Grades and Transcripts

As part of your law school application, you must have all of your official transcripts sent from every undergraduate and graduate or professional school at which you took courses in the United States, U.S. territories/associated states, and Canada directly to LSAC. You can find the full details about what is required here and a more easily digestible summary here.
 

JUMP TO: UGPA | STUDY ABROAD GRADES | S/U GRADES | W GRADES | I, N, X AND Z GRADES | COURSE LOADS | LEAVES OF ABSENCE | HOW TO SEND YOUR DUKE TRANSCRIPT TO LSAC
 

Undergraduate Grade Point Average (UGPA)

Your undergraduate grade point average (or UGPA) is the GPA that matters most in the law school admission process. Every course that you have taken at any undergraduate institution before applying to law school will be included in this UGPA. This includes college courses taken while in high school, courses taken while studying away, and courses taken at U.S. or Canadian institutions other than your degree-granting institution.

If you are applying to law school as an undergraduate student, your UGPA will include your grades from:

• your transcript(s) for any college courses taken while in high school
• your Duke transcript
  • if you are a transfer student, it will also include your grades from the undergraduate institution you attended before Duke
• your transcript(s) for courses that you took at other U.S. or Canadian institutions while enrolled at Duke (including)
  • this includes courses taken for transfer credit that appear on your Duke transcript, courses taken at another institution that do not appear on your Duke transcript, interinstitutional courses, courses taken abroad in a Duke-approved or petitioned study away program, courses taken during a domestic exchange program, and courses taken during a leave of absence or academic dismissal

If you are applying to law school as a graduate student at Duke, your UGPA will include your grades from:

• your transcript(s) for any college courses taken while in high school
• your transcript(s) from your undergraduate institution(s)
• your transcript(s) for courses that you took at other U.S. or Canadian institutions while enrolled at your undergraduate institution
  • this includes courses taken for transfer credit that appear on your undergraduate transcript, courses taken while studying abroad, courses taken during a domestic exchange program, and courses taken during a leave of absence or academic dismissal

If you are applying to law school as a Duke undergraduate alumni with no graduate-level courses after graduating from Duke, this includes:

• your transcript(s) for any college courses taken while in high school
• your Duke transcript
  • if you were a transfer student, you will also send your transcript from the undergraduate institution that you attended before Duke
• your transcript(s) for courses that you took at other U.S. or Canadian institutions while enrolled at Duke
  • this includes courses taken for transfer credit that appear on your Duke transcript, courses taken elsewhere that do not appear on your Duke transcript, interinstitutional courses, courses taken abroad in a Duke-approved or petitioned study away program, courses taken during a domestic exchange program, and courses taken during a leave of absence or academic dismissal

After LSAC receives all of your transcripts, your GPA will be recalculated onto a standard 4.0 scale that is used for all law school applicants. However, only your grades from courses completed before the date that your Bachelor’s degree is (or was) awarded will be included in your UGPA.

The UGPAs of most applicants who received their undergraduate degrees from Duke are higher than their GPAs as calculated by Duke. Below is a chart that shows the number of points that Duke awards to each letter grade and the corresponding LSAC conversion.

Grade conversion table

^{*if you graduated from Duke before 2010, you can find Duke’s pre-2010 grading scales here}
 

As you can see, LSAC assigns more points than Duke to grades with a + (i.e., A+, B+, C+, and D+) but Duke assigns higher points than LSAC to grades with a – (i.e., A-, B-, C-, and D-). The most significant differences are A+s, which LSAC assigns .33 more points than Duke, and D-s, which Duke assigns .33 more points than LSAC. You should also note that, although Duke does not include NC and U grades in its GPA calculations, LSAC will include those grades in your UGPA and they will be treated as if they were F grades.

If you did not receive your undergraduate degree from Duke, you can look up the grading scale from your undergraduate institution here. The table below shows a comparison of the Duke and LSAC grading scales. Please note that if you are currently a graduate student at Duke or only received a graduate or professional degree from Duke, you still need to send your Duke transcript to LSAC but those grades will NOT be included in your UGPA.

Finally, in addition to your recalculated UGPA, LSAC will also provide law schools with a recalculated GPA for each year of your undergraduate career as well as a recalculated cumulative GPA for each undergraduate institution that you attended, if applicable.
 

Study Abroad Grades

Many years ago, Duke’s then pre-law advisor, Dean Gerald Wilson, collaborated with LSAC and other pre-law advisors to produce a document that clarifies the guidance provided by LSAC on reporting study abroad grades to law schools. You can find the document here.
 

