Time of Degree

[janedoe]

Maybe just transfer to one of the Big 3 after you test out of what you can as far as general education requirements and after you test out of some of the requirements for your major or concentration requirements. You could still take classes at the community college, if it is cheaper...test out of what you can as far as general education requirements and then transfer everything from the CC/DSST/CLEP to COSC or TESC. Again, remember that COSC has the academic forgiveness.

I found this website so you can play around with how many credits you would need to bring up your GPA and it's not as dire as it may seem.

Learn how to improve GPA

In order to raise my GPA points (3.15), if I maintain a average GPA, it will take 10.4 additional credits. - See more at: Learn how to improve GPA

In order to raise my GPA points (3.25), if I maintain a average GPA, it will take 17.6 additional credits. - See more at: Learn how to improve GPA

In order to raise my GPA points (3.50), if I maintain a average GPA, it will take 48.4 additional credits. - See more at: Learn how to improve GPA

Letter grade chart: GPA Conversion Chart

Thats very helpful information. I wonder if i could transfer to COSC for the grade forgiveness, and then transfer to TESC?

[sanantone]

The academic forgiveness policy at COSC is only good for COSC's GPA. Your bad grades will still count when you apply to grad school. TESC only calculates a GPA from their own online and guided study courses, but again, your grades from your other courses will still count when applying to grad school. It doesn't matter which school you pick, those grades will always be with you. The only way you can get rid of them is by retaking them at the original school or maybe going through a fresh start program offered by your state.

[soliloquy]

We had that discussion in a PM. That's why I also provided the calculator so she can figure out how many credits to bring up her GPA. But, at least she can say in her purpose statement that her institutional GPA was X (hopefully a good GPA) and her overall GPA is X and if she has a good explanation she can try to explain the circumstances that caused those lower grades and at least superficially put some distance between the bad grades and the good grades she intends to make. Even better if she can score high on the LSAT.

[soliloquy]

Information taken from the "The Ultimate Guide to your Transcript, GPA, and LSAC/LSDAS."

General Introduction
If you’re applying to just about any ABA law school, you’re going to have sign up for the Credential Assembly Service (LSDAS) offered by the Law School Admission Council (LSAC) . You can do this at LSAC.org, and it would be prudent to choose to have an online/electronic account unless you don’t/won’t have access to the Internet. If you want, you can set up your LSAC account at the same time you register for the LSAT.

It’s worth noting that LSAC will charge you (a not inconsequential fee of $120+) for an account, unless you apply, and are approved, for a LSAC fee waiver. Likewise, they’re going to charge you something in the range of $12 every time you have your LSAC/LSDAS report sent to a law school (which is something almost all law schools will want). If you have a LSAC fee waiver, you will get a limited number of free reports. You have to be relatively destitute to qualify for an LSAC fee waiver, so don’t count on getting one until you’re actually approved (i.e. “I’m a poor college student” isn’t going to cut it).

If you want to receive emails from law schools that you never even knew existed, and, more importantly, receive emails notifying you that you have an application fee waiver at a schools, you should also sign up for LSAC’s Candidate Referral Service (CRS). CRS is a free service. Unless you’re lonely and/or enjoy receiving junk emails, don’t consent to receiving information on financial aid and student loan information; there’s a whole financial aid forum on Top-Law-Schools.com.

Introduction to Transcripts
At some point (hopefully sooner rather than later), you’re going to need to send in your transcript(s) to LSAC/LSDAS for processing. Before requesting that your registrar’s office send a transcript, you should make sure to give them a completed LSAC Transcript Request Form; it must accompany your transcript and is linked to your LSAC account. This form is available online after you enter what schools you’ve attended. Your school needs to be the one sending the transcript (i.e. not you), and it needs to be sent by postal mail to the address indicated on the Transcript Request Form.

Processing generally takes two weeks for domestic transcripts, longer for foreign transcripts. During heavy workloads, processing times may increase to four to six weeks.

Once processing is complete, you will have access to your “Academic Summary Report” which will summarize your post-collegiate educational endeavors, and, most importantly, list your undergraduate GPA. This GPA is often referred to as your LSDAS GPA, and it will be the GPA that almost all law schools will give the most consideration.

Transcripts You Need to Send
You must arrange to have a transcript sent from any undergraduate institution you attended in the United States, its Territories, and Canada. Undergraduate institutions include junior and community colleges. Furthermore, LSAC will also need transcripts from any and all graduate schools, law schools, medical schools, and other professional schools which you have attended.

Except for certain study abroad exceptions (explained later), there really isn’t any legitimate excuse for not sending in required transcripts. If you took a college-level course at a collegiate institution, you need to send in a transcript from that institution. This includes courses you took at a local community college when you were in high school. Advanced Placement (AP) credits/classes do not require transcripts unless you took the respective course at an undergraduate institution and not your high school. Even if your current school’s transcript lists another (previous) school’s courses as transfer credit on its transcript, you will still need to send in the previous school’s transcript.

