Law School GPA Calculator: Estimate Your LSAC GPA

Law School GPA Calculator: Estimate Your LSAC GPA

Welcome to **Grade Wise Calculator**, your trusted resource. This **Law School GPA calculator** helps prospective law students estimate their LSAC GPA, which is a key part of the law school admissions process. The LSAC (Law School Admission Council) calculates a unified GPA based on all undergraduate coursework to provide a standard comparison for applicants.

What is LSAC?

LSAC stands for the **Law School Admission Council**. It is a nonprofit organization that provides products and services to ease the law school admission process for applicants and to assist law schools in making admission decisions. LSAC is best known for administering the Law School Admission Test (LSAT) and for providing the Credential Assembly Service (CAS).

The CAS is particularly relevant to your GPA. When you apply to law schools, you send all your undergraduate transcripts to LSAC. LSAC then standardizes these transcripts by converting all your grades to a unified 4.0 scale, regardless of your undergraduate institution's specific grading system. This standardized GPA is known as your **LSAC GPA**, and it's what law schools primarily use to compare applicants' academic performance on a level playing field.

LSAC Grade Conversion Table

LSAC converts all undergraduate grades to a standard 4.0 scale to provide a uniform basis for comparing applicants from different institutions. This table shows the numerical value assigned to common letter grades.

Note: In some instances, a school’s three-passing-grade system or numerical grading scale might be converted differently than shown here. For more information about how your school’s grades are converted, visit LSAC’s Interpretive Guide to Undergraduate Grading Systems.

Visualizing LSAC Grade Point Values

This chart provides a quick visual reference for the LSAC grade point values used in the **law school GPA calculator**. Understanding these conversions is key to estimating your LSAC GPA.

How Grades Are Converted for Your LSAC GPA

When you apply to law school through LSAC's Credential Assembly Service (CAS), your undergraduate grades are converted to a standard 4.0 scale. This process creates a uniform basis for law schools to compare applicants from different colleges and universities across the U.S. and Canada. While LSAC provides this standardized GPA, it's important to remember that law school admissions committees understand that grades from different institutions may carry different weight or meaning. Your official transcript is always sent to law schools along with your LSAC CAS Report.

For more detailed information about how your specific school’s grades are converted, you can always refer to LSAC’s Interpretive Guide to Undergraduate Grading Systems.

Grades Excluded from LSAC GPA Conversion

Not all grades from your undergraduate transcript are included in the LSAC GPA calculation. Here’s a list of common grades and course types that LSAC typically excludes:

• Withdraw, Withdraw/Pass: Only if your school considers the grade nonpunitive (meaning it doesn't count against your academic record).
• Incomplete: Only if your school considers the grade nonpunitive.
• Remedial Courses: Only if your transcript clearly indicates they are remedial (e.g., developmental courses not counting towards degree requirements).
• Courses After First Bachelor's Degree: All courses taken after the degree conferral date of your first bachelor’s degree, including graduate work and professional study. This also applies to any undergraduate courses taken after your first bachelor’s degree was awarded.
• Noncredit Courses: Courses where you did not register for credit, attempt credit, or would not have been assigned credit even if you passed (e.g., Pass, A, B, C). However, certain courses like Physical Education, Practical Art, Practical Music, and ROTC that *are* assigned credit will be included, even if your institution doesn't count them in its own GPA.
• Pass/Fail Systems: Passing grades from systems with one or two passing grades (e.g., Pass/Fail, Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory, Credit/No Credit, or Honors/Pass/Fail, High Pass/Pass/Fail) and those with only narratives or descriptions. Credits for these courses are totaled and reported separately as **unconverted credits**. The only exception is a reported grade below C-minus from a two-passing-grade system (e.g., Credit/D/Fail) if your school includes it in its GPA.
• Ambiguous Grade Symbols: Grade symbols with multiple meanings at your school where the registrar can't confirm if credit was attempted (e.g., NC = No Credit Attempted or No Credit Awarded). The credits for these courses will appear on your academic summary but won't be part of the LSAC GPA calculation.
• Withdrawal Grades Signifying Failure: Grades like WF (Withdraw/Fail), WU (Withdrew Unsatisfactory), WNP (Withdrew Not Passing) if your school considers them nonpunitive. (This exclusion doesn't apply if they're considered nonpunitive only due to a successful repeat or grade-forgiveness policy). Credits for these will be on your summary but not in the GPA.
• Original Grade for Repeated Courses: If your transcript doesn't show both the grade and units for the original attempt of a repeated course, the original grade is excluded. Credits will appear on the summary but not in the GPA.
• Academic Forgiveness: Grades removed from the official transcript due to academic forgiveness are excluded *only if the grade is not displayed on the transcript*. If a line is drawn through the course or grade, it's still included.
• No Credit (Non-Failure): A No Credit grade that doesn't mean failure and for which no attempt at credit was made (e.g., NC = No Credit/Withdraw).

