How Many Law Schools Should I Apply To?

How Many Law Schools Should I Apply To
If you’re applying to law school, you need a strategy to help keep you organized and stop you from feeling overwhelmed. Start planning early with our advice on when and where to apply. Forget the official deadline. The truth is that the longer you wait to apply to law school, the slimmer your chance of getting in.

Admissions teams don’t wait until the deadline to start making their decisions.
Get those applications as early into the process as you can.
You should also strongly consider applying early admission.
If you get in, then you won’t have to stress until April to find out where you’ll be spending the next three years of your life.

If you don’t get in, it can help you see what your chances are at other schools. Plus, it’s better to get waitlisted in December than April (or whenever you would be notified for regular admissions). If there’s a tie among applicants on the waiting list, there’s a good chance the school will admit whoever applied first.

Your best bet is to apply to a minimum of two reach schools, two match schools, and three safeties.
Why seven schools? Better safe than sorry.
Most admissions experts agree with the 2–2–3 or 2–3–2 ratios.
If you feel that you must really play it safe, apply to three in each category.
No matter how many schools on your list, make sure you would really attend each one if you had no other choice.

Take a LSAT practice test with us under the same conditions as the real thing. You’ll get a personalized score report highlighting your strengths and areas of improvement.

Is 3.7 law school too low?

Top law schools have candidates with an average GPA of 3.7 or higher. However, a GPA of 3.5 or above with a high LSAT score can land you in a good law school.

How accurate is 7Sage law school predictor?

7Sage is one of the more reputable and accurate online law school admission predictors. It’s not a crystal ball, of course. Like all online law school admission predictors, 7Sage becomes less reliable as you move further away from being a garden-variety applicant who plans to attend a garden-variety law school.

What is the lowest GPA to get into law school?

Yes, even with a low GPA, you can get into law school, and even to a top law school. – But first let’s talk about what it means to have a “low GPA.” If we’re talking about low GPAs, we need to figure out what that actually means. Unlike some obnoxious reddit users who call themselves a low GPA splitter when they have a 3.8 GPA, a low GPA doesn’t just mean a GPA you’re unhappy with. How Many Law Schools Should I Apply To Source: https://www.ilrg.com/rankings/law/index/1/desc/GPALow And the next chart shows the schools that accept the lowest GPAs : Source: https://www.ilrg.com/rankings/law/1/asc/GPALow?name=&state= So generally, if you’re trying to get into the top schools, a GPA below 3.6 will be considered low. But to answer the question what GPA do you need to get into law school, any law school, then the answer is at least a 2.5.

That is realistically the lowest GPA you can have to get into law school.
But even with a 2.5, you have an uphill battle to climb as that is in the lowest category of GPAs any school accepts.
Ok great, you’re probably thinking, I have an OK GPA, it’s more than a 2.5, but it’s too low for my dream school still.

In this hyper competitive admissions environment, can I actually get into a law school where my GPA is significantly low for that school? Yes. And I can prove it to you. Ok, the good news is that even with a low GPA, however that is defined for you and your goals, you can still get into your dream law school.

Attending University of Michigan Law School, GPA range 3.84, LSAT median 171

D.O.3.2 GPA, 156 LSAT 3.2 vs 3.82 median

Attending S.J. Quinney School of Law, GPA median 3.82, LSAT median 163

M.H.3.0 GPA, 153 LSAT 3.0 vs.3.64 median

Attending University of Houston Law School, GPA median 3.64, LSAT median 161

E.C.2.8 GPA, 157 LSAT 2.9 vs 3.39 median

Attending Rutgers with scholarship, GPA median 3.39, LSAT median 157

T.S.3.0 GPA, 162 LSAT 3.0 vs.3.57 median

Attending American, GPA median 3.56, LSAT median 161

D.C.3.6 GPA, 170 LSAT 3.6 vs 3.85 median

Attending Georgetown, GPA median 3.85, LSAT median 171

I hope this convinces you. You CAN still go to law school with a low GPA.

What GPA is a B+ in law school?

The Law School Where Every Student’s GPA Just Increased Loyola Law School in Los Angeles is retroactively increasing all of its current students’ grades. That C+ from last year is now a B-. Everybody’s GPA just went up by 0.333. Magic! The school says that it’s been grading on a harder curve than almost all the other law schools in California, so its students have been at an unfair disadvantage.

The shift is a reminder of an economic idea called “signaling.” It holds that education is important not only because of whatever facts students learn, but also because educational credentials are a way for candidates to signal to potential employers that they are likely to be productive workers. An economist named Michael Spence won a in part for showing that signaling would work even if education itself did not make people more productive workers.

Anyway. I asked the communications office at Loyola for a copy of the dean’s letter that went out last month explaining the grade hikes. Here it is: Last week the faculty approved a proposal to modify the grading system. The change will boost by one step the letter grades assigned at each level of our mandatory curve.

