dfence

I'm going into 3rd year engineering and considering going into Law.

I've been told that Law School's only take your 3rd and 4th year marks for your GPA by one person, but also I've been told that they only let you drop 12 credits and take the rest of your grades.

I guess it depends on which Law School you're trying to get into, but does anyone know what most schools generally do? I'm not looking at those Ivy league schools or very hard to get into ones, probably something average and preferably in Canada.

By the way I'm in B.C. Canada but I would go to the States if the opportunity came up.

Thanks for any help!

The_Jazz

Eery school's different, but I find it surprising that they would only take 2 of 4 year's marks. That doesn't seem very logical to me.

I'd figure out where I wanted to go first and then worry about admission criteria.

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dfence

It's a bit surprising, but I don't think it's out of the question. Perhaps they think they'll let students 'feel out' college is 1st and 2nd year, then expect the best in 3rd and 4th... just a thought

I guess I'd prefer going to either the University of British Columbia, a Law school in California, or a Law school on the East coast if that narrows things down!!

mo42

The last two year's GPA thing is true for some other types of Graduate School. I think that UCLA and the University of Chicago only looked at my last 2 year's GPA when I applied for their Biochemistry Ph.D programs.

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MuadDib

This is patently untrue for United States law schools, at least as they apply to United States residents. I suppose there might be a different way of doing for foreign students, but I wouldn't make that assumption out of hand.

For US residents, all law schools accredited by the American Bar Association (ABA) use the same factors, though they may be weighted differently (though in practice they are almost all the same even there). The two "hard factors" that all ABA schools look to and give primacy to are your Undergraduate GPA (UGPA) and the score on your Law School Admission Test (LSAT). Schools used to be able to choose between looking at your highest LSAT score or your average, assuming you've taken in more than once. Changes have been made and, I believe, they now look only to your highest score though they will have access to all of your scores.

As far as UGPA goes, it is your entire gpa for your first undergraduate degree (bachelors not associates or technical degrees). You can not exclude any classes and retakes count as seperate class despite what your undergraduate institution does with them. Your UGPA is calculated not by your or your undergraduate institution; instead all of your college transcripts got to the Law School Admissions Council (LSAC) and into there database (LSDAS) to insure that all applicants UGPAs are standardized.

Now all schools give different consideration to "soft factors" such as your writing sample in your LSAT, your personal statement, number of withdraws or below "C" grades, minority status, work experience, etc. Unfortunately, these factors are largely tie-breakers because LSAT/UGPA primarily determine USNews rankings which bare enormous (and unfounded) influence over law schools. There is also some evidence showing that they are the biggest factors in determining success in law school.

Anyway, the main point is that the 2 years thing or the credit drop are not true to the best of my knowledge; at least not for U.S. residents and I can see no reason for a difference in this matter for foreign students. However, a lot of schools will consider the difficulty of your major as an important soft factor. So in a lot of cases a solid 3.0 in engineering might hold more sway than a 4.0 in something like political science.

NOTE: No statements made here are intended as advise or counseling regarding law school admissions. I am not a member of any admissions board or LSAC which hold exclusive, discretionary, and ultimate authority in any admissions decision. My comments are mere impressions based solely on my personal experience with the law school admissions process and are in no manner a factual representation of admissions process. For official information contact LSAC (http://www.lsac.org) as well as the specific legal institutions to which you are considering applying.

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telekinetic

My friend did poorly on his UGPA from Stanford, but became a hermit for two months to study for the LSAT, and ended up getting 100% (or extremely close to it, I can't remember) on it, and he's been accepted to every school he applied to.

LSAT > UGPA, but you have to do REALLY REALLY OMG REALLY well.

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MuadDib

Sadly this is true. I'm a similar story. Extremely sub-par UGPA at a state university, but 98th percentile LSAT. In the pre-law world people like me are referred to as splitters and high LSAT/low UGPA splitters are infinitely better off than low LSAT/high UGPA splitters.

However, it is important to note that you CANNOT absolutely count on getting a uber-high LSAT no matter how well you do. As you may have noticed the grading on the LSAT is a percentile grade and its based on a huge curve (120-180; with the top/bottom 10 points representing 0-5% & 95-100%). The point is that your grade is based on a comparison to how well all other test takers did on that specifc exam given throughout the nation on that weekend.

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"The courts that first rode the warhorse of virtual representation into battle on the res judicata front invested their steed with near-magical properties." ~27 F.3d 751

dfence

Thanks all!

Yes you're right, I phoned up UBC Law school and they said they take all of your grades. Last year's acceptance cutoff was an 82% average and an LSAT score of 163.. how does that compare to good schools in the States?

I also phone UBC's MBA program and they said they take 300 and 400 level courses only and accept with an average of 76%... so maybe that's what people were confusing it with....

Oh well! (also I'm not sure exactly how to turn percentile into GPA exactly... I looked it up on the internet, but I had to put in weighted credits and such... )