If you’ve just started off at a school and/or only have “grades” that are “withdraw,” “incomplete,” etc., you will still need to send in a transcript for that school. If your school no longer exists, you should contact the respective state’s department of (higher) education for details on who has an official copy of your transcript.

You must notify LSAC (when registering for LSDAS) if financial obligations will keep you from sending in a transcript. If the only undergraduate institution for which you must send a transcript is the one you have an outstanding financial obligation, LSAC will not produce an Academic Summary Report for you. The same is true if you have outstanding financial obligation for each and every undergraduate institution you attended. It is highly recommended that you take actions to clear all outstanding financial obligations. Law schools do not like applicants who might not pay the bills.

Study Abroad Exceptions
You do not need to send in foreign institution transcripts if the work you complete at the foreign institution is the equivalent of one year or less of undergraduate student at the foreign institution. This does not apply if you were awarded a degree by the foreign institution (not in the United States, its Territories, or Canada).

For those who spent more than one year studying abroad, you will not need to send in a transcript from the foreign institution if you had “clear sponsorship” from your home/domestic institution, for which you have/will already send in a transcript. “Clear sponsorship” is met if the sponsoring domestic school gave you the sponsoring academic credit (not transfer credit) for the study abroad and if course codes, titles, credits, grades, etc. appear on the sponsoring school’s transcript. Clear sponsorship is also met if transfer credit (and not direct academic credit as discussed earlier) for the study abroad appears on your transcript or would have appeared on your transcript had you earned satisfactory grades.

Foreign Transcripts
You must send foreign transcript(s) if you are applying to a law school that requires the JD Credential Assembly Service (study abroad exceptions apply), or you received your undergraduate degree (Bachelor’s) from a foreign institution, or you attended a foreign institution and do not qualify under the study abroad (or clear sponsorship) exceptions listed above. Foreign institutions are located outside the United States, its Territories, and Canada. Copies of all foreign educational records must be submitted in the original language. A translation must be included if the transcript is not in English. There may be further special requirements if the foreign institution for which you must send a transcript is located in the People’s Republic of China. If this applies to you, you should check with the LSAC.

[soliloquy]

Your LSDAS GPA
For those interested in calculating their LSDAS GPA, visit the Law School Predictor: LSDAS GPA Calculator.

Despite rumors to the contrary, your LSDAS GPA is not calculated using a random number generator, and it will not necessarily be lower than your school-calculated GPA. Nevertheless, far more applicants find that their LSDAS GPA will be lower than their school-calculated GPA due to a number of reasons explained below.

Your grade (on a 4.0 scale) in each class will be multiplied by the credit hours for that class. This process will be repeated for all classes and then the products will be added together to calculate your total “quality points.” Your quality points will then be divided by total credit hours attempted for your cumulative LSDAS GPA. This may well not be the same as the GPA your undergraduate institution has calculated. For law school purposes, your LSDAS GPA is what counts. All of your actual transcripts will be sent to law schools you apply to, in addition to the Academic Summary Report which lists your LSDAS GPA.

Your LSDAS will not be adjusted to reflect the curve at your school or for your major, undergraduate prestige, etc. For LSAC purposes, a 3.9 in Human Organizational Development (a joke major) at Podunk College is the same as a 3.9 in Quantum Mechanics at Princeton University. Law schools, however, will probably favor the applicant who majored in Quantum Mechanics at Princeton.

All collegiate-level (or above) courses in which you were enrolled before you received your first undergraduate degree factor into your GPA. This includes college-level courses taken at a collegiate institution while in high school and graduate courses taken while enrolled as an undergraduate. If you repeated a class, both the old and new grade will factor into your GPA, even if your school replaces (or forgives) the old grade with the new grade. Pass/Fail classes in which you passed, classes you withdrew from non-punitively (i.e. withdrawal-passing), or classes for which no credit was assigned for the course (does not mean classes you failed) do not factor into your GPA.

All of this may have a very detrimental effect on your GPA if you were “young and stupid.” Incidentally, these are the only courses which will affect your GPA; once you earn your first undergraduate degree, your LSDAS GPA, like diamonds and taxes, is forever.

If your school is on a quarter system (versus semester), then the quarter hours will be multiplied by 0.67 to convert your quarter hours to semester hours. For instance, 9 quarter hours equals 6 semester hours. Also, some schools give out “A+” as a grade. If your school does, then you're in luck; you'll get a 4.33 for each A+. If you went to a (real) school that will never give an “A+,” you're out of luck. You can, however, revel in the moral superiority that you went to a school without such a silly grading system.