For example, what previously was a B- would be a B, what previously was a B would be a B+, and so forth. All other academic standards based on grades, such as the probation and disqualification thresholds, are also adjusted upwards by the same magnitude. For reasons that will be explained below, these changes are retroactive to include all grades that have been earned under the current grading system since it was adopted.

This means that all grades already earned by current students will be changed. It also means that all grades going forward will be governed by the new curve. The effect of making the change retroactive will be to increase the GPA of all students by,333.

The change will not alter relative class rank since the GPA of all students will be moved up by the same amount.
Reasons for Change I asked the faculty to make this change for two reasons.
First, grades provide information about our students and our academic program.
Employers and external sources of scholarship dollars pay very careful attention to this information.

The information conveyed by the old grading curve did not accurately convey the high quality of our students. Over the last several years our students have improved significantly as measured by all the usual standards of academic accomplishment. In 1999, the undergraduate GPA for the 25th/75th percentiles of our first year class was 3.00-3.50 and the LSAT was 154/160.

In 2009 the GPA was 3.17-3.61 and the LSAT was 158-163. Just 70% of our 1999 graduates passed the July bar exam on the first attempt. Over 85% of our 2009 graduates passed on the first try. Second, many other schools already have moved their curves higher than ours to give their students an advantage in this difficult job market.

In fact, before this change, only one other accredited California law school had a mean grade for first year classes as low as ours. Without adjusting our curve, we send an inaccurate message to employers about the comparative quality of our students and put them at an unfair competitive disadvantage.

Since we are adjusting our curve well after many other schools in our region already moved their curves higher, our faculty decided it was important to make this adjustment retroactive.
How Our Grading System Works To understand the change, it is important first to understand how our grading system works and why we have such a system.

In short, our system imposes in almost all classes a mandatory mean grade. It also imposes a mandatory standard deviation that controls the distribution of grades both above and below the mean. These mandatory standards limit professor discretion but provide a measure of uniformity between courses and professors.

Mandatory means and standard deviations. Once a faculty member determines the raw scores achieved by students in a class, those scores must be “normalized.” In almost all cases this is done by converting those raw scores to a range between 55 and 100 and then imposing a mandatory mean and standard deviation on that range.

All first year courses have a mandatory mean of 81 and a mandatory standard deviation of 6, with the exception of Legal Research and writing, which may use a standard deviation of between 4 and 6. The vast majority of our advanced courses have the mandatory means and mandatory standard deviations reflected in the chart below.

Number of students	Mean	S.D.
31 or more students	82.00	6.00
8-30 students	82-85	None
7 or fewer students	None	None

Conversion of number scores to letter grades, Once raw scores are “normalized” they are converted to letter grades. The minimum passing grade is 70, with some exceptions. Grades between 55 and 69 are considered failing grades for which unit credit is not earned.

Numerical Score	Letter Grade	GPA Value
55-66	F	0
67-69	D	1.0
70-72	C-	1.667
73-75	C	2.0
76-78	C+	2.333
79-81	B-	2.667
82-84	B	3.0
85-87	B+	3.333
88-90	A-	3.667
91-93	A	4.0
94-100	A+	4.333

Student cumulative GPA is calculated based on the GPA value assigned to letter grades in this chart. Rank is determined by cumulative GPA, not by the average of a student’s numerical scores. For purposes of considering the change we have made to the curve, it is important to keep in mind this relationship between rank and cumulative GPA.

This relationship means that, to raise the curve retroactively without changing anyone’s rank, all letter grade steps in the curve must be raised and all must be raised by essentially the same GPA value.
The New Curve As the chart below indicates, each step in the letter grade scale has been moved up one level (with the exception that the C- designation has simply been eliminated).

For example, a B- under the old system becomes a B under the new system, a B becomes a B+, and so forth. The “normalization” rules that take raw scores and force them into a 55-100 range with a mandatory mean and standard deviation, thereby producing the Numerical Score, remain unchanged.

Numerical Score	Letter Grade	GPA Value
55-66	F	,333
67-69	D	1.333
70-72	C	2.0
73-75	C+	2.333
76-78	B-	2.667
79-81	B	3.0
82-84	B+	3.333
85-87	A-	3.667
88-90	A	4.0
91-93	A+	4.333
94-100	A+*	4.667

Note that the highest grade in the new curve is still called A+, as is the second to the highest grade. This is because there is no commonly accepted symbol for a grade above that level. While most grades of A+ will receive 4.333 grade points, those A+ grades that earn 4.667 grade points will be accompanied by an asterisk.

The asterisk will lead the reader to an explanation on the transcript making clear that, as a result of the change in the curve we have now implemented, there are two possible grade point values for an A+. By way of comparison, USC Law School employs a system that allows for several different grade point values above 4.0.

Implementation of Changes Grades appearing on student transcripts will be changed to reflect the new curve. The Dean’s office is working with the Office of the Registrar and the Information Technology Department to implement these changes on transcripts as soon as possible.

Is 148 a good LSAT score?

