Welcome to the latest installment of Law Admissions Q-and-A, a monthly feature of Law Admissions Lowdown that provides admissions advice to readers who send in questions and admissions profiles.
If you have a question about law school, please email me for a chance to be featured next month.
[See photos of the 20 Best Law Schools for 2016.]
Dear Shawn: I am a third year undergraduate at the University of California–San Diego. I recently decided that I would like to go to law school, as previously I planned to apply to medical school. I am a human biology and political science double major and have been on an NCAA team for three years.
My overall GPA is quite low — 3.2 — because of hard upper division biology and chemistry courses, but my political science major is decent –3.86. I have not taken the LSAT but plan to next year. I guess I am asking what my chances are for admission given my undergraduate coursework and GPAs, assuming an average LSAT score? — From Doctor to Lawyer
Dear From Doctor to Lawyer: Although you are correct that your current undergraduate GPA decreases your chances of admission at a top school, there are three things you should do to improve your profile.
First, do everything you can to improve your GPA during the rest of college. You are fortunate in that you still have a significant amount of college in front of you, and you should use that opportunity to work on your GPA.
Take classes that play to your academic strengths both in terms of subject matter and method of evaluation. You have done an excellent job in your political science courses, so I would consider taking some courses outside of your major that are reading and writing oriented, and whose evaluations are papers rather than exams.
Second, prepare as much as you can for the LSAT. The LSAT is given more weight by most law schools, and although a great LSAT score will not completely overcome a lower GPA, it can help a lot.
[Learn how to evaluate GPA, LSAT scores to set a law school application strategy.]
If you do well on the LSAT, you will likely be on the very high end for LSAT and on the lower end for GPA for the schools to which you apply, making the other aspects of your application such as essays and letters of recommendation all the more important for you. You may want to look into an LSAT course or a tutor to make sure you maximize your score.
Third, plan on writing an addendum to explain your GPA to law schools. In your addendum, you should candidly describe why your overall GPA does not accurately reflect your academic ability. Changing majors and finding the courses and subjects that played to your intellectual and academic strengths is a great way to do that.
Dear Shawn: I am currently deciding between two law schools, and I’m not sure which one I should attend in the fall. Neither was my top choice, so I am hoping to position myself to be a strong transfer applicant. One school has a significantly better ranking and academic reputation than the other. Would it be better to go to the school with the better reputation or would that make it harder for me to have the GPA I would need to be a strong transfer applicant? –Intending to Transfer
Dear Intending to Transfer: All other factors equal, the school with the better ranking and reputation will give you a greater chance of transferring after your first year. You are right that you will face stiffer competition among your peers at the better school, which will make it a bit more difficult to have a top GPA after your first year. But this is outweighed by two other factors.
[Follow these must-do tasks for law school students looking to transfer.]
First, law school admissions offices are very knowledgeable about the academic programs at other schools and will not treat the same GPAs at schools with significantly different academic reputations. If you go to the better school, schools you apply to for transferring will weight your GPA and class ranking accordingly.
Second, law schools want to be sure that their transfer applicants can handle the presumably more rigorous academics of their school. If you attempt to transfer from a school with a good academic reputation, schools will know that you have succeeded in an academic environment more similar to the one you will find as a transfer.
If you intend to transfer after 1L year, I recommend attending the school with the better academic reputation.
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Know How Law Schools Weigh Undergraduate, Transfer GPAs originally appeared on usnews.com
