Law School Admissions Questions

December 2, 2006 8:50 PM

lawschoolfilter: (ducks rotten eggs). I'm a student at a very well ranked school graduating in the Spring. I'm leaning towards going to law school for Fall 08. However, this semester I decided to take a pretty high level science class because I thought it would be interesting and I usually do well in those classes.

However, as the semester wore on it became increasingly clear to me that the material is over my head. I can't drop the class anymore and so my only two options are drop the class for a W, which then wouldn't affect my GPA or risk a lower B/C which would impact my grade, but I wouldn't have a W on my transcript. My question to the Mefi people is therefore, does anyone have experience with getting into a top-10 law school with a major-irrelevant W on their transcript? My GPA and preliminarily LSAT scores test in the top-10 range, but I'm worried about this class. Help me out with anecdote or point me to some solid info.

Thanks.

posted by jourman2 to education (17 comments total)

I don't even know if the schools really look at your transcript that much, or at all. They seem more concerned with GPA and LSAT scores.
posted by dcjd at 8:53 PM on December 2, 2006

IIRC, the law schools don't usually see your actual transcript -- they see the LSDAS abstract of your grades, the "academic summary". You can probably find more information on it at www.lsac.org.
posted by katemonster at 9:00 PM on December 2, 2006

(Oh, and by way of anecdotes, I got into a top 15 with at least one, if not two, Ws on my transcript.)
posted by katemonster at 9:01 PM on December 2, 2006

You should consider talking to the prof about a "gentleman's B" arrangement. It's an informal agreement between you and your prof sometimes amenable for folks in your shoes (taking a challenging class, outside your area of expertise, with no plan to take another class for which this is a pre-requisite.)

A single B shouldn't totally kill your top-5 law school prospects.

But I don't think they'd care about the W either.
posted by u2604ab at 9:10 PM on December 2, 2006

I don't think law schools could give a crap less about W's. I had 2 on my transcript and I got in just fine. GPA/LSAT is seriously all that matters unless you are a borderline case, and even then the W is not going to make or break you.
posted by gatorae at 9:10 PM on December 2, 2006

They likely won't worry about a W, though a C would likely ding your GPA. Can you take the course pass/fail?
posted by craven_morhead at 9:27 PM on December 2, 2006

Good thought craven, but apparently if you want to do that it has to be earlier in the semester.
posted by jourman2 at 9:34 PM on December 2, 2006

According to the LSAC, a withdraw is omitted from the LSAC GPA calculation (the only one that counts) "only if the issuing school considers the grade nonpunitive". Your career services office should be able to tell you if this is the case. Though of course they might see the class on your transcript. Assuming it's obvious on its face that the class isn't related to your interests or areas of study, it shouldn't hurt you for it to be there.

How much will a B-minus or C hurt your GPA?
posted by raf at 9:39 PM on December 2, 2006

In regards to anecdotes, I got into several top ten schools with multiple retakes on my transcript (I failed the same class twice -- I am impressive in my consistency). I also had a D+ on my transcript. I think the key is more the overall gpa - schools are most worried about how the students they accept affect their means for U.S. News reporting purposes. If your cumulative gpa is fine, and everything else is in line, I think you will be good to go.
posted by buddha9090 at 9:51 PM on December 2, 2006

I got into a top law school (not a top ten, though) with several F's on my transcript, so I'd expect a single W on your transcript wouldn't foreclose your admission to a top 10 school.
posted by jayder at 10:07 PM on December 2, 2006

For the majority of the "top" schools, the charts represented here tell you pretty much all you need to know. Also, to expand on what some people have said above, do a little math with your current GPA, the number of credits you'll have upon graduation, and this class assuming the worst case (C, or what have you). I bet that if your GPA is such that you're worried about a low B/C, the effect on your GPA from a single C is probably quite small.