What LSAT score do I need to get into law school? – According to U.S News, “Among the 193 ranked law schools that reported the median LSAT score for incoming full-time students in fall 2019, the overall median was 155. Meanwhile, among the 12 ranked schools with the highest-scoring students, including ties, the overall median score was 170.” To find out what LSAT score you’ll need, examine information about each college’s J.D.

120-147 Low 148-156 Mid 157-164 High 165-180 Exceptional

Find your school on the LSAC official guide to ABA-approved law schools, Click on the school, then scroll to the bottom of the page. Here you’ll find a chart showing the applicant profile for the college. You’ll see a list of LSAT score ranges on the left side, and along the top, you’ll find GPA ranges. The graph shows you which combinations improve or reduce your chance of acceptance.

What percentage of people flunk out of law school?

You and the Law | How to flunk out of law school Recently accepted by a mid-west law school, “Howard” wrote, “I never really studied much in college, cramming for tests and assume law school will be like that, but my wife tells me I will flunk out if I approach it that way.

What LSAT score is too low for law school?

Can you get into law school with a low LSAT? – Below are 5 important things you should consider before making any decisions:

The LSAT matters. The LSAT and GPA are tools – with statistical significance – that law schools use to predict whether an applicant will be successful in their first year of law school and if a potential student is likely to pass the bar exam. Don’t discount the importance of the LSAT score – law school admissions committees count on it.
How low is too low? Quite frankly, if your LSAT score is below 147, it will be difficult to be admitted to an accredited law school, not impossible but very difficult. Your GPA will have to do some heavy lifting. If your LSAT score is 150 or above, your chances increase if you choose prospective law schools wisely, Anything over 160 combined with a solid GPA, and you are a candidate who will have more opportunities.
Should I take the LSAT again? Some schools will accept future LSATs but will hold your application until it’s complete with the new score. It can be well worth retaking the LSAT if you think that you will score significantly (more than 3 points) higher. On the other hand, if you don’t think you will score higher, delaying your application can hurt your chances. Think of it this way: you want to apply when you have your strongest application. If that means improving your LSAT score, applying a bit later may reap rewards.
Don’t repeat your mistakes. If you didn’t do well on this LSAT, change your strategy. Don’t study on your own from a book, if that’s what you did before. Get a tutor or take a different class. Take timed practice tests. The LSAT requires preparation, and you need to discover the study approach that’s going to get you your best score. Practice, practice, practice.
Make the rest of the application strong. Law school admissions is a competitive process. Many candidates will fall within a school’s median LSAT and GPA range. Give a law school positive reasons to admit you; don’t just mitigate or remove possible negatives. The best way to distinguish yourself is with a compelling personal statement, Law is a writing profession, so the personal statement counts for quite a lot. Explain to the committee why you are applying to law school and why you will be a great member of their community in a clear and concise narrative. Read: 5 Things to Consider When Justifying Your LSAT Score or Grades >>

Most important of all – don’t despair! If your LSAT is holding your application back, you can study for it and improve your score. Even further, you can ensure that your written materials reflect the best story of yourself as an applicant. For a list of LSAT scores by schools, check out the Law School Selectivity Index,

Is law school harder than med school?

After the Degree – After getting your medical degree, you’ll start a residency program which is basically an internship for a doctor. Your residency program will usually last between three to seven years. On the upside, you’ll be working immediately after finishing your degree.

Once you complete your residency, you can then obtain a medical license in your state.
If you choose to get your law degree, you can usually start practicing law immediately after graduation, as long as you have passed the bar exam.
However, it may take some time to start working for a firm, possibly longer if you choose to work for yourself.

So which degree is tougher? One student may say that medical school is tougher while another says that law school is tougher. In reality, it really depends on you, how you learn, and your natural abilities and aptitude of being a student. Students who prefer science more may choose medical school while those that prefer writing and presenting arguments may choose a law school.

In medical school, you have a lot of hands-on learning as well as being required to memorize things such as medical terms and parts of the body. In law school, you’ll be required to do heavy reading, writing, and learning about every aspect of the law. So is law school tougher than medical school? At the end of the day, it really depends on you and how you learn.

Test Prep Resources:,, : Law School vs. Med School: Which Is Tougher?

What LSAT score is 95th percentile?

General LSAT Score Conversion Table –


Raw Score	Scaled Score	Percentile Rank %
99-101	180	99.97
98	179	99.94
97	178	99.87
96	177	99.77
95	176	99.64
94	175	99.47
93	174	99.27
92	173	98.97
90-91	172	98.60
89	171	98.03
88	170	97.37
87	169	96.67
85-86	168	95.77
84	167	94.48
82-83	166	93.14
81	165	91.71
79-80	164	89.91
77-78	163	87.84
76	162	85.71
74-75	161	83.07
72-73	160	80.37
71	159	77.47
69-70	158	74.17
67-68	157	70.90
65-66	156	67.30
64	155	63.80
62-63	154	60.00
60-61	153	55.83
58-59	152	52.03
56-57	151	48.03
55	150	44.37
53-54	149	40.23
51-52	148	36.53
49-50	147	33.20
48	146	29.67
46-47	145	26.50
44-45	144	23.33
43	143	20.30
41-42	142	17.93
39-40	141	15.40
38	140	13.36
36-37	139	11.47
35	138	9.70
33-34	137	8.16
32	136	6.83
31-30	135	5.70
29	134	4.63
28	133	3.80
26-27	132	3.20
25	131	2.53
24	130	2.00
23	129	1.66
22	128	1.33
21	127	1.03
20	126	0.83
19	125	0.67
18	124	0.49
17	123	0.43
16	122	0.33
15	121	0.26
0-14	120

What percent of LSAT takers get a 170?

