<p>I'm a high school senior considering an eventual career in law. I've been admitted to a handful of undergraduate schools ranging from the top 5 to the lower end of the top 20. My top 2 choices at the moment are both known for rigorous academics and grade deflation. After a brief read of this forum, it seems to be clearly accepted that undergraduate GPA is a huge determinant of success in law school admissions, which, of course, makes sense. My question is whether there's any evidence out there as to what extent, if any, law school admissions committees take into account the competitiveness of the undergraduate school and/or the extent of grade inflation at that school. Assuming equal degrees of grade inflation at two institutions, for example, it presumably would be harder on average (other things being equal) to get a higher GPA at a school with a more competitive student body (as measured by, say, high school GPA and SAT scores), e.g. Harvard vs Duke. Similarly, assuming roughly equal degrees of competitiveness of schools, it obviously would be easier on average to get a higher GPA at a school with relative grade inflation, e.g. Yale vs Princeton. One would hope that admissions committees make adjustments for these kinds of impacts, but perhaps this is one of those situations where you can effectively game the system by making the choice most likely to maximize your GPA. Of course, I realize there are many other considerations that go into choosing a school, but I'm nevertheless interested in isolating the effect of this particular factor. Thoughts?</p>
<p>First off, you should understand that few colleges truly have “grade deflation” which in reality is the just not grade inflation; in other words, they’ve maintained a ~B average when everyone else has increase to a B+ average. Colleges with a “reputation” for grade deflation do not in fact have it – schools like Cornell and Chicago have morphed into a B+ mean, which far exceeds their reputation. Sure, they are still rigorous, but not any more so than other top colleges. To maximize your gpa, attend Brown, Harvard, Stanford or Yale. Without a doubt, Brown has the highest mean gpa of all top colleges; the average class grade is an A-. H&S are probably next and Y is right up there with them. By capping A’s, Princeton is trending down, albeit very slowly.</p>
<p>And for those few colleges (such as Swat and Reed, for example), sure law schools may give them a small bump, but that’s it.</p>
<p>i’m interested in this too. do law schools prefer an “A” at a relatively competitive state school or a “B” at a top national university?</p>
<p>i doubt law schools care about an A or a B from this school, im pretty sure its whichever GPA is higher, unless its like harvard or something</p>
<p>but other than that i think a high gpa from a state school would be on the same level as a high gpa from another school</p>
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<p>That example is far too drastic. You’re comparing a 3.00 to a 4.00.</p>
<p>I think a 3.8 from a top school is considered on par with a 3.82-3ish from a “regular” school. That’s just my intuition. Not a huge bump, but it makes a difference at the borders (imagine a school whose 25th percentile GPA is a 3.82).</p>
<p>If a relatively competitive state school and Harvard had exactly the same grade distribution, e.g. 30% A’s, 50% B’s, 20% C’s, it doesn’t make sense to me that law schools would look at identical GPA’s between the 2 schools as comparable in actuality. In practice, it would seem to be more difficult – in fact MUCH more difficult – to get that GPA at Harvard because the competition for the grades would presumably be much steeper given Harvard’s incredibly rigorous admissions standards. Perhaps that’s the way it IS, which is why I’m asking the question, but such a system would put many Harvard students at a competitive disadvantage relative to their counterparts at less competitive institutions. (I’m assuming here that the students at the respective schools are of comparable “ability” as measured by LSAT scores.) Does anyone have any statistics or other factual support for their guesses as to the way this works? I’ve spent some time looking and so far haven’t found anything.</p>
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<p>Stop wasting your time. Just get good grades and a good lsat and apply to law school when the time comes.</p>
<p>law schools prefer higher GPA and don’t care about grade deflation, pick the school where you think you will get the highest GPA if you want to go to law school</p>
<p>the reason? USNWR</p>
<p>Harvard still graduates 50% of its class “with honors.” Even Yale has gone to top 30%.</p>
<p>Columbia keeps grade deflation in mind–</p>
<p>^^with a mean gpa of 3.42, I would not conclude that Columbia can even spell ‘deflation’. :)</p>
<p>This question has been discussed on this site many times. Do a search for previous threads.</p>
<p>Just out of curiousity…why say</p>
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<p>It’s half the class at UChicago as well as Harvard. It’s 25% at Duke; it’s 35% at Williams College; for the class of 2009 at Princeton it was 41%. </p>
<p>That’s one of the reasons law schools pay no attention to these designations in making admissions decisions. They just vary WAY too much among colleges.</p>