One of the most common and most costly surprises in the law school application process is discovering that your GPA, as law schools will see it, is not the GPA on your transcript. When you apply through the Law School Admission Council, your grades are run through the Credential Assembly Service, the CAS, which recalculates your GPA according to its own standardized rules. That recalculated number, the CAS GPA, is the one law schools actually evaluate, and it can differ meaningfully from your school's GPA in either direction. Knowing your real CAS GPA before you build your school list is essential, because your entire strategy depends on the number schools will see, not the number your registrar reports.

Use the calculator below to convert your transcript to your LSAC CAS GPA, accounting for the specific rules that trip people up, including A plus grades, repeated courses, and international transcript conversion. Then read on for exactly how the CAS recalculates your grades and why the difference matters so much for your strategy.

CAS GPA Calculator: Convert Your Transcript to Your LSAC GPA

Why Your CAS GPA Differs From Your School GPA

The CAS exists to standardize GPAs across the thousands of different undergraduate institutions that send applicants to law school, because a 3.7 at one school is calculated differently from a 3.7 at another, and law schools need a consistent basis for comparison. To achieve this, the CAS applies its own uniform conversion of your grades, and that conversion does not always match how your school computed your GPA. The result is that your CAS GPA can be higher or lower than your school GPA, sometimes by enough to shift which schools are realistic for you.

This matters enormously because the GPA law schools report in their medians, and therefore the GPA that drives much of your admission odds and your scholarship money, is the CAS GPA. If you build your school list around your school GPA and your CAS GPA turns out to be lower, you may be aiming at schools that are actually reaches; if your CAS GPA is higher, you may be selling yourself short. Knowing the real number first is the foundation of an accurate strategy, which is exactly why calculating it early, before you finalize anything, is so important.

The Specific Rules That Change Your Number

Several CAS rules account for most of the gap between school and CAS GPAs, and understanding them tells you which direction your number is likely to move.

The first is the treatment of A plus grades. The CAS assigns a value to an A plus that some schools do not, which can raise the CAS GPA of students who earned A plus grades above their school GPA, since their school may have capped the grade value lower. If you have a number of A plus grades, your CAS GPA may be a pleasant surprise.

The second, and the one that most often lowers a CAS GPA, is the treatment of repeated courses. Many schools, when a student retakes a course, replace the original grade with the new one in the GPA calculation, effectively erasing the first attempt. The CAS does not do this. It counts both attempts, the original low grade and the retake, in the recalculated GPA. This means a student who retook courses to repair their GPA may find that the CAS GPA still reflects the original grades, producing a lower number than their school transcript shows. This is the single most common unpleasant surprise, and it is essential to know about before you apply.

The third is the treatment of grades that schools sometimes exclude, such as certain withdrawals, failures, or grades from academic forgiveness policies. The CAS has its own rules about which grades count, and grades your school may have forgiven or excluded can reappear in your CAS GPA. The fourth is the conversion of nonstandard grading systems, including international transcripts and pass/fail or narrative evaluations, which the CAS converts according to its own methodology, sometimes differently from what you might expect.

How to Use Your CAS GPA Strategically

Once you know your real CAS GPA, you can build an accurate strategy around it. Place yourself against each school's reported GPA medians using your CAS number, not your school number, to determine which schools are reaches, targets, and likelies. If your CAS GPA is lower than your school GPA because of repeated courses or counted failures, adjust your expectations and your list accordingly, and recognize that the most powerful lever you still control is the LSAT, which can offset a GPA that came in lower than you hoped.

If your CAS GPA is meaningfully lower than your school GPA and there is a specific, legitimate reason behind the grades it now counts, such as a documented hardship behind an early semester, that context can be addressed in a brief GPA addendum. But the addendum is for genuine anomalies, not for the general fact that the CAS counts your grades differently, and the more productive response to a lower CAS GPA is almost always to maximize your LSAT, which is heavily weighted and fully within your control. Knowing your CAS GPA early gives you the time to do exactly that.

Beyond the calculator: A number tells you where you stand. It does not tell you what to do next. Lovare runs a selective mentorship practice with a median LSAT improvement of sixteen points and a ninety-seven percent placement rate into top-fifty law schools. If your numbers do not yet justify the odds you want, request a private consult here.

CAS GPA Calculator: Frequently Asked Questions

What is a CAS GPA?

The CAS GPA is your GPA as recalculated by the Law School Admission Council's Credential Assembly Service, which applies uniform rules to standardize grades across all undergraduate institutions. It is the GPA law schools actually evaluate and report in their medians, and it can differ from your school GPA in either direction, which is why knowing it before you build your school list is essential.

Why is my CAS GPA different from my school GPA?

Because the CAS applies its own conversion rules rather than your school's. The most common differences come from A plus grades, which the CAS may value higher than your school did, and repeated courses, which the CAS counts both attempts of rather than replacing the original grade. The CAS also has its own rules for withdrawals, failures, forgiven grades, and nonstandard or international grading systems.

Does the CAS count repeated courses?

Yes, and this is the most common reason a CAS GPA comes in lower than a school GPA. When you retake a course, many schools replace the original grade with the new one, but the CAS counts both the original low grade and the retake. A student who retook courses to repair their GPA may find the CAS GPA still reflects the original grades, so it is important to know this before applying.

How do A plus grades affect my CAS GPA?

The CAS assigns a value to an A plus that some schools do not, which can raise your CAS GPA above your school GPA if your school capped the grade value lower. If you earned a number of A plus grades, your recalculated CAS GPA may be higher than the number on your transcript, which is one of the few pleasant surprises in the recalculation.

Should I build my law school list around my CAS GPA or my school GPA?

Your CAS GPA, always, because that is the number law schools evaluate and report in their medians. Building your list around your school GPA risks aiming at schools that are actually reaches if your CAS GPA is lower, or selling yourself short if it is higher. Calculate your real CAS GPA first, place yourself against each school's medians with that number, and if it came in low, maximize the LSAT to offset it.