<p>Uhh, I never said that top law schools don't care about UChic and all. I was under the impression that they wouldn't care since they would just want to stay in the T14. UCLA, PHD, your ONLY evidence is some anecdotal stuff. You would seriously need some good empirical data to refute my analytical argument about Chicago screwing one over. In fact, I find it sad that you insult me for "spewing ignorance" when a) you don't bring any empirics to the table and b) I clearly states that that is what I thought LS admissions were like, and was worried that Chicago would screw me over. There's no reason to pounce on someone for being a mistaken High Schooler.</p>
<p>And then ppl talk about education, blah blah. Why do we have to adopt such a deontological notion about education. Must learning and making money be so mutually exclusive? I could go to UCSD and get a worse education than at Chicago, but still get a pretty good education and get a much higher GPA.</p>
<p>I'm not commenting about the rigor of the classes, but grade deflation is a myth. The average GPA was a 3.26 in 1999, which is on par with other top privates, and I would bet it's higher now.</p>
<p>This</a> Newsweek article seems to agree with im_blue:
[quote]
Grades at selective private schools are especially high. A 2003 Princeton study found that marks of A and A-minus accounted for 44 to 55 percent of grades at the Ivy League colleges, MIT, Stanford and the University of Chicago.
[/quote]
The article also seems to agree with JHS:
[quote]
Reed students seem unconcerned about strict grading practices, and Princeton undergraduates may not worry either. Tough grading is unlikely to hurt students applying for jobs, graduate schools or fellowships. "Schools that are not part of this inflation trend we certainly make note of," says Andy Cornblatt, dean of admissions at Georgetown University Law School. Recruiters at Accenture and Goldman Sachs say they also recognize that different schools have different grading cultures, and they consider this when hiring graduates and student interns.
<p>Oh yeah, my sources ---a friend who is an expert at law school admissions, but hey what does he know. All he can go by are the admissions letters of his students and the fact that even his 3.8 and higher GPA state school students have a much harder time getting into law school then people who go to top 25 universities, especially when even the 3.0 students at the high ranking schools tend to score better than the 4.0's at the second tier places. Shall I post a pdf file for all to see? Or maybe just post his home phone number right here.</p>
<p>I've had this argument many times on other threads, but yes, law schools do take into account where you did your undergrad work. And no, a 3.75 from Tier 3 U is not considered the same as a 3.75 from a top 20 school.</p>
<p>There is a lot of misinformation about this floating around on these boards.</p>
<p>It continually shocks me when students post, saying that they don't want to go to a school that's too rigorous, because it will hurt their chances at getting into top professional schools. These are people that I hope will not become MY doctor, lawyer, or banker. If you want a top professional school. go to the undergraduate school that you think will give you the best preparation. The rest will work out.</p>
<p>MAYBE the top law schools have very high GPA averages not because they look for 4.0s, but because of undergrad grade inflation. A law school would want a student from harvard, and that student happens to have a high GPA due to grade inflation, but thats not the law school's fault. Obviously the law schools want the smartest and hardest working kids (high GPAs), but it may not be completely their fault. Probably not true, but just another way of looking at it.</p>
<p>so would a 3.0 at chicago probably be looked at better than a 3.6 at cornell?</p>
<p>Chicagoboy, I'm not in any real position to judge, but I don't think there would be such a difference in GPA between two institutions of practically the same caliber. Maybe a .3 difference at most.</p>
<p>aristotle, I meant some hard data. Not some random LS adcom saying stuff. </p>
<p>UCLA,1) schools like I wouldn't necessarily say schools like UCSD, LA, Berkeley are "state schools" in the usual sense in that they are pretty good. Maybe not ivy-league or Chicago quality but they are good enough that I'd wager it won't make that much of a difference in LS admissions. 2) it seems incredibly ignorant to generalize an entire school's students as a bunch of money-grubbers that dislike "true education"</p>
<p>Seashore, wanting to be successful with the least pain as possible isn't mutually exclusive from quality of work.</p>
<p>I would be very surprised if As and A-s accounted for half the grades at the U of C. I mean, the hard sciences are generally on a bell curve, so the 44%-55% can't be true for those classes, which would mean the humanities and social sciences are basically handing out As like candy. That's, um, not true. Maybe the statistic was the average over all of the institutions listed? </p>
<p>I've never been a fan of the grade inflation/deflation talk, at least in terms of average GPA. It just doesn't give you much useful information. The main data point missing is how many hours students work to get that GPA. Maybe students at Caltech and at RIT have the same average GPA, but do they work the same number of hours? Frankly, I have no idea, but it's a point worth looking into. Then there's the quality of work issue. What sort of paper gets an A- at Chicago versus an A- at Harvard? How in depth do the calculus classes go at different colleges? Are Caltech and RIT covering the same material? Etc. Again, I don't know, but these matters are integral to any talk about grade inflation/deflation.</p>
