GPA Addendum

[sparrrkk_]

Hi

I'd appreciate some advice about writing a GPA Addendum.

Here's some background info. My degree LSAC GPA is a 3.97, but my cumulative LSAC GPA is a 3.82. This discrepancy is due to a college class I took as a high school senior along with a community college course I took to receive credit.

1. When I was a senior in high school, I felt compelled to challenge myself in a subject that I wasn't the best at ⁠— math, more specifically, calculus. My high school adopted its calculus course from Cal State Fullerton, so essentially, I was taking Calculus at Cal State Fullerton as a high school senior. Thus, I had to submit my transcript from Cal State Fullerton to LSAC for them to calculate the cumulative LSAC GPA. Unfortunately, as I didn't do that well in this class, my cumulative LSAC GPA reflects the 2.50 GPA I got from 2 high school semesters of Calculus. I would like to explain that my high school grades are not indicative of my future potential as a law school student, especially considering the fact that I was a straight A student in university. If I talk about my growth from high school to university along with my continued passion to challenge myself, would this help? I would write about how the class, though very challenging, set me up for success in university by helping me develop my work ethic and perseverance.
2. In one of my community college courses that I took for university credit over the summer, I received a B because I was dealing with family issues revolving around my little brother getting sick. Specifically, he was dealing with a health problem that led to him to missing weeks of school with no solution in sight, as doctors could not understand what was causing it. I was preoccupied with helping my little brother and comforting my very distressed parents that my community college class was not a big priority to me. In explaining this, how specific do I have to be about this situation?

Thank you for reading this lengthy post and helping me out! It is very much appreciated

[Dave Killoran]

Hi sparrrkk_ ,

Thanks for the message. This is fairly straightforward actually:

1. Go ahead and write it. It's a good explanation, and although it won't make much of a difference (like close to none), it's helpful for them to be reminded of your 3.97. Of course, they'll still will use the 3.82 (which should never exist as your "official" GPA but I've complained about LSAC's policy here too many times to count so I'll not repeat myself) but there's no harm here in using your story to shed some insight.

2. Skip this one. You can't write different addenda explaining everything—it quickly looks like whining. The B is no big deal, and explaining a B begins to look very nitpicky.

Thanks!

[sparrrkk_]

Got it! Thanks so much!

[sparrrkk_]

I actually just recently found out that LSAC uses a 4.3 in calculating A+s and thought that was unfair to students who attended colleges that didn't give out A+. In my case, I had some professors/classes that didn't offer A+ since my college considered both A & A+ to count as a 4.0. I thought using a 4.0 for A+ would be more fair since pretty much all schools/professors/classes offer As. Do you know why LSAC calculates it like this? I heard it's to make it more fair but I don't understand the reasoning...

Also, what's their reasoning for using a "overall GPA" instead of "degree GPA"?

I'm hoping you could shed some light as to why they decide to calculate GPA in this fashion, as I'm pretty confused.

[Jeremy Press]

Hi sparrrkk,

Any answers we give to these questions are going to be somewhat speculative, as LSAC hasn't made answers to such questions publicly available. And understand that the initial choice LSAC has made (to recalculate student GPA's into its own standardized scale) is going to necessitate multiple choices that are going to arbitrarily (and arguably unfairly) disadvantage certain students. For example, some schools calculate A-'s as a 3.70, so students with a disproportionate number of A-'s are going to be disadvantaged by LSAC's 3.67 calculation in a way that may not be "fair" to those students (because, for example, the professors at such schools might have more stringent standards for giving out A- grades).

As to your question about Overall GPA versus Degree GPA, the broad justification is likely that law schools are more interested in having generalist students (students who achieve across a broad variety of disciplines) rather than specialist students (students who are high achievers in one subject matter area). Success in law school requires flexibility of thought and achievement/interest in a variety of subject matter fields, so it makes sense to incorporate all courses taken into a GPA calculation.

As to the incorporation of the A+ grade as a 4.33, LSAC likely believes it's a rare enough grade usage that it warrants inclusion and calculation as 4.33. Law schools are aware that certain schools do not give out such grades and can take that into account in their weighting of student applications. As I mentioned above, the arbitrary nature of the system is bound to disadvantage some people in certain instances, and that's a trade off LSAC has determined to make.

I know that may not be fully satisfying, but for now that's the system everyone is working in. I hope this helps!

Jeremy

[sparrrkk_]

That was very helpful! Thank you so much