If you went to a school where there were no grades or grades cannot be readily converted to a 4.0 scale, you may not be assigned a GPA by LSAC although your Academic Summary Report may describe your academic performance with labels such as “above average.” That said, almost all American applicants will receive a LSDAS GPA based on a 4.0 scale.

The standard GPA conversion chart is included below. If your school provides guidance on how to treat its grading system, such guidance may be taken into account. LSAC will convert all of your grades to a 4.0 scale. For those interested in calculating their LSDAS GPA, visit the Law School Predictor: LSDAS GPA Calculator.

LSAC GPA Conversion Chart
A+ through F, 1 through 5, 0-100, 4 passing grades, 3 passing grades
4.33 = A+ = 1+ = 98-100
4.00 = A = 93-97 = 1 = highest passing grade = highest passing grade
3.67 = A- = 1- = 90-92
3.5 = AB
3.33 = B+ = 2+ = 87-89
3.00 = B = 2 = 83-86 = second highest passing grade = middle passing grade
2.67 = B- = 2- = 80-82
2.5 = BC
2.33 = C+ = 3+ = 77-79
2.00 = C = 3 = 73-76 = third highest passing grade = lowest passing grade
1.67 = C- = 3- = 70-72
1.5 = CD
1.33 = D+ = 4+ = 67-69
1.00 = D = 4 = 63-66 = fourth highest (the lowest) passing grade
0.67 = D- = 4- = 60-62
0.50 = DE or DF
0.00 = E or F* = 5 = less than 60 = fail = fail
*F includes punitive withdrawals (i.e. withdrawal-failing) and failures for pass/fail classes.

Updating Your Transcript
Ideally, from LSAC's point-of-view, you will update your transcript after you receive a new set of grades. In practice, this is not always necessary, and LSAC is unlikely to hound you for updated grades. That said, all ABA law schools will need a final undergraduate transcript with your undergraduate degree listed.

While sending an updated transcript to LSAC may cause a slight delay in a law school’s processing of your application, you should definitely send an updated transcript if your GPA has improved by more than an inconsequential number (greater than 0.01 to 0.05, depending on the circumstances). If your new grade will cause you to increase to the next 0.1 level (i.e. from 2.99 to 3.00 or from 3.49 to 3.50), you should also send in your updated transcript.

LSAC will automatically send your updated transcript and LSDAS report to all law schools you have applied to.

Penalties for Not Sending in Transcripts
First and foremost, if you don’t send in required transcripts, you will make all of the panda cubs in the world cry, which is a cardinal sin. For those of you who are heartless panda-haters, there are also other serious consequences.

At the lowest level, LSAC may find out through its own means (for instance, by examining your other transcripts) that you’re missing transcripts and require that you submit the missing transcripts. Furthermore, law schools you applied to may find out that you’re missing transcripts and request that you submit the missing transcripts. Keeping in mind that many law school admission officers receive far more qualified applicants than they can accept, the law school might simply reject you.

Even if you get into and through law school without anyone finding out, three years down the road, the state bar may find out during a character-and-fitness examination and keep you from ever practicing law. If this is the case, you may have spent up to $200,000 and three years of your life for nothing. And the loan company isn’t going to forgive your loan.

Some unscrupulous applicants have asked me about the feasibility of lying about the existence financial obligations at their non-degree granting institution in order to avoid sending in (detrimental) transcripts from those institutions. It’s true that LSAC will let you claim a financial obligation exists, and it’s even possible that a law school might admit you with missing transcripts, although they might be a bit worried if you’ll actually pay your tuition bills. Nevertheless, this charade is probably going to fall apart during the C&F process, when the state bar is going to have some questions for you about not paying your debts. When they find out you were lying about the debt in the first place to avoid hurting your GPA, they’re not going to be amused.

Letters of Recommendation
Many ABA law schools will request that letters of recommendation (LORs) come through the LSAC/LSDAS. In order for you to do this, you will need to go to the LSAC website and enter your recommender's information; this should go without saying, but enter school/business contact information, not home contact information for your recommender. Make sure you fill out the online form in its entirety. When giving your letter a description, be sure to enter something that's bland and won't raise eyebrows, because every law school you send the letter to is going to see that description. If your recommender is Robert Johnson, then I'd label the description something like Johnson Robert LOR or Johnson Robert UVA, depending on whether it's a general letter or school-specific letter.

After completing the online form, print out the LSAC-generated form and give the form to your recommender. Ensure that you sign the waiver on each form unless you don't want to waive your right to see the LOR; please note that schools are going to take your LORs much less seriously if you don't sign the waiver. Your recommender should include the form when they submit their LOR to LSAC. It is possible to email the form to your recommender; make sure to sign the waiver first though (if you so choose), and then use a decent scanner made in the last five years or so to scan it back into your computer.

