LSAC and GPA

Today I am going to continue an online argument that I joined in on earlier and finally touch on a point that I have been meaning to touch on (read: rant about) for a while.

LSAC recalculates your GPA. They tell you how they do it, they post the scale they use, the rules are online, and your university can tell you how they display varioius things on your transcript. All these things together mean one thing: There is no excuse or reason to complain about LSAC unfairly recalculating your grades.

Now to qualify that statement. First, if you go to a school that uses written evaluations instead of grades, you can complain. Additionally, if you were out of school for a long time and decided a legal career was for you, then you are also excused because, as we have said earlier, your work experiences tops (doesn't replace but tops) your grades, so any recalculation should pale in comparison to your work experience. As for the rest of you, get over it. Notice that I didn't say people that didn't know how LSAC recalculated your GPA or who didn't know they wanted to be lawyers. If you didn't know LSAC recaclulated your GPA, shame on you. You are making a gigantic life decision, the least you can do is find out the details of how you will be evaluated. As for those who didn't know they wanted to go to law school, you don't get to complain. First, your GPA is probebally a good indicator of your academic ability since it is "ungamed" and shows how well you perferm without the bias created by people doing what they can to up their GPA. Additionally, there is a good chance these people are going to law school because they 1. couldn't find a job or 2. have an unmarketable major, so these people by definition I don't feel bad for since these are terrible reasons to go to law school. Also, if you started pre-med then went pre-law cause you couldn't hack it in pre med and your transcript is a mess because of it, you get no sympathy. You are probebally pre law because you want a professional degree thats carries a big salary and respect, you get no sympathy here.

Now that my ad hominem arguements are over here comes an actual analysis of why LSAC recalculating is necessary:

Before I can do this, it is necessary to note the GPA is a flawed measurement (which is why I believe the LSAT is a good tool for assessing candidates) and that the system isn't perfect but it is an attempt at takign SOME of the variation out of grades.

Ok, so first and foremost, different schools have different grading systems. LSAC is not a substitute for understanding an institution and a major, but it does a nice job of taking out a few biases that result from institutions using various policies. If one school lets students retake at will and the other counts each against you, clearly it is easier to get a good GPA from school 1. If one school coulds A+'s different from another, clearly the more generous one gives students an advantage. LSAC standardizes so that adcomms can look at a GPA and have a general feel for how the student did. Thats what it tries to do. To that end, rigid rules are necessary. I dont care what your school said, I care how well you did compared to what my school did, and every other school did and for that reason LSAC is necessary.

One exception: I feel for anybody who took college classes while in high school and did not do well. You are the only people getting screwed in this system (with the above exceptions noted). To the people that are upset because their W's came back to bite them: Get over it, you shouldn't have dropped the class, you should have done better! Do the people that are angered by the fact taht they couldn't replace that D- with a B+, why did you get a D the first time? I believe we can all agree that there is a big difference between gettting a D than a B and getting a B the first time.....

In total, get over your GPA recalculation. It standardizes. If it bothers you to think that somethign was "taken away" then think of it like this: Your school gave you a bonus for going there, they raised your GPA over what it "should be" on this standardized scale.

And most importantly, everybody, stop acting like you "deserve" something and stop acting like something in the process going against you is somebody "taking something away from you."

Easy for me to say, I have started receiving rejection letters yet.