<p>Yale Law School generally won’t take a 3.6 even if it’s in Quantum Physics at Caltech though. For most graduate schools, especially Ph.D programs, school quality and grade deflation (which isn’t actually bad at Chicago, anyway - 3.26 average in 1999) will be accounted for. Law school, however, tends to be fairly literal about the numbers (perhaps due to the tyranny of US News). Fortunately, GPA usually won’t make you or break you besides at 4 law schools (Yale, Stanford, Harvard and Berkeley). LSAT is far more important, and 3.6 won’t hurt you at NYU, Columbia or Chicago. Even a 3.0 won’t keep you out of good schools like Northwestern and Georgetown.</p>