170 score: Scoring a 170 on the LSAT is almost always considered a good score — that means you are in the 2-3% of test-takers. Still, it won’t guarantee you admission at a top law school.

Is 173 a good LSAT score?

What is a good LSAT score? – The average LSAT score is around a 152, though many top-100 schools will require more than the average for admissions. Schools will compare you to other applicants from the same cycle. They will rely on an LSAT percentile, which is a percentile calculated against the scores of everyone who has taken the LSAT in the last three years.

The percentile ranking represents the percentage of test takers who scored lower than you on the LSAT. If your score, for example, was a 159, your percentile is somewhere around 77 percent. An exceptional LSAT score will be somewhere around a 173, which is the 99th percentile, according to the Law School Admissions Council—if you received a 173, you scored better than 99 percent of all test takers.

A score of over 175 or better almost guarantees acceptance at some of the most elite universities: Harvard, Columbia, Stanford, and with a great GPA, even Yale. While stellar, achieving a 173 is not in itself enough to guarantee acceptance at the country’s most elite universities.

But it will allow you to be a competitive applicant to the school of your dreams. Many, if not all, law schools will publish information about their incoming class, including their LSAT and GPA ranges. Schools will post the 25th, 50th, and 75th percentiles for GPA and LSAT scores. Normally, falling between the 25th and 75th percentile is a helpful indicator of your chances of being considered for a position in the incoming class, and likely where a good LSAT score lies.

This guide will delve into the specifics of these percentiles and what they mean below. If you want to see how your current scores and statistics compare to national averages, LSAC has a tool that allows you to measure your LSAT score and GPA against admitted students from previous years.

Is GPA or LSAT more important?

How Important Is The LSAT?: The Detailed Picture – Law schools at the very top of the rankings care a lot about great LSAT scores — you have to have one to get in — but relative to other factors, the LSAT is slightly less important there than at lower schools.

Schools in the T6 such as Stanford and UChicago care deeply about who you are and what you have done with your life. These are so-called ” soft factors “–considerations other than LSAT and GPA. Top law schools can afford to care about soft factors because they often have more applicants with the right kind of numbers than they have spots to fill.

Therefore they look to these other factors to make some of their admissions decisions. It’s difficult to judge how much the ‘soft’ factors matter exactly at these top 10 or so schools, but we do know that your LSAT and GPA are still great predictors of whether you get into these schools or not, meaning soft factors are still weighted way less than LSAT and GPA.

Also, the LSAT is still the dominant factor when considered against GPA alone.
While Berkeley may form one exception to this rule (Dean Tom seems to put about equal emphasis on LSAT and what he calls “undergraduate record”), most commentators estimate that LSAT is nearly twice as important a factor as GPA in law school admission at the top schools.

Keep in mind that just because the LSAT gets more weight in the decision-making process, a GPA well below a school’s typical range is still likely to keep you from being admitted to that school. While LSAT is the most important factor, GPA is still significant.

When you get down into schools lower in the rankings (outside the top 10 schools), numbers alone become an even better predictor of how likely you are to get into a specific school. LSAT is still the more important number than GPA. Here, the LSAT may become even more than twice as important as GPA. This is because there are more applicants with great GPAs than applicants with great LSAT scores.

Theoretically, everyone could have a good GPA. Grade inflation has made it so that a considerable percentage of undergrad students have high (3.5+) GPAs. On the other hand, the LSAT is designed so that only a small percentage of takers will have top scores, leading to a scarcity of applicants with good LSAT scores.

What’s the lowest GPA Harvard law accepted?

What LSAT and GPA do you need for Harvard Law School? While Harvard Law School claims there are no numerical cut-offs for score or GPA, the reality is that most admitted applicants have LSAT scores in the top percentiles and exceptional undergraduate academic records.

Founded in 1817, Harvard Law School is the oldest continually-operating law school in the United States. HLS provides unmatched opportunities to study law and related disciplines in a rigorous and collaborative environment. Harvard Law School has the largest class size of any law school ranked in the top 150 with approximately 560 students per class.

In fact, HLS has nearly twice as many law students as Yale Law School and Stanford Law School combined. The first year class is broken into seven sections with approximately 80 students per section, who will take the majority of their 1L classes together.

