corranged

I would be very surprised if As and A-s accounted for half the grades at the U of C. I mean, the hard sciences are generally on a bell curve, so the 44%-55% can't be true for those classes, which would mean the humanities and social sciences are basically handing out As like candy. That's, um, not true. Maybe the statistic was the average over all of the institutions listed?

I've never been a fan of the grade inflation/deflation talk, at least in terms of average GPA. It just doesn't give you much useful information. The main data point missing is how many hours students work to get that GPA. Maybe students at Caltech and at RIT have the same average GPA, but do they work the same number of hours? Frankly, I have no idea, but it's a point worth looking into. Then there's the quality of work issue. What sort of paper gets an A- at Chicago versus an A- at Harvard? How in depth do the calculus classes go at different colleges? Are Caltech and RIT covering the same material? Etc. Again, I don't know, but these matters are integral to any talk about grade inflation/deflation.

Maroon8

There really isn't any public data about what GPAs are required from what colleges to get into particular law schools.

A few things to keep in mind, though:

1. The students getting admitted with GPAs at the lower end of the range for a law school are likely from places like Chicago. T-14 law schools dip down to about 3.5, and the people getting in with that type of GPA are from schools like Chicago. A 3.5 at StateU probably won't get it done unless it's accompanied by super high LSAT and some other accomplishments (which woudl probably be more work than just getting better grades).

2. It's probably actually harder to get the grades necessary for top law school admission at a state university. There, you don't have much room for error. At Chicago a mediocre grade here or there won't totally screw you, because you don't have to be at the absolute top of your schools distribution (which is included in the transcript report sent to law schools). When a law school sees Chicago's GPA distribution compared to LSAT distribution (i.e. pretty high), they are willing to accept students from farther down the GPA scale. If the LSAT distribution is pretty even through the score range, they will except good applicants to have GPAs at or near the top of their school's distribution.

3. An education at Chicago is a great preparation for law school. I've actually had several friends go on to law school here at Chicago and tell me that there really wasn't much of an adjustment (and a few even claim undergrad was harder). As a Chicago undergrad, you read a lot and are expected to make rigorous and well-developed arguments about what you've read in basically any humanities or social science course. The ability to consider all angles of an issue is a big part of "thinking like a lawyer."

4. I've known a few law school applicants over the past few years, including myself. They've been quite successful. I personally know two Yale acceptees (straight from undergrad), three Harvard acceptees, five Stanford acceptees, an NYU/Columbia acceptee. Even some folks I've known with pretty average numbers ended up a Top 20 law schools. From my experience a solid record from Chicago is an asset on a law school application. It won't make up for a bad LSAT or a super-low GPA, but if reduces the amount you need to impress law schools through other things, like incredible outside accomplishments or a phenomenal GPA.

5. Chicago doesn't really have grade deflation, but it is less inflated than many peers. Only 8% of students have a 3.8 or higher. There's a pretty big group of students between 3.0 and 3.6, but only about 25% are above 3.6. So Chicago students don't get awful grades, but very few get super-duper high grades.

I would say having a school like Chicago on your application means that as long as you have a solid GPA and a good LSAT, you just have to avoid really messing up in some other area, and if you can get a GPA over 3.8, you're in really good shape for a Top 5 law school as long as you don't severely underperform on the LSAT. Coming from a less rigorous and selective school, you have to do a little more to set yourself apart from the hundreds of other applicants with good GPAs from their own State Universities.

henge

I found a ten year old summary of GPA adjustments that UC Berkeley Law School reportedly used. No idea if it's authentic, if something similar is still used or if the weightings would have changed over the last decade. For what it's worth, Swarthmore GPAs were the most respected and Chicago's were second.
Comparing Average GPA's - soc.college.admissions | Google Groups

phuriku

What confuses me is how Chicago got the #2 grade adjustment rank, but Harvard got #3. Doesn't Harvard have enough grade inflation?

jkjkjkj

no stanford on that list, why? Does stanford have rampant grade inflation or something, apparently law schools think so.

phuriku

Supposedly, Stanford's average GPA in 1992 was 3.44, which is pretty damn high. It's probably risen since then.

jkjkjkj

but I heard premed classes were just awful, as in they try and weed kids out.i am hearing conflicting viewpoints.

phuriku

Every school's premed classes are awful and try to weed kids out. However, premed classes comprise a small enough percentage of total classes that its effect on average GPA is rather small.

No Quarter

Ok, now I'm glad that going to Chicago won't screw my Law School chances. I'm happy that I was wrong.

bohbeep

"Grad schools KNOW about UChicago, as in they know how much you've...suffered..." <--Director of the Econ program, I believe...Mrs. Tsiang said something like this. She elaborated more about this, but the thing is that UChicago prepares you mucho mucho for the rigors of grad school, like you wouldn't believe.
PS: "Where Fun Comes to Die" is a t-shirt slogan made for fundraising for a house in Reynolds Club. I truly agree that it's not the number of hours of homework/piles of work that make UChicago rigorous. It is how they teach you that is different. I relate this a lot to my experiences doing high school debate. It requires rigorous research and logical reasoning applied in creative situations.

@ UCLA, Ph.D: I understand your cynicism towards their ignorance, but hey, for the most part these are opinions coming from the knowledge pool of the general public. I wouldn't expect them to know insider facts about the UChicago, and as anxious juniors/seniors/typical CC-posters or parents of deciding amongst schools they've only heard about from time to time, you would expect it. Conclusions are made without much basis except for hearsay and people act on it, e.g. that UChi is "where fun comes to die" and academics will kill your life....so these people don't apply, and this would be why UChi is *self-selecting*****...

UChicago is sweet. UChicago is delicious. Go to the U of Chicago. Or don't if you are not a UChicago type.

bohbeep

Funny thing to say, "No Quarter". I'm actually going to the U of Chicago to help me out later in law school. They have great poli-sci, econ and sociology...and public policy. I'm the opposite.

Lollerskates!

Actually, that's not why I'm going to the U of Chicago, primarily. I'm going for a plethora of reasons that I'm not going to elaborate in case I end up procastinating my homework too much.

No Quarter

Bohbeep, Actually circuit LD is one of my main loves in this world. I hope that will prepare me well if I get into Chicago/any college in general.

bohbeep

Really? Me too! In fact on the thickenvelope forums there are entire threads devoted to Debate/people on debate. UC is definitely the debater school, I believe, like the '07 TOC Champ goes there, so do people I've met from VBI camp...

No Quarter

Not to bring up a dead topic., but the ppl at the Law school forum here seem to disagree with you guys.
Prestige of Undergrad vs. GPA

unalove

I think it depends on what your end goal is.

If you want to get into Harvard Law, I think it's pretty much pointless to bicker about what will get you in, as much as I think it's pointless to bicker about what will get you into Harvard College.

If you just want to get into a decent law school to be a lawyer, you can do that easily from Chicago, as I have lots of friends who have done it.

So your chance of getting into Harvard Law is about equally slim no matter what happens, and your chance of getting into a good law school, assuming you are smart enough to get into the U of C in the first place, is very, very high. Unless you are in a situation where the amount of debt incurred by undergrad plus law school is going to limit what you do with your life, I think you're best off going to the school that suits you best.

Personally I like that Chicago doesn't give out a lot of easy A's, and my post-grad plans are much less fixed than my desire for a bang-up and challenging undergraduate education.

If working hard doesn't appeal to you and the prospect of not getting high grades has potential to crush your soul, then obviously Chicago is not the right place for you and you do not need to choose it.