Paint me clueless - Admission Index

[NerdyLaw]

I've tried to understand what the admission idex is all about. After reading the FAQ on lawschoolnumbers and the blurb at Kaplan I understand that its te way a school weighs LSAT and GPA. What I don't understand is how I come up with these numbers for the school and myself. I don't have the GPAnum or LSATnum they are talking about.

What's worse, my "index" for every school is 3.3 and according to the FAQ, large numbers are better. I'm seeing people with 300 or more wth some schools. Am I missing something here, am I illiterate, am I hopeless? Shed some light on this for me...

[zpops]

Not all schools use em, and the schools that do use some weird calculations.  Some have a max of 4.2 and some max at at like 600!  Bascially it just tells you how much the school weights gpa vs lsat score.

[NerdyLaw]

I'm just wondering why my index is the same for every school on lawschoolnumbers. When I look at someone else's profile, I see numbers running across the board. I'm not too worried since I've been getting accepted but I'm curious as to the purpose on that board and how it is calculated. The FAQ didn;t make much sense to me.

[MindTheGap76]

It depends on which schools you are looking at, as they all use a different scale.  For example, the University of Texas just takes LSAT + 15*GPA which tends to lead to some big numbers.  If you see someone with a large score, try plugging in your numbers for the same school; chances are you will have a number also in that range.  In order to get the specific formulas, go to the LSAC and login in to LSDAS.  Click "Account Status -> Transcript -> Admission Index".

Most schools only use the formula as a rough ranking guide.  I have however read, though I don't know if it's true, that some schools look at the 1L grades and compare them to the applications.  They then find a formula that would have allowed them to predict that first-year GPA based off the student's UGPA and LSAT scores, and that is the formula they use for next year's admissions cylce.

[jrmadtown]

Try this site.  It is run by a pre-law advisor and explains the purpose of index numbers and how they are/were calculated at various schools:

http://www.uiowa.edu/~030116/prelaw/lawschools00.htm

[NerdyLaw]

Nice... Just what I was looking for. Apparently I was clueless. I didn't even know that you could find this information on the LSDAS site. Thanks for the help.

[MindTheGap76]

Wow, that was quite an interesting site.  I especially enjoyed this argument:
http://www.uiowa.edu/~030116/prelaw/indexcomments.htm

As far as I can tell, the student was completely right.

[jrmadtown]

Obviously he was wrong.  The professor disagreed with him.  With the kind of attitude you have, you may have problems in law school.  Don't you know that the professor is ALWAYS correct?

 

- - - Ignore me, I'm speaking in jest. - - -

[MindTheGap76]

Bah!  He's not my professor, and if he were I'd smack him.  The fact that a MATH major must resort to critiquing someone else's examples by saying that they are "contrived" rather than pointing out flaws in the underlying math is stupifying.  Also, regardless of which side you take, the professor had no cause to start personal attacks (pointing out that the guy bombed math classes in his little end-note).