Question about top law schools

<p>Interesting. The calculator implies that an A+ is worth 4.3. Do other sources confirm? (For some reason, my browser is very unhappy with the pdf link posted.)</p>

<p>nspeds: So riddle me this. I have 2 years of courses with semester hours - courses worth 2, 3, or 4 semester hours.</p>

<p>I am now at UofC, which does not do "hours" - every course is worth the same amount - one quarter unit. How will that affect my GPA for LSAC?</p>

<p><a href="For%20some%20reason,%20my%20browser%20is%20very%20unhappy%20with%20the%20pdf%20link%20posted.">quote</a>

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<p>That is unfortunate; for the GPA chart is on that PDF. If I am not mistaken, an A+ is a 4.33, an A is a 4.00, and an A- is a 3.67.</p>

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How will that affect my GPA for LSAC?

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<p>I don't know. According to the PDF attached, the GPA in the LSAC transcripted is calculated from semester hours, and quarter hours are converted into semesters by multiplying them by .67. So if you earned an A for one quarter unit, it is worth .67 hour. So you would have to multiply the GPA corresponding with that grade by .67 and then divide the sum of all grades multiplied as such by the sum of units taken, which in this case is calculated by multiplying each unit by .67 and adding them together (or something like that).</p>

<p>So my Chicago grades will disproportionately not count, as I will have semester grades worth 4 credit hours, and all of my UofC grades will be worth 0.67 credit hours. Strange.</p>

<p>If the LSAC handles things the same way AMCAS does (for medical school applicants), there's a reweighting that they do on their own to make sure everything equalizes.</p>

<p>In this case, it would be simple enough to do: divide all your "semester" grades by 4, or multiply all your Chicago grades by 2.67, or however you choose to equalize them. The point is that a quarter is worth 2/3 of a semester.</p>

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So my Chicago grades will disproportionately not count, as I will have semester grades worth 4 credit hours, and all of my UofC grades will be worth 0.67 credit hours. Strange.

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<p>Your confusion can be better allayed by your pre-law advisor, who certainly has more experience and knowledge that I do about how the LSAC computes UChicago credits.</p>

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If the LSAC handles things the same way AMCAS does (for medical school applicants), there's a reweighting that they do on their own to make sure everything equalizes.

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<p>Pretty much.</p>

<p>Also, the report is very detailed: if I am not mistaken, the student's GPA for every year is calculated, and the student is ranked against to other students in his class who are also applying to law school. </p>

<p>I haven't begun the transcript-submission process, but one's best bet would be to send an offical transcript to law schools in addition to the LSDAS version. The official transript might also contain information to indicate context: for instance, I earned an A- in a 700 level course. What the LSDAS transcript doesn't show is that this was a graduate course. What the institutional transcript shows is that it was.</p>

<p>Also, even for institutions that report grades as A+s, but do not accord them a higher GPA than As, the A+s are calculated as 4.33s on the LSDAS transcript.</p>

<p>Neverborn:</p>

<p>Your previous institution's GPA will still count more to the adcom reading your application, since you will have only completed one year at UChicago by the time you apply to law school. I understand that the under-representation of your UChicago GPA will be exacerbated by LSAC's idiosyncratic methodology. The methodology strikes me as unfair in this context, which is why I highly doubt whether I'm right about how your GPA will be calculated.</p>

<p>Oh yeah, if you're a junior, you should've already started communicating with your pre-law advisor.</p>

<p>I have. When Winter Quarter starts (Wednesday), I will get in touch with her about how my situation will be handled by LSAC in their GPA computation. I know 2 years will count more than 1, but you are right - it will be exacerbated unfairly by the conversion, which is why I am concerned. </p>

<p>I am going to go ahead and start the process of getting my previous school's transcript sent to LSDAS, since it only took 7 phone calls to get my transcript to UChicago during the transfer app process.</p>

<p>Well, you need to have an account with the LSDAS before you start sending in transcripts.</p>

<p>Winter quarter starts on Wednesday? Ouch. </p>

<p>Good luck:)</p>

<p>Account with the LSDAS all done too, friend. I'm taking the LSAT in February. Guess how much fun I've been having over Winter Break?</p>

<p>About the same amount of fun I've been having: none. But the LSAT is fun. If you are nervous and pressured, you will do poorly.</p>

<p>it seems obvious that lsac probably multiplies a quarter hour by 2/3 because quarter hours are inflated by 3/2. in uchicago's case that is not true (it's the only exception i know of), and in that case they SHOULD multiply it by 2. that would be the thing in question.</p>

<p>I was hoping to reproduce my calculations. Genius me apparently didn't save the spreadsheet.</p>

<p>It would seem the link in post #27 is down. Is this data available anywhere else?</p>

<p>According to the LSAC (page 28):</p>

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Course Credits
All credits are reported in terms of semester hours. All earned credits not reported in semester hours are converted to that system.</p>

<p>Trimester hours are treated as semester hours; quarter hours are multiplied by .67 to arrive at semester hours. </p>

<p>Credits recorded in other units are converted to semester hours using the formula supplied by the college issuing the transcript.

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<p><a href="http://www.lsac.org/pdfs/2007-2008/Infobooktext2007web.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.lsac.org/pdfs/2007-2008/Infobooktext2007web.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Back to the OP question, if you want a T14 law school, which are considered to be the best, you're gonna need a 3.5 + 170 and u'll getinto one of them. Probably only 1, 2, or 3 but u'll get into em. If you wanna shoot for harvard/yale you better have a 3.8+ and 175+</p>

<p>Only 1,2,3 of them with 3.5 170+? 3.5/170 gets you into 10-14 automatically and probably at least 3-4 of 1-10, with 1 being 4-6.</p>

<p>LSAC Data Search indicates that at none of the top 14 does a 3.5, 171 give you more than a 60% chance. Penn and NYU (Chicago and Columbia do not participate) are both below 40%.</p>

<p>This might be a stupid question, but were those LSAT scores for students coming from those schools or for students entering them? I'm assuming they're from students coming from, but I just want to be sure.</p>

<p>Was that a question about my post? It meant undergraduates from all institutions applying for admission to the law schools I mentioned.</p>

<p>If you were asking somebody else, I apologize for the presumption of answering.</p>