Does GPA Matter for Law School?
Two numbers play a huge role in law school admissions:
- Your test score (primarily the LSAT, though the GRE is increasingly accepted)
- Your undergraduate GPA
How Important is Your GPA for Law School?
Of the 168 law schools surveyed by The Princeton Review, 87% of them ranked undergraduate GPA as a "very important" factor in admissions decisions. (For comparison's sake, only 53% consider letters of recommendation "very important.")
That makes your undergraduate GPA for law school applications very important.
What GPA do You Need for Law School?
The weight of your GPA for law school admissions depends on where you're applying. For example, when comparing the fall 2023 admissions of Southern Illinois University and Columbia University:
- Southern Illinois University admitted 82% of students with a 3.25 GPA and a 149 on the LSAT (the school's median).
- Columbia University only admitted 6% of applicants with a 3.25 GPA and a 174 LSAT score (Columbia's median) were admitted.
At some law schools, a strong GPA can significantly improve your odds of acceptance. If you input various numbers, you can see how GPA and LSAT combinations impacted admissions at Southern Illinois:
| GPA | LSAT Score | % of Admitted Students |
|---|---|---|
| 3.25 | 146 | 67 |
| 3.25 | 149 | 90 |
| 3.25 | 152 | 95 |
| 3.50 | 146 | 81 |
| 3.75 | 146 | 90 |
| 4.0 | 146 | 94 |
Both your GPA and LSAT score are important for your application's strength. But depending on where you are in your undergraduate years, increasing your LSAT score may be the easier option to improve your chances of getting into the law school of your dreams.
That's where we come in. Our LSAT 165+ Prep course can boost your current score by at least 7 points (or up to at least a 165), helping you stand out at top law schools.
How do GPA and LSAT Add Up for Law School Admissions?
To see how you stack up against other applicants, you can use the LSAC Admission Index. This weighted formula tries to account for how much emphasis a school puts on LSAT scores and your GPA.
Understanding how to use this index involves two steps:
- Calculating your own admission index number, and
- Comparing it to the ranges at your target schools to see how competitive you are.
Calculating Your Admission Index Number
- Multiply your LSAT score by the number listed in Column A.
- Multiply your cumulative GPA by the number listed in Column B (unless the school specifies otherwise).
- Add both results to the number listed in Column C.
- Determine your likelihood of acceptance based on your admission index.
Note that some schools, like Yale, have 0's in columns A and B—the index does not apply for those schools, and you can just manually compare your scores to those listed.
Using Your Index to Evaluate Specific Schools:
- Use our free Law School Search tool to identify the schools that meet your criteria and gather GPA and LSAT data. You can quickly find median GPA and LSAT scores, acceptance rates, and more, making it easy to cultivate your list.
- Calculate the admission index numbers for the 25th and 75th percentiles of admitted students. The closer your number is to the 75th percentile (or, even better, above it), the more likely you're a highly competitive candidate for that school.
- Use the Law School Admission Council's Official Guide search feature to see how likely it was that a student with your LSAT score and GPA was admitted in a prior year.
Remember: the more competitive the school, the higher your GPA will need to be to give you any sort of advantage.
While your LSAT score and GPA for law school are certainly not the only factors these institutions consider when making admissions decisions, the data shows that those two factors are predictive of your success in your first year of law school. Schools receiving thousands of applications may rely more heavily on those numbers, so it's to your advantage to keep them competitive.