But if it pushes you from the greens to the reds on the graph of your dream school, then by all means look into the W.
posted by Partial Law at 10:23 PM on December 2, 2006

Take the W. Law school admissions is obnoxious like this, but GPA >>> strength of courseload. They don't care about a W.
posted by allen.spaulding at 11:34 PM on December 2, 2006

US News doesn't care about an entering class's undergraduate Ws, and therefore admissions committees don't care about undergraduate Ws. Sad fact of life. They also don't care about strength of courseload (as mentioned by allen) but it might be worth sucking it up and taking the B or C if you still foresee a GPA within the 25/75 of your target schools for the off chance that the committee is on the lookout for people who don't schedule their last year with a bunch of powderpuff classes.
posted by jaysus chris at 2:11 AM on December 3, 2006

Christ, stop worrying. Drop the class. It doesn't sound like it's in your major - any school is going to understand that the class wasn't your cup of tea.

You're supposed to be intelligent, not perfect.
posted by ASM at 2:43 AM on December 3, 2006

When you're a smart person in college, you tend to end up hanging out and taking classes with other smart people, and it can skew your perceptions. I had been to grad school and out the other side before I figured out that my 3.7 g.p.a. at a nationally-ranked university (and higher in my major!) was really really good and not, as I tended to see it, a relentlessly depressing record of near-misses (all those A- grades!) and total failures (I got a B- in 4th semester Russian!).

I'm just chiming in to say you're making too much of this one class. You'll probably be OK either with a W or a B--or even a C. But the W will probably make life easier in the short term.
posted by not that girl at 8:26 AM on December 3, 2006

As a minor aside, I didn't know there were so many law school types on askme. Will anybody else be suffering through exams in a week?

Right. I should be memorizing my MPC definitions. Good luck all.
posted by craven_morhead at 8:34 AM on December 3, 2006

I can't guess what impact a low grade will have on your admission. But as someone who has a JD and an MBA, what I can tell you is that those who at totally obsessed with grades and getting into 'the best' law school are more often than not going to have a miserable 3 years when they do go to law school.

Why do I say that? Many reasons. But primarily because when you get to law school, you will find yourself in a group of over-achievers all bent on the same goal(s): be the editor of Law Review and a top 10% grad. NEWS: in your 2 years of eligibility, there will be ONE editor, and 90% will NOT graduate in the top 10%.

The sad fact is that in law school, you will be graded (with very few exceptions) on ONE final essay exam with only a number on the front of the blue book(s) to identify you. Class participation and brown-nosing counts for nothing. And you will find out fairly quickly that you either answer the often absurd hypothetical(s) on the final in a way that the professor likes or doesn't like. Some of the least likely students nailed exams because, without knowing why or how, they have the ability to think like the professors think. More power to them. What a professor thought of my answer was only his opinion and I chose never to define who or what I was on anyone else's opinion. You may well see your GPA in your first year of law school at a 3.0 (or lower) and not the 4.0 that you have come to think you deserve. Complain about it? Lesson one: Life is not always fair. That includes law school. Get over it. You had better accept that when and if you practice law, you are going to be dumped on (fairly or not) by partners, judges, and clients and you will have very limited recourse for appeal.

I personally NEVER once stood around after an exam discussing it with others. My guess as to what the professor wanted was as good as anyone else's. I knew that I had done my best, so I went fishing after the exam. I never pulled an all nighter before an exam because I made a point of being prepared for every class as they came and reviewing as the semester went on. It really wasn't as hard as many of my classmates made it seem. I also knew after the 1st semester that I was at best a B law school student and would graduate top 1/3. I took the classes I wanted to take that interested me personally because I knew I was going to learn little that would help me pass the bar exam (that is why God invented bar review courses) nor be a real lawyer. I was only being give the opportunity to learn some reasoning/research skills and some black letter law that might or might not be valid.

I tried to keep a sense of perspective about what really mattered in MY life. Law school was the best 3 years of college I ever had. And few lawyers remember it that way. I'm just one of the lucky ones.

FWIW, I found doing my MBA (a few years after law school and practicing law) to be the worst school experience I ever had. I was so anxious to get it done with that I took 18 to 23 hours a term and did it in 4 quarters.

Please take anything I written remembering that it is worth what you paid for it. Everyone will have their own take on it that will probably be a lot different than mine.
posted by toucano at 7:20 PM on December 3, 2006