What LSAT would I need...

Graduate School Law School
1

<p>To get into Yale Law or UVA Law (in-state) IF...</p>

<p>...I had a 3.8 cumulative gpa from the College of William and Mary,
...a double major in International Relations [interdisciplinary major with government, econ, history, and culture] and Environmental Science and Policy [interdisciplinary major with government, econ, and the sciences],
...I was heavily involved (in leadership positions) with many groups on campus all 4 years,
...spent the first summer (between freshman and sophomore year) doing research with an interdisciplinary group of professors looking into international aid allocation with a paper (hopefully) published in an IR journal with a couple of professors and other students on environmental aid allocation,
...spent the second summer doing research and interning for some government agency in Washington DC with the results presented at a minor conference,
...spent the third summer (between junior and senior year) interning for NATO in Europe,
...was nominated by the school for the Truman Scholarship,
...continued doing international aid allocation research with various professors and students during junior and senior year,
...and apply straight out of college?</p>

<p>I will likely be applying for join Masters Degree programs in some IR/Government/Public Policy field as well. Likely Law concentrations are Constitutional, Contract [is there a philosophy of contract law concentration?], Environmental, or International.</p>

<p>I'm guessing that a lot of this is pretty standard for people applying to top law schools - is there anything I can do short of bringing about world peace [sorry, I'm an IR major, I can't cure cancer] that would improve my chances?</p>

<p>I'd like to think that I can do well on the LSAT - my method of thinking is on the logical side (INTJ if you're familiar with the Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator) and I can usually adopt certain ways of seeing things to answer questions and analyze problems 'correctly' [though I may disagree with their logic and the results obtained as a consequence].</p>

<p>Thank you!</p>

2

<p>According to [Law</a> School Predictor](<a href=“http://www.lawschoolpredictor.com%5DLaw”>http://www.lawschoolpredictor.com)
171 for UVA
176 for Yale</p>

3

<p>Your post reads as if you are “projecting” into the future, i.e., you haven’t already accomplished these things. If that’s the case, try to up your gpa. Believe it or not, a 3.8 would put you just below the 25th percentile for this year’s 1L class at Yale. (The 25th percentile is 3.81.)</p>

4

<p>Thank you both! And that’s a really helpful link, visitor1.
And yes, jonri, I wrote down one possible vision of the future to use as a base for comparing what would have to be different in order to get into a good law school.
And from both your posts I take it that it really is just a numbers game?</p>

5

<p>Do some law schools add points onto a W&M GPA. I thought I had seen this in the past. Maybe from UC-Berkely law? I cant remember. Anyone know about this?</p>

6

<p>This has all been asked and answered so many, many times on this board. Do a search because bluedevilmike did some really interesting calculations. </p>

<p>As a GENERAL rule of thumb, about 80% of LS admissions is about two numbers: LSAT and GPA. However, not all LSs do everything the exact same way. Of top LSs, Yale and Stanford are considered those that pay the most attention to soft factors. Another exception is Northwestern, which pays more attention to work experience than the rest of the top 14. It’s also worth noting that different LSs weigh gpa and LSAT differently. NYU, for example, is usually viewed as caring more about LSAT and Berkeley supposedly cares more about gpa. (This is “the word” on this site and others; don’t ask me to provide evidence…though looking at NYU’s ranges certainly suggests this is accurate for NYU.) </p>

<p>About half of the remaining 20% is made up of factors over which you have little or no control. Yale gives a boost to legacies–children of LS alums. (Yale college alums’ kids get no boost.) URM status, first generation, development cases (your family will donate $5 million or whatever), geographic diversity, in-state residency for SOME public U’s, are all part of this 10%. (This list is not exhaustive; I’m just giving you an idea of some factors that can matter.)</p>

<p>All the rest–letters of rec, personal statement, work experience, especially service type experience (military, TFA, Peace Corps) ECs, etc.-- matters about 10%. But that 10% can be decisive for many people. And it’s probably more than 10% at a couple of LSs.</p>

<p>Berkeley’s chart for different colleges was made public pursuant to a FOIA request a LOT of years ago and is no longer used.</p>

<p>Some LSs do adjust gpa a bit for tough grading schools, but none of them have publicly said–at least to my knowledge–what boost they give to which schools.
However, the LSDAS gives LSs tools to measure grade inflation. How? it tells LSs what the median LSAT score of all those applying from a particular college is. It also tells LSs the median LSDAS-calculated gpa of all the applicants from that college, based on the transcripts submitted to LSDAS. It also states --I don’t know in how much detail–where the LSDAS calculated gpa of each candidate places him/her among applicants from that college. So, if a 3.5 puts you in the top 10% of all LS applicants from W&M --obviously, I’m just making up #s–LSs will know that. </p>

<p>So, you will hear a lot of nonsense on this board and others about how Harvard is really grade inflated. The way LSAC measures grade inflation, it isn’t all that grade-inflated. Sure, LS applicants from Harvard College have high gpa’s. Year after year, they also have the highest median LSAT of any college–usually about 166. </p>

<p>One of my neighbors is always bragging about how high a gpa his D got from a big state U, which according to him, isn’t “grade inflated like the Ivies.” It’s true that the median gpa of LS applicants from that university is only about a 3.1 or 3.2. However, the median LSAT is about 148 or 149. The way most LSs measure grade-inflation, it’s one heck of a lot more inflated than Harvard is. </p>

<p>To get a very ROUGH idea of the degree of grade inflation at your college, take the median LSAT and convert it to a gpa by dropping the 1 and dividing by 20. Then compare that to the median LSDAS caluclated gpa.So, if the median LSAT at your college is a 160, that means the median gpa “should be” about a 3.0. It it’s below that, your school is grade deflated; if it’s above that, it really isn’t. If the median LSAT is a 150, then the median gpa of LS applicants from that college should be a 2.5. </p>

<p>Mike did a calculation a while back showing the extent of grade inflation at various colleges using the median LSAT and LSDAS calculated gpa to do it. The results are interesting.</p>