about 10% lower. Browsing the profiles on lawschoolnumbers will give you a much better idea of where you stand because (for the most part) those reflect ACTUAL applicants. Not to mention the fact that LSATGPA bases their calculator on admissions data for the fall '07 entering class; if you're just starting your app cycle now / within the next few months, that information is two years outdated.</p>