I’m looking at SLS, HLS, or Columbia LS out of undergrad and I’m wondering what you think my chances are!
I go to one of HYPS for Undergrad, and I have a 3.7 GPA. If you omit my first semester, I have a 3.833 GPA (Hard Science Major). My school does not give A+'s, but does give A-'s and B+'s.
However, if I understand everything correctly, my LSAC GPA, if calculated today, would be a 3.835. This is because, while in high school, I took 9 community college classes and got an A in each of them. Is it true that the LSAC will include these classes in GPA calculations?
I expect around a 174 LSAT based on my practice tests, and I want to apply right out of Undergrad.
My softs include working at Tesla and working on some pretty cool environmental research, which I think will go over relatively well for what it’s worth. Also captain of an EC at my school.
When these law schools look at my GPA, will they consider the LSAC GPA, or will they consider the GPA from my actual college? Will I get a boost coming from an elite school, or will my GPA just be thrown into the pile with all the other applicants? What do you think my chances are?
Thank you!
(Applicant here also with a bit research on this) The way I have understood this process to work is the law school will see your actual ugrad gpa bc it receives your transcripts from lsac including the community college classes and they take into account the difficulty of your classes you first semester (this should help place your lower ugrad gpa into context). Also top schools like to see an upward trend in your grades so it seems you are going to be fine as long as you take upper level classes and continue to do well. As for as the LSAC gpa recalculation, it seems to help you, even with top tier schools like HLS. Your lsac gpa would not threaten their class medians (which is the gpa that affects law school ranking) so this could possibly incentivize them to admit. If you attend an elite university with a great [your major] program (and it is known for being a more difficult ugrad school with little grade inflation) this will be an added bonus! As far being thrown into a pile, HYS schools often do “holistic” reviews of applicants and soft factors come into play a lot more than at other schools so don’t worry too much.
Please be hyper-focused on your lsat however because law schools/ USNW rankings place more weight on this score than your gpa (although admissions to HLS and peer schools everything likely matters in an application)
Best of luck this app cycle!
P.S. When are you applying? If this app cycle, try to send your application as early as possible!
Also, yes lsac does take into account community college classes into gpa bc these are college level courses you took before receiving your degree. Please remember to submit those community college transcripts to lsac as well!
Law schools care about your LSAC GPA since that’s what they have to report. Coming from an elite school will make no difference, but if you do in fact score a 174 then your numbers will be good enough for anywhere.
However, I usually do not recommend going to law school straight from undergrad. Some law schools like work experience. (SLS may be one of them, the data is not clear. HLS/CLS don’t care.) Employers definitely do. You do your interviews after only one year of law school and those with work experience do better both in interviews and in practice. Law school isn’t going anywhere, so unless you have a very compelling reason you can’t work for a couple years, you should.
Thank you very much for your responses, and I appreciate the context you provided! I am not applying this cycle, but next!
Basically, my big consideration is: YLS is my top choice, followed VERY closely by HLS, SLS. My school has a program in which I can apply to my UG school’s Law School as a Junior, and it is basically Early Decision (This program does allow students to take two years off in between.)
Do you think my numbers are good enough that I could feel pretty good about my chances of getting into one of these law schools, so I could feel confident foregoing the “early decision” application my school offers and try to apply to other schools as well?
A 3.9 +174 has an extremely high probability of HLS, and most of the T14 with money. HLS’s class is huge, so they need all the high scorers that the can get to hold their medians. In contrast, Y & S have smaller classes, so they can pick and choose; EC’s are much more important to those two (and to a certain extent, Chicago which also has a smaller class).
Since P does not have a law school, you have narrowed down your undergrad to HYS. ED’ing to Y would be a no-brainer, so that narrows it even farther to H or S.
Ed’ing might mean full pay. Can you afford that? In contrast, with YLS numbers, you would be competitive for (near) full rides at others in the top 10. Unless you are after a top clerkship, Columbia on the cheap may be a better deal than full price at HLS.
@JohnnyDolphin, so you go to Harvard. Harvard undergrad + HLS is a sterling resume, but you can go anywhere in the top 10ish and be just fine. Remember, though, that HLS gives a small GPA “boost” to Harvard College applicants, so you’ll be a stronger candidate for HLS than your numbers otherwise indicate.
No doubt. But then any such “boost” will occur after a couple of years of work experience too. My point is that there is little reason to apply ED, and a bunch of reasons (all benjamins) to apply RD. Plus, in a few years, the OP may decide that s/he prefers a change of venue and career (tech?) and Palo Alto becomes more attractive than Cambridge.
Thank you very much for that advice! That brings up another (difficult) question, if HLS boosts my GPA, will they still give me the same boost considering my LSAC-GPA will include CC classes?
