LSAC GPA Calculator

When you apply to US law schools, the GPA that admissions committees compare is not the one printed on your transcript. It is the LSAC GPA, recalculated by the Credential Assembly Service (CAS) from every undergraduate transcript you send. LSAC converts each grade with its own table, where an A+ is worth 4.33, and it counts grades your college may have dropped, such as the first attempt at a repeated course.

This calculator reproduces that conversion so you can see your law school GPA before your Academic Summary Report is ready. Enter your courses as they appear on your transcripts, and the tool applies LSAC's grade values, its treatment of pass, withdrawal, and failing grades, and its quarter-hour conversion. The page then walks through the formula, two worked examples, the complete conversion table, the policies that move the number, and how the LSAC GPA compares with your school GPA and the Ontario OLSAS GPA.

How to Use the LSAC GPA Calculator

• Pull up your unofficial transcript for each college you attended before your first bachelor's degree was awarded.
• Choose Semester / trimester hours or Quarter hours, matching the credit system on the transcript. Quarter hours are converted at 0.67 automatically.
• Add one row per graded attempt. If you took a course twice, enter it twice with both grades, because LSAC counts both when the grades and units appear on the transcript.
• Choose the grade exactly as printed. Schools that use AB, BC, or CD grades have their own options, and NC, U, F, and punitive WF all convert to 0.00.
• Mark pass or credit grades as P / CR and nonpunitive withdrawals as W. Their credits show as excluded and do not affect the result.
• If you have already converted one transcript, enter that LSAC GPA and its credits under Add Another Transcript to combine them.
• Still in college? Use the planner to see what average you need over your remaining credits before graduation to reach a target LSAC GPA.

How LSAC Calculates Your GPA

The method is a standard credit-weighted average. What makes it different is the input: LSAC's conversion values, every eligible attempt, and semester-hour units.

LSAC calculates a GPA for each year and a cumulative GPA for each undergraduate institution, then a cumulative figure across all of them. Law schools see the per-year breakdown too, so an upward trend is visible even if the cumulative number is modest.

Example 1: The A+ Bonus and Thirds of a Point

Take a 13-credit semester with an A+ in Logic (3 credits), an A in History (3), a B+ in Statistics (4), and an A- in Philosophy (3). Here is how the same transcript scores at a school that caps A+ at 4.0 and uses 3.3 and 3.7 for B+ and A-, compared with LSAC's values.

The LSAC GPA comes out 0.07 higher, almost entirely because of the single A+. The small differences between 3.3 and 3.33 or 3.7 and 3.67 roughly cancel. Students with several A+ grades, or who attended a school that does not award A+ at all, should expect the gap to be larger or smaller accordingly.

Example 2: A Repeated Course

Suppose you earned a D in a 4-credit chemistry course, retook it for a B, and have 20 other credits averaging 3.50 (70 quality points). Your college replaces the first grade, so your transcript GPA is (70 + 3.00 x 4) / 24 = 82 / 24 = 3.42.

LSAC counts both attempts because both grades and their units appear on the transcript. That gives (70 + 1.00 x 4 + 3.00 x 4) / 28 = 86 / 28 = 3.07. One forgotten D costs more than a third of a point here, which is why it pays to enter every attempt rather than copying the GPA from your transcript.

Quarter-Hour Schools

If your college uses quarters, a 4-unit course becomes 4 x 0.67 = 2.68 semester hours. Because every course on that transcript shrinks by the same factor, the GPA for a quarter-only transcript does not change. The conversion matters when you combine a quarter school with a semester school, since it keeps a quarter course from carrying more weight than an equivalent semester course.

LSAC Grade Conversion Table

These are the values LSAC publishes for converting letter grades. The calculator uses exactly these numbers.

Colleges that grade with numbers (a 1 to 5 scale or percentages) or with unusual letter systems are mapped onto these values through LSAC's interpretive guides for each institution. If your transcript uses such a system, treat this calculator as an estimate and compare with your Academic Summary Report once it is posted.

