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Law school GPA refers to the undergraduate GPA that admissions weigh alongside your LSAT, reported by each school as 25th, 50th, and 75th percentiles in its ABA 509 report. Medians across ABA-approved schools currently span about 196 ABA-approved law schools. LSAC recalculates your GPA on a standard scale before schools see it.
By Ali Unar, JD candidate at Georgetown Law and founder of Lovare Institut. Last updated August 2026. Every figure on this page was verified in August 2026 against the sources listed below.
Law schools look at your LSAC-recalculated undergraduate GPA, not simply the number on your college transcript. Through the Credential Assembly Service, LSAC converts every graded course to a standard 4.0 scale and counts failed and repeated classes your school may have dropped. That single cumulative figure is what appears in admissions files and in each school's reported medians.
A good GPA for law school is one at or above the median of your target schools, since there is no universal cutoff. Medians range widely across the roughly 196 ABA-approved schools, from near the top of the 4.0 scale at the most selective to the mid-3.0s and below elsewhere. As of the current cycle, that span runs across about 196 ABA-approved law schools.
Each school reports three GPA figures for its entering class: the 25th percentile, the 50th percentile or median, and the 75th percentile. A GPA at the 75th percentile means you are above three-quarters of enrolled students on that metric, a strong position. A GPA at the 25th percentile means the number is below most admits, so the rest of your file must compensate.
Admissions weighs GPA and LSAT together, and applicants at or above both medians are the strongest candidates for a given school. Because the LSAT is the number you can still raise through preparation, it is the most effective lever for offsetting a GPA below a school's median. A high LSAT paired with a lower GPA, the splitter profile, wins admission at many schools every cycle.
A pass/fail grade usually does not change the GPA law schools see, because a Pass carries no grade points and LSAC generally excludes a plain Pass from its recalculation. The course still appears on your transcript, so extensive pass/fail work in core subjects can still draw questions even when your GPA is unaffected.
LSAC recalculates your undergraduate GPA through the Credential Assembly Service, converting all graded coursework to a standard 4.0 scale and counting failed and repeated courses. This figure, shown on your Academic Summary Report, is the GPA law schools evaluate, and it can differ from the number on your college transcript.
There is no single required GPA; each school publishes 25th, 50th, and 75th percentile figures, and meeting a target school's median makes you competitive there. Aim at or above the medians of your target schools, and use a strong LSAT to offset a GPA that falls short of a given school's median.
Verified August 2026.
August 21, 2026
August 21, 2026