Harvard Law School’s scope is measured in its unparalleled breadth and depth of courses and clinics, its wide array of research programs, its diverse student body drawn from across the nation and around the world, and its extensive network of distinguished alumni including the 44th president of the United States Barack Obama and his wife Michelle Obama—former president candidates, Mitt Romney, Michael Dukakis and Ralph Nader—U.S.

senators Ted Cruz, Mike Crapo, Tim Kaine, Jack Reed, Chuck Schumer, Tom Cotton and Mark Warner. Additionally, fourteen of the school’s graduates have served on the Supreme Court of the United States, more than any other law school. Four of the current eight members of the Supreme Court are graduates of Harvard Law School, including Chief Justice John G.

Roberts Jr. and associate Justices, Anthony M. Kennedy, Stephen G. Beyer and Elena Kagan, who served as the dean of HLS from 2003 to 2009—will be five of nine if Donald Trump’s nominee Neil Gorsuch is confirmed. Ruth Bader Ginsburg attended Harvard Law School for her 1L year before transferring to Columbia Law School.

Past Supreme Court Justices from HLS include David H. Souter, Harry A. Blackmun, William J. Brennan Jr., Louis Dembitz Brandies, Felix Frankfurter, Lewis F. Powell Jr., Harold Hitz Burton, Edward Terry Sanford, William Henry Moody, Henry Billings Brown, Melville Weston Fuller, Horace Gray, Benjamin Robbins Curtis, Oliver Wendall Holmes Jr., and Antonin Scalia.

Harvard Law School also boasts the most Fortune 500 CEOs of any law school and second most of any school behind only Harvard Business School, including the current chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs, Lloyd Blankfein. Gaining admission to HLS is extremely competitive with only 16.5% of applicants offered admission to the class of 2019 (average for all law schools ~52%).

Not surprisingly, of those students lucky enough to be offered admission, 62% enrolled, which is one of the highest percent yields for all law schools (average for all law schools ~27%).

So let’s take a look at what it actually takes to have a chance of being admitted to the most prestigious and preeminent law school in the world.
Here are the Harvard Law School class profile statistics for the past three years:
Class of 2019 Profile

GPA 75th/ 50th/ 25th percentiles: 3.94 / 3.86/ 3.76 LSAT 75th/ 50th / 25th percentiles: 175 / 172 / 170

Number of Applications: 5,485 Number of Admission Offers: 908 Percentage Offered Admission: 16.5%
Newly Enrolled 1Ls: 562
Class of 2018 Profile

GPA 75th/ 50th/ 25th percentiles: 3.96 / 3.86 / 3.75 LSAT 75th/ 50th / 25th percentiles: 175 / 173 / 170

Number of Applications: 5,207 Number of Admission Offers: 931 Percentage Offered Admission: 17.8%
Newly Enrolled 1Ls: 560
Class of 2017 Profile

GPA 75th/ 50th/ 25th percentiles: 3.95 / 3.87 / 3.75 LSAT 75th/ 50th / 25th percentiles: 175 / 173 / 170

Number of Applications: 5,973 Number of Admission Offers: 918 Percentage Offered Admission: 15.4%
Newly Enrolled 1Ls: 560

As you can see from these numbers, an LSAT score of 170 or higher and a GPA above 3.75 will give you a chance of gaining admission to Harvard Law School. If you have a GPA of 3.94 or higher and above a 175, you are pretty much a lock for admission, particularly given the class size of ~560.

When will the HLS application materials be available?
Harvard Law School’s electronic application becomes available in mid-September.
When does HLS begin accepting applications?

Applications to HLS are accepted as soon as the application materials are made available. Like most law schools, admissions decisions are made on a rolling basis, which means you can expect a decision anytime between December and May.

How are applications to HLS submitted?
All applications to HLS must be submitted electronically through LSAC.
Does HLS have an “early admission” or an “early decision” process?

No. HLS exclusively uses a rolling admission process. This means that applications are reviewed in the order they are completed, which means all required materials have been received and processed.

How much is the application fee and when is the deadline?
Application deadline: February 1st Application fee: $85.00
Financial aid deadline: April 15th
Does HLS grant interviews?

Yes, but evaluative interviews are available by invitation only. All interviews are conducted via Skype. The rumor is that every single admitted student is offered an invitation to interview, so if you do not receive an interview request from HLS, you shouldn’t hold your breathe. Try Risk Free ✓ No card required ✓ 1 minute setup : What LSAT and GPA do you need for Harvard Law School?

Is a C passing in law school?

UC Irvine School of Law grades on a scale of A+ (4.3) to F (0.0), IP (in progress) will be assigned at the end of the first semester in all year-long courses. After grades post to transcripts, the Law Registrar will generate a letter for each in-progress course offered during the semester, indicating the A to F level of performance for each student.

In-progress letters will be available in the Law Registrar’s Office until the official grades for the class post at the end of the second semester. Students can take up to 8 self-selected units of Law School upper-level courses on a credit/no-credit basis. Credit/no-credit grading options are at the instructor’s discretion and must be elected and enrolled in by the end of the second week of classes in any semester.