<p>There really isn't any public data about what GPAs are required from what colleges to get into particular law schools. </p>
<p>A few things to keep in mind, though:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>The students getting admitted with GPAs at the lower end of the range for a law school are likely from places like Chicago. T-14 law schools dip down to about 3.5, and the people getting in with that type of GPA are from schools like Chicago. A 3.5 at StateU probably won't get it done unless it's accompanied by super high LSAT and some other accomplishments (which woudl probably be more work than just getting better grades).</p></li>
<li><p>It's probably actually harder to get the grades necessary for top law school admission at a state university. There, you don't have much room for error. At Chicago a mediocre grade here or there won't totally screw you, because you don't have to be at the absolute top of your schools distribution (which is included in the transcript report sent to law schools). When a law school sees Chicago's GPA distribution compared to LSAT distribution (i.e. pretty high), they are willing to accept students from farther down the GPA scale. If the LSAT distribution is pretty even through the score range, they will except good applicants to have GPAs at or near the top of their school's distribution.</p></li>
<li><p>An education at Chicago is a great preparation for law school. I've actually had several friends go on to law school here at Chicago and tell me that there really wasn't much of an adjustment (and a few even claim undergrad was harder). As a Chicago undergrad, you read a lot and are expected to make rigorous and well-developed arguments about what you've read in basically any humanities or social science course. The ability to consider all angles of an issue is a big part of "thinking like a lawyer."</p></li>
<li><p>I've known a few law school applicants over the past few years, including myself. They've been quite successful. I personally know two Yale acceptees (straight from undergrad), three Harvard acceptees, five Stanford acceptees, an NYU/Columbia acceptee. Even some folks I've known with pretty average numbers ended up a Top 20 law schools. From my experience a solid record from Chicago is an asset on a law school application. It won't make up for a bad LSAT or a super-low GPA, but if reduces the amount you need to impress law schools through other things, like incredible outside accomplishments or a phenomenal GPA.</p></li>
<li><p>Chicago doesn't really have grade deflation, but it is less inflated than many peers. Only 8% of students have a 3.8 or higher. There's a pretty big group of students between 3.0 and 3.6, but only about 25% are above 3.6. So Chicago students don't get awful grades, but very few get super-duper high grades. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>I would say having a school like Chicago on your application means that as long as you have a solid GPA and a good LSAT, you just have to avoid really messing up in some other area, and if you can get a GPA over 3.8, you're in really good shape for a Top 5 law school as long as you don't severely underperform on the LSAT. Coming from a less rigorous and selective school, you have to do a little more to set yourself apart from the hundreds of other applicants with good GPAs from their own State Universities.</p>
<p>I found a ten year old summary of GPA adjustments that UC Berkeley Law School reportedly used. No idea if it's authentic, if something similar is still used or if the weightings would have changed over the last decade. For what it's worth, Swarthmore GPAs were the most respected and Chicago's were second. Comparing</a> Average GPA's - soc.college.admissions | Google Groups</p>
<p>Every school's premed classes are awful and try to weed kids out. However, premed classes comprise a small enough percentage of total classes that its effect on average GPA is rather small.</p>
<p>"Grad schools KNOW about UChicago, as in they know how much you've...suffered..." <--Director of the Econ program, I believe...Mrs. Tsiang said something like this. She elaborated more about this, but the thing is that UChicago prepares you mucho mucho for the rigors of grad school, like you wouldn't believe.
PS: "Where Fun Comes to Die" is a t-shirt slogan made for fundraising for a house in Reynolds Club. I truly agree that it's not the number of hours of homework/piles of work that make UChicago rigorous. It is how they teach you that is different. I relate this a lot to my experiences doing high school debate. It requires rigorous research and logical reasoning applied in creative situations. </p>
<p>@ UCLA, Ph.D: I understand your cynicism towards their ignorance, but hey, for the most part these are opinions coming from the knowledge pool of the general public. I wouldn't expect them to know insider facts about the UChicago, and as anxious juniors/seniors/typical CC-posters or parents of deciding amongst schools they've only heard about from time to time, you would expect it. Conclusions are made without much basis except for hearsay and people act on it, e.g. that UChi is "where fun comes to die" and academics will kill your life....so these people don't apply, and this would be why UChi is <em>self-selecting</em>****... :)</p>
<p>UChicago is sweet. UChicago is delicious. Go to the U of Chicago. Or don't if you are not a UChicago type.</p>