My daughter is a current junior at Penn State. She has just begun studying for the LSAT with the intention of taking it in June.
I was reading about the entire LSAC report process and I am confused. I see that they will recalculate her GPA to send to the law schools. That is actually good for my daughter because she took dual enroll classes in high school and got all A’s
However, I do have some concerns. My daughter went back and forth on her undergraduate major for a while and because of this, she has 6 drops on her transcript. These are non punative and no grades are associated with them, but they do show on the transcript. At first, I thought that the fact that the LSAC does not consider withdrawals or drops would be a good thing, but then I saw that even though they do a report, they still send the transcripts. So, my question is, if they are sending the transcripts, what is the point of the LSAC? And what is your opinion on the effect of 6 dropped classes on her law school application? Penn State has no limit on the number of classes you can drop during the drop periods because they want students to ‘try out’ classes. That’s all well and good until you are a junior with 6 dropped classes. She never went below full time status. Her GPA will be in the area that gets her into a top 30 school but not a top 14 likely (Unless she can kick butt next semester). She is aiming for a 165 on her LSAT or higher. She just took her first diagnostic with no studying whatsoever and got a 145. She knows she has work to do there.
I am concerned about law school at all in today’s climate but it’s all she wants to do (and I’ve made her read all the negative stuff!). But I am even more concerned if drops on a transcript move her down to a lower tier law school as that seems to be really, really important. But then again, we are brand new to this and I actually have no idea - just beginning researching.
Any thoughts on the drops and can someone explain the purpose of an LSAC report if your undergrad transcripts are sent anyway?
LSAC has its own rules, and doesn’t use the college’s calculation of GPA. For example, LSAC awards a 4.3 for a A+ on a transcript, even though the college may cap that A+ as a 4.0 in its own calculation.
All undergrad grades count, even DE. LSCA takes them all and comes up with one GPA for all colleges attended.
@bluebayou I understand the LSAC won’t report the drops, but if I’m understanding properly, the college transcript will also be sent showing the drops, correct?
The law schools, I’m pretty sure, don’t even read the transcripts. The only number they care about is the one from LSAC. I anticipate precisely no effect from the dropped classes. She should maximize that GPA as best she can, then focus on the LSAT.
But I would be shocked if anyone looked at the actual transcript*. It just takes too much time and the only things that they are interested in is GPA (as calculated by LSAC) and LSAT.
*For students with a grade addendum, they might go look at the transcript to understand one bad semester or year.
The LSAC report will document the dropped classes because they are on the transcript. So yes, it will show that she attempted and dropped 6 classes over her college career.
The because the grade associated with the drop is non punitive means that the grades associated with those dropped courses will not be calculated into her LSAC GPA.
@sybbie719 They are not Withdrawal failures. They are just dropped classes and they have no credits nor any grades associated with them. It says zero credit attempted and zero credits given on her transcript. By reading the LSAC and what is not included in the report - they would not be considered in any way on the LSAC report. It says dropped classes will not be included unless they are punative, which they are not.
Being excluded from conversion just means that it is not assigned a gpa equivant by the LSAC to be calculated in the overall gpa. It does not mean that the LSAC will ignore that she took a class. The withdrawals will not hurt her overall gpa.
But they will be on the LSAC. because they are part of her overall academic record.
If all else fails wait until she sees her actual LSAC transcript then act accordingly.