Cumulative gpa

[janedoe]

In terms of a cumulative gpa, more specifically for the LSAC gpa, what would be the best way to raise it? LSAC only counts and acknowledges grades given before your first bachelors degree, and require grades from all institutions.

Scenario, taking classes at a local university, and before applying for graduation, rack up as many graded credits outside of the school, for the purpose of increasing the cum gpa reflected on the LSAC.

What would be the fastest, cheapest, most effective way of completing something of this sort?

Thanks guys!

[clep3705]

That's Law School Admission Council (LSAC) for those of you who didn't know.

If you have a large community college in your area, it would be the cheapest. Very large community colleges have lots of courses taught by many different people. Use ratemyprofessors.com and myedu.com to pick the easiest professors. Myedu.com shows the actual grades given. Look for a high percentage of A's with a low drop rate.

[janedoe]

That's Law School Admission Council (LSAC) for those of you who didn't know.

If you have a large community college in your area, it would be the cheapest. Very large community colleges have lots of courses taught by many different people. Use ratemyprofessors.com and myedu.com to pick the easiest professors. Myedu.com shows the actual grades given. Look for a high percentage of A's with a low drop rate.

Would a CC be the cheapest, fastest, effective way to beef up a cumulative gpa for someone like my self?

[SwaggyP]

Like most things in life, GPAs are easy to bring down, but hard to bring back up. Not sure what your starting point and end goal is, but a significant bump requires a lot of new credit hours attempted, unless you're starting out with very few graded credits attempted. Also LSAC uses a 4.33 scale, meaning if your local CC gives out A+'s (97-100%), that could make a bigger impact on the LSAC GPA if you can really do well in easy classes. Check out this calculator and run some scenarios. LSAC GPA Calculator - BETA

[sanantone]

The cheapest, graded courses are almost always going to be at in-district community colleges. The next cheapest will probably be in-state community colleges. Are Excelsior and COSC still assigning grades to Straighterline courses? I can't remember. I think there are a couple of DSSTs left with 2-digit scores. EC and COSC will assign grades to those. You can earn grades on an Excelsior transcript regardless of which school you decide to attend by taking Uexcels. However, it's difficult to guarantee yourself an "A" on a Uexcel.

I boosted my GPA by taking community college courses. At the time, they were around $54 per credit hour. I was able to complete a lot of credits in one year by taking fall, spring, Maymester, and summer courses. Some schools even have winter mini-mesters.

[janedoe]

Im currently sitting on a 3.01 with 77 credits. This means i would need around 76 credits(or 25 grades) graded at 4.0 to raise my GPA to a 3.5. Are there any freebie FEMA, DSST for extremely easy grades (quality of the class doesn't matter), or etc, aside from CC.

[SwaggyP]

Im currently sitting on a 3.01 with 77 credits. This means i would need around 76 credits(or 25 grades) graded at 4.0 to raise my GPA to a 3.5. Are there any freebie FEMA, DSST for extremely easy grades (quality of the class doesn't matter), or etc, aside from CC.

LSAC won't take any of that into account, even if they were transcribed on your transcript as letter grades, because most likely the transcript will show the original source of the grade. I've read a lot of the threads from back in the day when it seemed to be possible; ideally transcribed without the transfer source making it seem as if they were earned though the college via normal courses and letter grades, but unless I'm mistaken it doesn't happen anymore.

Like sanantone said, CC would be the cheapest option to take classes and earn letter grades. The time and costs of attaining all those new credits..well that's a personal prerogative depending on your plans and ambitions. I've also recently been going back and forth trying to decide whether to take more classes rather then 'test out' for the sake of raising my poor GPA and also have a stronger Grad school application. I'm inclined to take a few more classes related to my major just to make a better impression on Graduate schools, however on the GPA side, I've found that once the damage is done, it will not be worth the time and money for a bump of .3 or .4 points to go back and take another 1 or 2 years worth of credit hours at CC level (The semester system vs quarters also is a setback, however Winter/Summer sessions could possibly make up for that).

LSAC is pretty tough with their requirements and standards. But thankfully a bigger component of your application is going to be your LSAT score. I've always heard a great score can make up for a poor/mediocre GPA, but not the other way around.

[videogamesrock]

Im currently sitting on a 3.01 with 77 credits. This means i would need around 76 credits(or 25 grades) graded at 4.0 to raise my GPA to a 3.5. Are there any freebie FEMA, DSST for extremely easy grades (quality of the class doesn't matter), or etc, aside from CC.

Can you repeat any courses for better grades at the same school? Most schools will replace the old grades with the new ones.

[janedoe]

LSAC won't take any of that into account, even if they were transcribed on your transcript as letter grades, because most likely the transcript will show the original source of the grade. I've read a lot of the threads from back in the day when it seemed to be possible; ideally transcribed without the transfer source making it seem as if they were earned though the college via normal courses and letter grades, but unless I'm mistaken it doesn't happen anymore.

Like sanantone said, CC would be the cheapest option to take classes and earn letter grades. The time and costs of attaining all those new credits..well that's a personal prerogative depending on your plans and ambitions. I've also recently been going back and forth trying to decide whether to take more classes rather then 'test out' for the sake of raising my poor GPA and also have a stronger Grad school application. I'm inclined to take a few more classes related to my major just to make a better impression on Graduate schools, however on the GPA side, I've found that once the damage is done, it will not be worth the time and money for a bump of .3 or .4 points to go back and take another 1 or 2 years worth of credit hours at CC level (The semester system vs quarters also is a setback, however Winter/Summer sessions could possibly make up for that).

LSAC is pretty tough with their requirements and standards. But thankfully a bigger component of your application is going to be your LSAT score. I've always heard a great score can make up for a poor/mediocre GPA, but not the other way around.

Thats very true, i can see where your coming from (very good words of wisdom). It seems as if your fate is drawn out for you once you get that first grade, sadly. My main interest in doing this is primarily just to show that i was taking classes at 1 of the big 3, which will show a letter grade for either DSST,CLEP, or any other form that i could find, because they would still count that being that they are a institution, if that makes any sense. In theory, my goal would be to take all the easy ones just to show up as a grade in the big 3, which will serve as as a LSAC gpa boost, even though those credits weren't used for my degree, yet used before i applied for graduation at my home state institution.