Hi everyone,

I have a couple of doubts, but this is the first.

1º. In my country the bar exam is the equivalent of approximately 50 per cent of the score of my law degree. In this sense, my score in the 5 years in law school (CHILE) could be considered so so (B-), but as my bar exam was pretty good, the final score of my law degree would be the equivalent A- in USA (According to the website http://www.foreigncredits.com/Resources/Grade-Conversion/ )

In this sense, How do this information affect my application and what is the best way to express this information to the committee?? (in my statement of purpose, recommendation letter, etc?)

I would like to apply HLS, NYU and Berkeley the next year, but I need to clarify the above mentioned point first.

PS.
- Ranked 15th out of 167 students,
- Invited as lecture in different conferences (2 papers not published).
- 1 JOURNAL PUBLICATIONS. (law magazine)
- 3 years experiences in law firms and corporations.
- 2 years working also with a NGO about digital rights.

Thanks!!

Hi!

I'm from Chile also, I'm applying this year though.
LSAC will evaluate your transcript and will state your GPA in US format without considering the final exam (examen de grado). That will be the grade they will use to classify you as superior, above average, average, etc... And this, along with your ranking, will be what most Schools will look at since it offers them a standard point for comparison with other candidates (I spoke last week with a representative from UCLA about this).

Further on on their report they will state under "additional remarks" or other indicators of academic quality or something like it (I cant really recall right now) your final grade considering your final exam (but this wont be as important as your GPA, in fact they wont even write down the equivalent of this in US grading system).

If you think that your final exam grade is particularly important, then I guess you should somehow make a reference to it in your personal statement. Otherwise your transcripts plus the transcript evaluation service provided by LSAC will do it for you.

Furthermore, most Law Schools applications will ask you to state your GPA (promedio de notas) on their own application form, I guess that you could input here your grade with your final exam, and in the space they provide you with to explain your grading system you could also explain how you calculated your final grade (ie. What percentage is really your GPA and what percentage is your final exam).

Regardles, I think that your ranking and grades throughout the 5 years of Law School are way more important than your final exam grade.

Good Luck!

PS: BTW LSAC uses a different scale to establish our grades equivalency (not the one you posted), I don't have my report right now (the scale they use is stated there) but if you are interested PM me and I will look it up for you.