The LOR can be submitted to the post office box listed on the form, or it can be submitted to the LSAC by fax to 215-504-1444. As long as your recommender is willing, fax is a better option since it will be received and processed by LSAC much faster than a LOR sent by postal mail. A faxed LOR will take less than a week to process (often just a day or two), while a mailed LOR can take up to three or four weeks to process.

Once your LORs are in the LSAC system, you can assign LORs to schools you've applied to or intend to apply to (intention indicated by saving the application) from the main "Letters of Recommendation" page on the LSAC website. Furthermore, with each school listing, there will be a link below the school name that details the school's LOR requirements (minimum number of lLORs required, and maximum number of LORs accepted). Meeting the minimum requirement will suffice in most cases, and you should generally not feel compelled to hit the maximum; check a school's application instructions to see what they recommend as the number of LORs you should submit.

After you've assigned the LORs, the LORs will be sent out automatically to the designated school if you've already applied or will be sent out automatically once you apply.

[janedoe]

I stayed up very late last night, researching this topic matter to a great extent, and i think i may have a small, solution, but it is in no means fool proof, and would like some input from any one that can weigh in.


1)abandon my CC and leave my GPA at 2.95 (or even take a few classes to raise to 3.0).

2) Enroll at TESC on a fresh slate, finish my BA with a 4.0

3)During my enrollment at TESC i could also take some SL or other graded test that will reflect on EC, take enough there so that in counter balances my horrible CC grade to at least a 3.5 (averages at 48 credits, not including the credit grades ill be getting from TESC for the cornerstone and capstone), but not actually graduate of course.

4) Sum up all transcripts, which should be a cumulative 3.5ish, and submit my LS application.



Any holes in this otherwise sleep deprived plot?

[cookderosa]

For those of you that have gotten your bachelors, from one of the Big 3, how long has it taken you form start to finish, only from the big 3, with testing outs, but no credits from before: i.e. not transferring previous credits from a local CC then starting.

I had 0 transfer credits when I started. I tested out of my gen eds in 6 months using CLEP/DSST and took classes at TESC and my local CC for 1 year at the same time. My degree from 0-122 took 18 months.

[cookderosa]

1)abandon my CC and leave my GPA at 2.95 (or even take a few classes to raise to 3.0). I would re-take just those classes at that school if you're confident that you can pull an A otherwise your upward trend (which is what you'll argue on your application) won't be upward. If you're not sure that you can get As, which is fine, then I'd leave them as they are- transfer them into TESC and go.

2) Enroll at TESC on a fresh slate, finish my BA with a 4.0 [COLOR="#FF0000"]That's what everyone says.....
[/COLOR]
3)During my enrollment at TESC i could also take some SL or other graded test that will reflect on EC, take enough there so that in counter balances my horrible CC grade to at least a 3.5 (averages at 48 credits, not including the credit grades ill be getting from TESC for the cornerstone and capstone), but not actually graduate of course. Grad school/law school will require a lot of hard work. I'm not telling YOU what to do, but in my own preparation for grad school (which I knew I wanted when I started my BA) I took classes specifically to see if I was up to the task of doing school on a regular demanding schedule while balancing my life. It paid off I think. In my opinion, your path should set you up for success, so whatever that looks like in your life is what is best. It may mean cheaper, or more expensive options. It may mean more testing, or more graded credits. It may mean pre-reqs to get you ready for grad school or entrance exams. It doesn't matter HOW you do it, just that you take a step back and plan the best plan to do it.

4) Sum up all transcripts, which should be a cumulative 3.5ish, and submit my LS application.


Any holes in this otherwise sleep deprived plot?

[sanantone]

TESC doesn't have a cornerstone; that's COSC.

[janedoe]

Update:

I called my prospective school today that im planning to transfer to when im done at my current CC. They told me that i would need to send my ACE credits directly to them, so that they can evaluate it, and that they could not award them if they are listed on another institutions transcripts (example: TESC,EC, current CC). Does that make sense to anyone?


She also advised me that most BA programs are 120 credits, and the last 39 must be completed at the institution which gets kind of tricky for me as far as raising GPA and maximizing it. This means that of the 79 credits i have left (including the ones i will be taking at my CC this semester), the last 39 count for graduation. This makes things tough because im needing approximately 49 credit A's for for raising my 2.95(44 credits) to a 3.5 (or 72 for a 3.6 =] ), not leaving much room for cleps, or ACE credits. Does the timing of these ACE,CLEP credits matter as far as cumulative gpa goes?

Any advice for maximizing and navigating through this tricky confusing process would be of the greatest help. If theres any other info i can provide, please let me know!