Quality of Undergraduate Institution & GPA

[AppLaw120]

Hi All -

I am curious as to how much the quality of your undergraduate institution is weighted into your GPA by admission committees.  I am a white male and a graduate of Emory University.  I have been working for 3 years and graduated with a 2.75 GPA and a 159 on the LSAT. 

I plan on working while attending school, and I am applying to night programs in both LA and NYC (Loyola, Fordham, Southwestern, Brooklyn Law, Seton Hall).  I am curious as to if I have a realistic shot at any of these schools with my current scores.

Any thoughts/advice would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks.

[AppLaw120]

I see that this has been viewed several times.  Any insight would be greatly appreciated.  I am more curious about how much consideration is taken into the undergraduate academic institution rather than my own predicament.

Thanks!

[Thane Messinger]

I see that this has been viewed several times.  Any insight would be greatly appreciated.  I am more curious about how much consideration is taken into the undergraduate academic institution rather than my own predicament.

Thanks!

As a general rule, the more qualitative factors are considered only after the quantitative factors place the applicant comfortably in the gray.  So, the closer two applications are to a toss up, the more weight will be given to a factor such as this.  Clearly, an obviously difficult school (Cal Tech, etc.) or major (theoretical physics with minors in differential equations and French literature) will make a difference, but only at the margins.  Even those won't overcome stats that are substantially below the norm for that law school.

I hope this helps,

Thane.

[BikePilot]

The LSAC creates a normalized GPA.  I'm not sure what goes into the algorithm - I'd guess average SAT/LSAT scores and that sort of thing. I suspect Adcoms then employ further soft normalization as I think that the LSAC method probably does not fully account for the differences in quality between undergraduate institutions (almost surely doesn't - my big state school gpa actually went up after lsac did their thing). All that said, the numbers seem to be by far the primary deciding factors.  Check out LSN to see where you fall wrt the schools you mention.