LSAC Rules That Change Your GPA

Which Courses Count

• All undergraduate work at US, territorial, and Canadian institutions up to the date your first bachelor's degree is conferred, including community college and summer courses that appear with grades.
• Graduate or professional courses taken before that conferral date are included; anything after it, including later undergraduate classes, is not part of the LSAC GPA, though you still send those transcripts.
• College credit earned in high school: for the 2026 to 2027 application cycle, these grades are included for all applicants. Starting with the 2027 to 2028 cycle, college-level and dual-enrollment courses taken in high school will be excluded.
• If your undergraduate degree is from a school outside the US, its territories, or Canada and you have fewer than 60 graded US or Canadian credits before that degree, LSAC does not calculate a cumulative GPA at all.

Repeats and Grade Forgiveness

Every grade and credit for a repeated course is included as long as both appear on the transcript, and a line drawn through an old grade does not remove it. Grades shown for forgiven courses also count even when your college leaves them out. The exceptions: if an original attempt shows no grade or no units, it is left out, and forgiven credits that display no earned grade appear on the report without entering the GPA.

Pass/Fail, Withdrawals, and Incompletes

• Pass, credit, and similar grades from pass/fail systems are not converted. They appear as unconverted credit.
• Grades that signify failure, such as F, NC (no credit), or U (unsatisfactory), convert to 0.00 and count, even if your college treats them as nonpunitive.
• W and withdraw-pass grades are left out when your school treats them as nonpunitive.
• WF is excluded only if the school considers it nonpunitive for reasons other than a repeat or forgiveness policy. Otherwise it is a 0.00.
• Incompletes are excluded only when the school treats them as nonpunitive.
• Courses with no credit attached are excluded, though physical education, practical art or music, and ROTC classes that carry credit are included.

Common Situations and How to Enter Them

• Community college before transferring: enter those courses with the grades on the community college transcript. Your four-year school may show them only as transfer credit, but LSAC converts them from the original record.
• Classes taken in high school for college credit: include them if you apply in the 2026 to 2027 cycle; leave them out if you apply in the 2027 to 2028 cycle or later.
• AP or IB credit: exam credit usually appears without a letter grade, so there is nothing to convert and it does not enter the GPA.
• A second bachelor's degree: only work up to the conferral of the first degree counts, so stop at that date.
• An old fail you later replaced: enter both the F and the new grade, as long as both are visible on the transcript.
• Several schools: either enter every course in one list, or calculate each school separately and combine them with the Add Another Transcript box. Both give the same answer.

Quick Reference: Grade Mixes on the LSAC Scale

These equal-credit mixes show how much single steps are worth on LSAC's table. Because A+ converts to 4.33, a few of them push the average past 4.0.

LSAC GPA vs School GPA vs OLSAS GPA

Many applicants, especially Canadians who apply on both sides of the border, end up with three different numbers. They measure the same grades with different rulers.

Applying in Ontario as well? Run the same courses through the OLSAS GPA calculator, which uses the OUAC conversion scales. To check your registrar's own number, use the general GPA calculator.

What Law Schools See on Your CAS Report

The Academic Summary Report is the cover page of your CAS file. It lists each college, the hours and grades LSAC converted, the GPA by year, the cumulative GPA per school, and the overall LSAC GPA. Law schools receive it alongside your transcripts, LSAT score, and letters, so committees can see both the summary number and the grades underneath.

Because every applicant's GPA is put through the same table, schools can compare a student from a school with heavy A+ grading against one from a school without it.

Tips for Applicants

• Enter every attempt, every school. Missing a summer course or the first try at a repeat is the most common reason a home calculation runs high.
• Order transcripts early. LSAC needs one from each US, territorial, and Canadian institution you attended, even for a single class.
• Check your Academic Summary Report as soon as it posts and compare it with this calculator. If a grade looks misread, contact LSAC promptly.
• Still in school? Spend your effort on credit-heavy courses before graduation, because nothing after your first bachelor's degree can change the number.
• Use the addendum for genuine context, such as an illness semester, rather than for small gaps between your school GPA and LSAC GPA.
• Do not count on retakes. Your college may replace the old grade, but LSAC will still average it in.

This tool gives a careful estimate. LSAC staff read the actual transcript, contact registrars when grades are unclear, and apply institution-specific guides that a general calculator cannot know about, so your official figure may differ slightly.