Anonymous
11/21/2025 23:21
Subject: Why do law schools prefer low rigor 4.0 over high rigor 3.5 GPA?
Anonymous wrote:Why do law schools prefer low rigor 4.0 over high rigor 3.5 GPA?
Assume same LSAT and whatever else.
Is it because gaming USNWR metrics is more important than academic rigor?
The top ones certainly do not prefer as you say they do
Anonymous
11/21/2025 23:11
Subject: Why do law schools prefer low rigor 4.0 over high rigor 3.5 GPA?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Why do law schools prefer low rigor 4.0 over high rigor 3.5 GPA?
Assume same LSAT and whatever else.
Is it because gaming USNWR metrics is more important than academic rigor?
Because it is about form over substance. 4.0 looks good and they have proven that they can max out in a low rigor environment.
While competition in law school can be cutthroat and the material to be covered voluminous it does not require math or science or other technical knowledge to understand. Rather you just need to read a lot of material quickly and retain what you read.
So the 4.0 history or political science major as demonstrated the reading and retention skills needed and a high LSAT score demonstrates the ability to make the necessary logical connections.
Maxing out in a low rigor environment without hard STEM is not so tough and does not establish that you can max out in law school. Law school is not like a history or political science degree, at least not a good law school. It's not simply a test of what you retained from the reading, at least it didn't use to be. Retaining info is step 1 but wouldn't be enough to ace an exam.
Correct from a poli sci major who then went to a T14 law school. Law school was hard! Either the earlier poster is not a lawyer or didn't get a very good legal education.
Anonymous
11/21/2025 23:08
Subject: Why do law schools prefer low rigor 4.0 over high rigor 3.5 GPA?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Law schools actually do take into account rigor of a particular college, as well as major, when considering an applicants GPA. My uncle worked in admissions at a top law school, and he said that engineering majors and students from colleges like Cal Tech would be accepted with lower GPAs. (Although they tended to do well on the LSATs, so there's that.) Also, students applying from Swarthmore received an automatic bump in GPA because, apparently, "anywhere else it would have been an A" has a kernel of truth to it.
This. T14 admit from below average from our ivy. 3.6-3.7 is plenty because they know how competitive ivies are
+1 - admitted to a T14 with a good but not tippy top GPA from an Ivy.
Anonymous
11/21/2025 23:02
Subject: Why do law schools prefer low rigor 4.0 over high rigor 3.5 GPA?
Anonymous wrote:Why do law schools prefer low rigor 4.0 over high rigor 3.5 GPA?
Assume same LSAT and whatever else.
Is it because gaming USNWR metrics is more important than academic rigor?
how do you know they prefer this? source?
Anonymous
11/21/2025 22:57
Subject: Why do law schools prefer low rigor 4.0 over high rigor 3.5 GPA?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Law schools actually do take into account rigor of a particular college, as well as major, when considering an applicants GPA. My uncle worked in admissions at a top law school, and he said that engineering majors and students from colleges like Cal Tech would be accepted with lower GPAs. (Although they tended to do well on the LSATs, so there's that.) Also, students applying from Swarthmore received an automatic bump in GPA because, apparently, "anywhere else it would have been an A" has a kernel of truth to it.[/quot
This. T14 admit from below average from our ivy. 3.6-3.7 is plenty because they know how competitive ivies are
Lol. Sure Uncle Bob. I'm sure that Swarthmore bump was embedded in writing into admissions policy at the "top law school."
False. My kid just went through the admissions madness and got into Harvard Law (T6) . The 75th percentile in his accepted class has a 4.00; median has a 3.98 and bottom 25th has a 3.89 GPA.
Anonymous
11/21/2025 18:39
Subject: Why do law schools prefer low rigor 4.0 over high rigor 3.5 GPA?
This was decades ago but I was a middling student with an art degree from a top 30ish school and 1 point off a perfect LSAT.
I was accepted at a middling law school where I was #2 in my class after 1st year.
Transferred to a top 14 that does not rank its grads, but I only got less than an A in one class throughout law school and I graduated order of the coif.
All kinds of students make good lawyers if they are good at logic, confident in their analytical abilities, and the subject matter engages them. I loved law school, it was fun for me. Engineers are not inherently more likely to be good lawyers than political science majors, although you need that to be a patent lawyer. I was better at law school than most of the engineers I knew there and I knew a few.
I have had an excellent public policy career, not big law, still having fun every day.
I was accepted at a middling law school where I was #2 in my class after 1st year.
Transferred to a top 14 that does not rank its grads, but I only got less than an A in one class throughout law school and I graduated order of the coif.
All kinds of students make good lawyers if they are good at logic, confident in their analytical abilities, and the subject matter engages them. I loved law school, it was fun for me. Engineers are not inherently more likely to be good lawyers than political science majors, although you need that to be a patent lawyer. I was better at law school than most of the engineers I knew there and I knew a few.
I have had an excellent public policy career, not big law, still having fun every day.