Other Important LSAC GPA Conversion Information

Understanding how LSAC calculates your GPA involves more than just the grade conversion table. Here are some other key points:

• Grade Point Average (GPA): LSAC calculates a GPA for each year and a cumulative GPA for each undergraduate institution you attended. A cumulative GPA that includes all undergraduate work from all institutions is also calculated and reported. LSAC cannot calculate a cumulative GPA for a specific school *within* an institution.
• Inclusion of Courses: LSAC includes grades and credits for every course that can be converted to the 4.0 scale, even if your original institution excluded some courses from its own GPA calculations. Courses completely excluded from your academic summary are not included in the LSAC GPA calculation.
• GPA Variations: There might be small differences between the GPA calculated by LSAC and the GPA calculated by your college or by you. However, these variations are rarely significant. Law schools are aware of LSAC’s procedures, so a slight difference in GPA is unlikely to affect an admission decision.
• Failing Grades: All failing grades that are convertible (i.e., not excluded as per the list above) are included in the LSAC GPA calculation, even if your undergraduate institution has a grade forgiveness policy that removes them from your school's GPA.
• Repeated Courses: LSAC includes all attempts of a repeated course in your LSAC GPA calculation if both the grade and units for the original attempt are displayed on your transcript. This means if you retake a course, both the original grade and the new grade will typically count towards your LSAC GPA, unlike some university GPA calculations that might replace the original grade.
• Academic Renewal/Academic Forgiveness: If your institution has an academic renewal or forgiveness policy, LSAC will still include all convertible grades in your LSAC GPA, even if they are no longer counted in your institution's GPA, unless the grade is completely removed from the transcript.
• Academic Notes: LSAC may add academic notes to your CAS report to provide context about your academic record, such as explanations for withdrawals or academic standing.
• Advanced Placement (AP) or College Level Examination Programs (CLEP): LSAC does not include AP or CLEP credits or scores in the LSAC GPA calculation. These are typically reported separately.
• No Cumulative GPA Calculation: LSAC does not calculate a cumulative GPA for a school *within* an institution. They calculate an overall cumulative GPA for all undergraduate work.
• Course Credits: The **total credit hours for GPA** calculation are based on the credits assigned to each course that LSAC includes in its conversion.
• Unconverted Credits: Credits for courses that cannot be converted to the 4.0 scale (e.g., most Pass/Fail courses) are totaled and reported separately as "unconverted credits" and are not part of the LSAC GPA.
• Graduate or Professional Study: Grades from graduate or professional study are not included in the LSAC GPA calculation. The LSAC GPA is specifically for undergraduate coursework.

Example LSAC GPA Calculation

Let's walk through an example to see how your **LSAC GPA** would be calculated using the LSAC conversion scale.

Use this **law school GPA calculator** from **Grade Wise Calculator** to get a clear estimate of your LSAC GPA and prepare for your law school applications!