Date: February 9th, 2005 12:27 PM Author: yellow friendly grandma
Would law schools give a "gpa boost" for an electrical engineering major from a top 5 engineering school? The average grade in a typical EE class here is a C+. I wonder if they even care.
3.2 EE and 169 lsat, wondering the likelihood of acceptance from a top20 law school.
Date: February 9th, 2005 12:38 PM Author: Startled fantasy-prone stag film
So the most accurate answer is you may get a break as compared to another applicant w/ a 3.2, but it's not going to go very far. I don't think it's true that there is ZERO benefit, it's just way, way less than what you'd think was reasonable (like recentering the GPA on a B or B+, for starters).
I agree though that if you put together a good application you should be able to pull off a top 20 or top 25 school. I know someone with similar numbers and background who got into Illinois and was waitlisted at Northwestern, took the year off to work, and got into northwestern the second time around. He also had a pretty damn good explanation for why his GPA was depressed (not that 'our classes are harder and the curve is centered at 2.33' isn't a good explanation, but still)...
Date: February 9th, 2005 1:05 PM Author: yellow friendly grandma
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damn, that's what i feared. engineering is such a bad way to get into a top law school it seems, and so is going to a good undergraduate school.
i know that the #20 schools, gw & wustl shouldn't be a problem for my stats. what about #18 usc or higher though? i did include a weak ass gpa addendum.
Date: February 9th, 2005 1:12 PM Author: Startled fantasy-prone stag film
I agree GULC PT might be a good call. I cant provide specific info on schools between GULC and USC... i know next to nothing about these schools.
engineering can be a good way to get into top law schools; i think it can help you to get into the schools that are slightly above your target range, but you need the 3.7/3.8/3.9 for the 'top' guys.
For most people who can do well on the LSAT, breezing through sociology or something like that is probably a smarter path.
Date: February 9th, 2005 1:11 PM Author: Apoplectic Galvanic Fanboi
I had a 169 and a 3.20 gpa in math from a top 30 LAC. I now go to a top 14 law school. One thing to keep in mind is that the median gpa is the number you always hear about - not the mean. If the median UG gpa is a 3.6, then you hurt it just as much with a 2.4 as with a 3.4.
Date: February 9th, 2005 1:19 PM Author: Apoplectic Galvanic Fanboi
Yeah, I'm not sure if I was a fluke, but I had the median lsat and a gpa that was way lower. I attributed it to math being an unpopular major in law school. Maybe you will have the same experience with EE.
Date: February 9th, 2005 1:37 PM Author: Apoplectic Galvanic Fanboi
I think they may in a case such as this. You really can't compare a gpa in an engineering program to, say someone who majored in history or econ at an ivy with grade inflation. My point is that a gpa way below the median won't necessarily knock you out of the running if you have a high LSAT and a reason for the gpa, like the OP does.
edit: in other words, they can admit people like him without significantly hurting their usnwr ranking, which is what they care about.
Date: February 9th, 2005 1:50 PM Author: Duck-like Abode Rigpig
My opinion is that it's worth a little more (but not a lot more) than most people here would say. At least a tenth of a GPA point, maybe even closer to two tenths.
Date: February 9th, 2005 1:55 PM Author: Trip office clown
As much as I would like to believe this (as one of my majors is in Engineering), I do not think that it gives you any boost. In fact, some schools (HYS) seem to biased againstg engineers.
I'm not sure if that really 'evens it out'. At my UG, the the college of engineering had far higher avg SAT scores than any other college. I'm guessing this is true at many institutions. It is not surprising, then, that many engineers do well on the LSAT.
In the end, we engineers really should have been criminal justice majors.
Date: February 9th, 2005 10:51 PM Author: Violent crackhouse
Caltech certainly might, at least judging by the law schools people in recent years have gone to (in my class and the year before combined it was Stanford, Stanford, Georgetown, UVa with a full ride, and UCLA with a full ride--all of them with depressed engineering-style GPAs too, so I'm assuming good LSATs.)
Anyway, that's maybe 3 people a year though, so I doubt it's statistically valid.
Date: February 9th, 2005 2:06 PM Author: Trip office clown
If it gives a +.2 then I would have a 3.8 /(167 and 179). And that would be awesome. However, its more likely that I simply have a 3.6 /(167 and 179) which is slightly better than a non engineering 3.6 but still less than a 3.7.
Date: February 9th, 2005 3:07 PM Author: yellow friendly grandma
yea, i'd def pay a lot of money to increase my lsat just one point.
But anyways, the reason i brought this up was because I went to a law school fair at my school. I talked to reps from UCLA, UIUC, ND, and a few others. All the recruiters told me to "not worry about that gpa" and that my eng gpa will get a huge boost. One even said .5! Wow that was a false sense of hope haha...
and thx for the support guys, I did apply to gulc, cornell, ucla, usc, nu just in case I get lucky, but very late (Jan 10th-ish).
I don't think engineering majors get special consideration, at least from my experience. I graduated from an ug with a top 10 engineering program with a 3.9+ gpa (CS major). My lsat was only 167. So far I've been accepted to USC and rejected from Penn. Most of my apps were complete in mid december. So, it's not like the top 14 schools are drooling over me because of my GPA. It seems that the lsat is given considerably more weight.
Date: February 9th, 2005 11:05 PM Author: vibrant grizzly coldplay fan Subject: My 177/3.5
Has gotten me in at 3 of the USN top 5 so far (HCN), and in such a timely manner as to suggest I was considered strong, despite being ~.2-.3 below 25%ile for these schools. Engineering helps at those 3 for sure; Yale didn't like me but they're special so it may not have been my engineering GPA.
EDIT: GPA from one of the top engineering schools too, hence relevancy.
Date: February 10th, 2005 12:19 AM Author: vibrant grizzly coldplay fan Subject: Disagree...
Last year a comparable (177, ~3.5) english major was rejected. I am the lowest GPA on LSN with a 177 to have been accepted. I guess we'll wait to see who gets rejected this year, but my GPA even with my LSAT makes me at best borderline on the graph of previous years.