<p>From what I've heard it seems that very few colleges actually put A+ on transcripts, am I correct?</p>
<p>Also, if your college does not denote a class in which you got a 97-100 with a grade of A+ how much of a disadvantage does this actually pose?</p>
<p>I don't know how many do. Stanford does. The LSDAS conversion counts any numerical grade of 98 or higher as an A+ (4.33). It's kind of unfair for people who go to schools that don't allow professors to give them.</p>
<p>Berkeley does as well, but only to the top person in a lecture of 200+. They don't normally give them out in humanities because grades aren't as quantifiable. It's not really "unfair" considering you have to be borderline genius or literally study all the time to get an A+ in a science/math class and outscore every one of your classmates. (Everything is curved.)</p>
<p>However I do know of people who have received A+s at community college which do count as part of the LSAC GPA. This can be seen as unfair because an A+ at a CC is much easier to get.</p>
<p>The good news is that the LSAT is far more important for admissions into a top law school. If you rock the LSAT (170+), you have a shot at the T-14 as long as your GPA is 3.0+.</p>
<p>(I know of people with 4.0, 166 who were rejected to all the top-14 and people with 3.6/176 who were admitted to Columbia/NYU.)</p>
<p>So how does the LSDAS "recalculate" GPA if it doesn't receive our number grades and reassign them according to the scale they have on their website?</p>
<p>If, for example, I got a 98 in a particular class but received an A on my transcript, is that an A or A+ according to LSDAS?</p>
<p>All LSDAS has access to is your transcript. If all it sees is the A, then that's an A. I think I am in disagreement with post #2, but I am not 100% sure what AS is saying.</p>
<p>Bluedevilmike is right. LSDAS only sees letter grades, not percentages.</p>
<p>One only wonders why they even bother with this chart if that's all they do:</p>
<p>Obviously, because some schools actually report percentages (and only percentages) on transcripts.</p>
<p>Some schools may also use a different conversion scale-</p>
<p>so if an A- is calculated as a 3.75 at your home school, your UG school GPA will be based on your school's grading scale.
I guess the LSDAS conversion is to equalize everyone's grades to the same scale.</p>
<p>To convert your grades:
LSAC</a> GPA Calculator - BETA</p>
<p>The asterisk in the table referenced by iljets10 indicates the applicability of the percentage-to-LSDAS-GPA conversion.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Some schools may also use a different conversion scale-</p>
<p>so if an A- is calculated as a 3.75 at your home school, your UG school GPA will be based on your school's grading scale.
I guess the LSDAS conversion is to equalize everyone's grades to the same scale.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Right, that's exactly what it's for. Which is why they should simply calculate an A+ as a 4.0 and not a 4.33.</p>
<p>That's the position that I was fighting for. I guess life just isn't fair in this case, as with most cases.</p>
<p>^ Well, luckily the LSAT is almost twice as important as GPA at most of the T-14.</p>
<p>We've previously had a long discussion on this subject. I don't think the matter is nearly that clear-cut. For example, imagine:</p>
<p>1.) Aaron attends Ziegler University. Ziegler does award A+'s; Aaron has several on his transcript; LSDAS GPA is 4.1.
2.) Brad also attends Ziegler. He doesn't have any A+'s; LSDAS GPA 4.0.
3.) Chris attends Yeltsin; they don't give A+'s, so he doesn't have any; LSDAS GPA 4.0.</p>
<p>Either including or omitting the A+'s is unfair. Including them is possibly unfair to C; perhaps he would have gotten some if only he'd attended Z instead of Y. Then again, maybe he wouldn't have -- it's unclear. He might be worse than, equal to, or better than A, but LSDAS makes it look like he's definitely worse.</p>
<p>Omitting them, however, is definitely unfair to A, who really is better than B.</p>
<hr>
<p>In any case, this is a very small discrepancy compared to school-to-school, major-to-major, course-to-course, and professor-to-professor discrepancies. I received an extra 0.03 points because my school gave out A+'s. I think you'll all survive the difference.</p>
<hr>
<p>(By the way, a very similar case from a game theory perspective can be made about the LSAT.)</p>
<p>It's a small discrepancy but, unlike other variables, can easily be eliminated by LSAC. Though it's also entirely possible that having A+ as the highest grade also lowers the standard for A's, at least in some classes.</p>
<p>It could be, but I would argue that it shouldn't be. I know that you have to choose one student (either A or C) to be unfair to, but I'd rather be probably-a-little unfair to C than certainly-a-little unfair to A.</p>
<p>There's really no question that it's unfair to C. In fact, the most fair thing to do would probably be to knock a third of a grade off A and B's averages. That will preserve their relative rank, and reflect how well they did on a 4.0 scale instead of the 4.33 scale they were graded on.</p>
<p>What? So now you're assuming that if C's school did give A+'s, C would have gotten one in every single course?</p>
<p>Well, what we do know is that C got the highest average they conceivably could have. Neither of the other two did, so it's clearly unfair for either of them to report an equivalent or higher GPA.</p>