In order to receive credit for a law course taken credit/no credit, a law student must obtain a minimum grade of C- (1.7). All examinations will be graded anonymously.

What GPA is top 10 percent in law school?

Implications of Class Rankings – At the end of each semester, or sometimes at the end of the school year, law schools generally release the rankings for each class. Class rankings are a distribution of the entire class based on each student’s overall GPA.

The most important factor impacting class rankings is the normal curve. Some schools tend to skew the curve, while others allow for mild deviations by the evaluators implementing it. Discrepancies such as these can have a slight impact on student GPAs and thus on class rankings. For a recruiter, it is important to understand the composition of the curve and the rankings for each school. Information on grading curves, whenever available, has been presented along with the school profiles. Variations in the 4.0 GPA model, as stated earlier, affect class rankings. For instance, at Washington University School of Law a 92.13 GPA is the minimum requirement to be in the top 10% of the class, which corresponds to an A-. The school’s corresponding letter grades seem a bit higher than its number grades since no other school has a 3.8 (the traditional A- grade in the 4.0 scale) as its top 10% cutoff grade. From a recruiter’s perspective, although the difference is not very large, care needs to be taken to understand the grading system and the variations that the system has from the traditional grading methodology.

: DECODING CLASS RANKINGS WHAT SHOULD THE RECRUITER LOOK FOR

What GPA do you need for Biglaw?

Top 1/3 of class and journal or moot court experience preferred. We prefer candidates with a GPA of 3.5 or higher.

What was Obama’s LSAT score?

Unraveling the secret behind Obama’s LSAT Score –

The book by Lockwood takes into account the demographic data published by LSAC in 1990. Based on the data it’s observed that 10 African-American students from Columbia University applied to law school. Only two of them scored over the 63% mark; and in fact scored between 94-98%, which would be equivalent to a score of 166 – 171 in today’s grading system. Hence it’s very likely that Obama had an LSAT Score around the median of the class (43 on the then-used 48 point scale).

What did Elle Woods get on her LSAT?

The Law School Admission Test (LSAT) is a difficult and intense exam that students spend months preparing for. In the film, Elle scored a 179 on her LSAT. That is one point away from a perfect score of 180.

What majors score highest on LSAT?

By on March 9, 2016, UPDATED ON April 19, 2019, in Scores How Many Law Schools Should I Apply To Are some majors better prepared for the LSAT than others? While law schools don’t require students to have any particular major, Derek T. Muller, Associate Professor of Law at Pepperdine University School of Law, set out to find the answer. Muller requested data from the Law School Admission Council (LSAC) for all 2013 applicants to law school. How Many Law Schools Should I Apply To Photo courtesy of excessofdemocracy.com, Source: Derek T. Muller, Excess of Democracy: “The Best Prospective Law Students Read Homer” Muller also identified a correlation between LSAT and GPA, though there were some exceptions. Science majors, for example, typically reported high LSAT scores but low GPAs.

What’s the lowest LSAT score that is acceptable by law school?

How Low Is Too Low of an LSAT Score for Law School? – While you may be able to apply and even be accepted into a law school with a lower LSAT score, there is a cut-off for acceptable application scores. If you are consistently scoring lower than 145, you may need to consider significant studying and a retake before applying to law schools.

Is 3.87 A good GPA for law school?

How Many Law Schools Should I Apply To The highest-ranked law schools typically admit students with near-perfect college grades. (Getty Images) Law school admissions experts say it’s important for J.D. hopefuls to realize that highly ranked law schools prefer to admit applicants with stellar college grades.

So applicants to elite schools who lack an impressive college transcript need to compensate for that academic weakness in order to get accepted, experts warn. Erin Goodnow, co-founder and CEO of the Going Ivy admissions consulting firm based in Arizona, says that selective law schools typically have many more applicants than spots available, and these schools are determined to enroll only the most promising aspiring attorneys.

Prestigious J.D. programs use undergraduate GPAs as a tool to identify the J.D. applicants who are the “cream of the crop,” she says. Although top law schools will occasionally admit students who lack high GPAs if they have other qualities that compensate for that deficit such as an outstanding admissions essay or LSAT score, this is rare, Goodnow says.

These institutions usually err on the side of admitting applicants with high GPAs, she notes, and she urges J.D. applicants with low GPAs to be realistic about their admissions chances at exclusive J.D. programs. “If you have the strongest story and some amazing circumstances in your life, or you get a perfect LSAT score or something like that, that can definitely compensate, but you have your work cut out for you,” Goodnow suggests.

Goodnow says the extraordinary selectivity of top law schools puts significant academic pressure on college students who hope to become lawyers. She advises college students who dream of attending a top law school to earn grades as high as possible, because grades are a major factor in the law school admissions process.

College is not particularly a time to find yourself anymore,” she says.
It’s a time to prove who you are and prove that you are material for these top schools.” Goodnow argues that GPA is the No.1 most important factor in law school admissions, but some other law school admissions experts suggest that standardized test scores are the most important factor and that GPA is the second-most important factor.

However, regardless of whether they believe GPAs or test scores are more influential in the J.D. admissions process, experts emphasize that these two statistics matter. GPA figures that 193 ranked law schools submitted to U.S. News in an annual survey clarify what GPAs were typical among entering law school students in 2017.

These statistics reveal a significant gap between the average median GPAs at top-10 law schools vs.
The average median GPA at all other ranked law schools.
The average median GPA among the 10 law schools with the lowest GPAs is below a 3.0 on a 4.0 scale, where a 4.0 corresponds to a straight-A average and a 3.0 corresponds to a straight-B average.

That means some law schools welcome B-minus college students. How Many Law Schools Should I Apply To (Ilana Kowarski and Nate Hellman) However, among the highest-ranked law schools, the norm is to admit people with near-perfect college grades. All of the top-10 law schools had median GPAs of 3.7 or higher. Seven of these 10 schools had a median GPA that was at least a 3.8, and among those three had a median GPA that was a 3.9 or above.

The school with the highest median GPA was Yale Law School – the No.1 school in the U.S.
News Best Law Schools rankings – where the typical GPA among entering students was 3.91.
Experts say that one reason GPAs tend to be higher at prestigious law schools is college grade inflation.
Research by Stuart Rojstaczer – a former Duke University professor and a national expert on college grading – has demonstrated that the average GPA among U.S.

college students rose significantly over a 30 year period, 1983 to 2013. Another contributing factor, experts say, is that GPAs facilitate admissions decisions. “GPAs are attractive because they provide a hard number that law schools can track and control via who they admit, and because they allow admissions officers to instantly compare GPAs between students, which is not something so easily done for extracurriculars or career achievements,” says Dave Killoran, CEO of the PowerScore test prep firm.

In short, law schools love a standardized, universal metric when evaluating applicants.” However, law school admissions experts say applicants who attended rigorous colleges or completed difficult college majors, such as chemistry, should understand that J.D.
Programs will consider that fact.
Anna Ivey, a former dean of admissions at the University of Chicago Law School who now heads the Ivey Consulting admissions coaching firm, says that J.D.

admissions officers understand that the same college GPA may be easier or harder to achieve depending on someone’s undergraduate program. “GPAs matter a lot in the admissions process, but admissions officers are looking at the context as well, so it’s not just about that one, final number,” Ivey said via email.

They scrutinize the whole transcripts and look at individual grades, the coursework and the difficulty of the program, among other things. Consistently strong performance at a demanding undergraduate program gives them more information about you as a prospective law school student than a high LSAT score that you earned in roughly three hours on a single day, although both are of course good to have.” Jeff Thomas, Kaplan Test Prep’s executive director of prelaw programs, notes that it is common for J.D.

admissions officers to research how high an applicant’s grades were in comparison to his or her peers within the same major. Thomas adds that admissions officers also evaluate whether an applicant took challenging courses. So a student with a 3.7 GPA who regularly took advanced, 400-level courses would make a better impression than someone else with the same GPA who had primarily taken 100-level, introductory courses, Thomas suggests.

Experts say that law school hopefuls who have already graduated college and who worry that their undergraduate GPAs are not good enough for acceptance at a desirable J.D.
Program should focus on polishing other aspects of their law school applications, such as their admissions essays and LSAT score.
Jon Denning, the vice president at PowerScore, said via email that “undergraduate GPA is typically the most fixed application element for students in their senior year (or beyond), so if that number is below the median at a target school it becomes all the more critical that other, less predetermined factors – the LSAT above all – are as impressive as possible.” District of Columbia criminal defense attorney Matthew Wilson says that law school applicants with law-related work experience, who earned their bachelor’s degrees many years ago, may be able to override the stigma of low college grades by showcasing their professional accomplishments.

“Many law school applicants are several years removed from the undergraduate education and have spent time working in the ‘real world,'” Wilson said via email. “A glowing letter of recommendation from an employer, especially from a law firm or legal organization, may be much more important to an admissions officer than undergraduate grades that are several years old.” Jeremy Rovinsky, the dean and general counsel of National Paralegal College in Arizona and a lawyer who earned a J.D.

Degree from George Washington University, says that researching median GPAs and standardized test scores at various law schools can help J.D. applicants apply to the right schools. Rovinsky suggests that J.D. applicants who are determined to attend law school the following school year should apply to at least one safety school where their credentials are well above the norm, at least one match school where their credentials are typical and at least one reach school where their credentials are below average.

He says law school applicants should know from the outset that J.D. admissions are competitive. “It’s just supply and demand,” he says. “There are a lot more students who want to go to law school than who want to go to some master’s program in some other field.” However, Rovinsky adds that aspiring attorneys shouldn’t be discouraged from applying to any law school at all simply because their college grades aren’t ideal.

Is a 3.6 good enough for law school?

How Important Is the LSAT vs. GPA? How Important Is the LSAT vs. GPA? We at Clayborne have built relationships with several excellent professionals in law schools admissions and admissions consulting. These colleagues have helped us gain a nuanced sense of the crucial role the LSAT plays in law school admissions.

The first thing any law school candidate must understand is that law school admission is, as a rule, a holistic process. Although law schools used to have hard and fast formulas by which they interpreted candidates’ LSAT scores and undergraduate GPA (UGPA), this is generally no longer the case. Law school admissions officers really do take the time to consider each candidate as a person and not simply as a composite of make-or-break numbers.

With that said, put yourself in the law school’s shoes. Maintaining standing is an important consideration, and the reality is that US News’ yearly rankings go a long way toward determining that standing. Those rankings unquestionably value median LSAT score more highly than they do UGPA; in fact, a peek at the full details of the rankings (only available to those willing to pony up $29.95 for inside access) shows the LSAT score placed front and center, whereas it takes several clicks and some scrolling to discover the average UGPA.

So we’ve established that a law school cannot afford to downplay the LSAT score.
But let’s go deeper: we’re talking about median LSAT, not average (arithmetic mean).
If you’ve been well instructed in statistics, you will recognize that median, unlike mean, only tells us about the score that is exactly in the middle of all the data.

This means that if a law school’s matriculants have LSAT scores anywhere from 150 to 170, their median LSAT score will not necessarily be 160 in fact, it could diverge widely from that figure. To take an example from Clayborne’s backyard, the middle 50% at our beloved UVA Law School (currently tied for 9th place in US News’ rankings) is an LSAT score of 163 to 170.

But the actual median (50th percentile) nestles way at the high end of that range: 169.
UVA has a great deal of incentive to make sure that roughly half of its next entering class possesses LSAT scores at or above 169, as well as the following class, and the one after that, etc.
None of this is to suggest that UGPA doesn’t matter.

After all, law schools have standards to maintain with regard to GPA as well; the median UGPA for UVA law schools is a sterling 3.87, and the school no doubt wants to maintain that standard. But here’s the difference: for most schools, a candidate with a high GPA is easier to find than a candidate with a high LSAT score,

Tens of thousands of law school aspirants do well at their undergraduate institutions, but only a fraction of those students will navigate the gauntlet the LSAT throws down and come out with impressive results.
The reverse outcome—applicants with high LSAT scores but low UGPA—is simply less common.
These realities lead to what may be an unsettling conclusion: since applicants with above average GPA and below average LSAT are somewhat common, this is not the profile you want to have.

Sure, it’s far better to be above the median GPA than below it, but you must remind yourself that law schools need to nurture their medians in both GPA and LSAT. If high LSAT scores are harder to come by, that makes them all the more valuable as economics teaches, scarcity makes a commodity precious! What does all this mean for you? We see several important “dos” and “don’ts”:

DO raise that GPA, if it’s not too late, You’ll need a 3.8 or better to be above the median for a top 14 law school, and a 3.6 or better to be above the median for the top 50.

DO your homework, and determine exactly what you need, If your GPA is (or is going to be) below the median for any of the schools you’re applying to, you need to pull out all the stops to make sure your LSAT score is above the median for those schools. Know your goals, do the math, and cultivate a good relationship with admissions at all your schools of interest.

DO cultivate the virtue of the few, A high LSAT score is like gold, and you want that gold in your pocket. At the risk of beating a dead horse, consider: if you are targeting a school with a median LSAT of 165 and a median UGPA of 3.75, and your GPA is 3.9 and your LSAT 163, you are not in good shape just because your GPA is well above the median and your LSAT is only a little bit below it. Medians are everything, and you need to pull up that LSAT score in order to feel secure in your position.

DON’T give up if your GPA is low. Remember the median principle here. Even if your desired school has a median of 3.6 and you’re at 2.9, all is not necessarily lost. If you can get above the median LSAT score for that school, you have at least some hope in the outcome, because that law school (as often happens) may have all the high UGPA’s it needs but not enough LSAT scores above its median putting you right in the mix!

DON’T leave money on the table. Tuition for the top 14 schools averages over $180,000 over three years. For the top 50, the average is still well over $120,000. Most schools have substantial scholarship funds available (many Clayborne students have gotten free rides or substantial tuition reductions). Doing what it takes to maximize your LSAT score is extremely likely to pay off in big ways for those who expend the time, money, and sweat in pursuit of a better future.

Contact Clayborne today to find out more about how to hurdle the medians in your life! : How Important Is the LSAT vs. GPA?

Is a 3.5 good enough for law school?

What is a good GPA to get into law school? – Only a very few law schools and colleges accept potential student candidates with an undergraduate GPA of 3.49 or lower. Most prestigious law schools require a GPA of 3.85 or higher. However, statistics show that some undergraduates have been accepted at Yale and Harvard with a GPA score of 3.56 and 3.50, respectively, although they likely had a higher LSAT score, excellent recommendations, and an optimal personal statement.