S/U Grades

S grades are not included in LSAC’s UGPA. S grades should be treated somewhat differently because of the policies surrounding these grades at Duke. As a general rule, it is best not to have any S/U (or ungraded) courses on your transcript when applying to law school. The more ungraded courses that you take, the more they water down your UGPA, no matter how strong it appears to be on its face. For example, a 4.0 UGPA that includes 4 ungraded courses is not going to be given the same consideration as a 4.0 for which law schools can see all of the applicant’s grades. However, if you choose to take ungraded courses, the best ungraded courses to have on your transcript are courses that are mandatory S/U. Law schools are not going to hold it against you if you were not given a choice to take a particular course for a grade. You should be aware, though, that the Duke transcript does not currently indicate which S/U courses were mandatory S/U and which were voluntary. Therefore, you should inform law schools of any mandatory S/U courses that you have taken in the addendum section of your law school applications.

Whether mandatory or voluntary, if you are taking a course ungraded, it is best that you are enrolled in at least 4.0 credits in which you will receive grades that semester so that law schools can still see a full course load of grades to evaluate that semester. An S/U course in the context of a course overload (more than 4.0 credits) will be much better received than an S/U course as part of the minimum required course load (4.0 credits) or a course underload (3.0-4.0 credits).

Although this should go without saying, you don’t want to have any U grades on your transcript. Even though Duke does not include U grades in its GPA calculations and you will receive a U if you earn a D or lower in courses taken ungraded, LSAC treats U grades the same way that they treat F grades.
 

W Grades

A single W on your transcript will not be fatal to your law school application. If you did withdraw from a course, you should explain the circumstances surrounding your decision in the addendum section of your law school applications. The context of the course load of the semester in which you withdrew is important. Withdrawing from a course overload is likely to be viewed more favorably than withdrawing to a course underload. However, a pattern of withdrawing from courses will raise red flags for law schools. If you withdrew from all of your courses during a semester, then you should explain that as well. Law schools will be able to see that you took a leave of absence and, therefore, that gap in your educational history will need to be explained.

I, N, X and Z Grades

None of these are included in LSAC’s (nor Duke’s) UGPA calculation. If you are currently a Trinity College student, these grades should be resolved prior to graduation as Trinity College policy does not allow students to graduate with any of these grades on their transcript. If you find that you do have any of these grades remaining on your transcript, it is best to get them resolved before graduation so that you don’t have anything additional to explain to law schools. If you are currently a Pratt, graduate or professional school student, you should make sure that any equivalents to these grades at your school are resolved prior to graduation. If you are unfamiliar with these grade notations, you can find an explanation of them here.

Course Loads

As a general rule, it is best to maintain a full course load (as defined by Duke as at least 4.0 credits) every semester. Anything less than that should be explained. If you choose to enroll in a course underload or withdraw to an underload for a semester, you should explain the reasons for your decision in the addendum section of your law school applicants. If you choose to enroll in a course overload, there is no need to explain that unless you feel that your heavy course load affected your academic performance that semester.

Leaves Of Absence (a.k.a Gaps In Your Educational History)

If you took some time off from Duke, whether for personal or medical reasons, you should use the addendum section of your law school applications to explain what you were doing during your time away.

How to Send Your Duke Transcript to LSAC

Current undergraduate and graduate students and alumni who have graduated from Duke in the past year can request their transcripts directly through DukeHub. Duke alumni who have graduated more than one year ago will need to request their transcripts directly through Duke’s transcript ordering service. You can find more details on how to request your Duke transcript here. Duke uses Parchment to send official electronic transcripts.

You will need to contact any other institutions at which you completed coursework to find out how to get your transcript(s) sent from those institutions to LSAC. You can find details on requesting transcripts as well as which transcripts to send on LSAC’s website and also in LawHub.

List of Links on This Page

• Transcript Summarization: https://www.lsac.org/applying-law-school/jd-application-process/cas/requesting/transcript-summarization 
• Requesting Transcripts: https://app.lawhub.org/article/requesting-transcripts
• Interpretive Guide to Undergraduate Grading Systems: https://www.lsac.org/applying-law-school/jd-application-process/jd-application-requirements/academic-record/interpretive
• Guidance Provided by LSAC on Reporting Study Abroad Grades: https://www.lsac.org/applying-law-school/jd-application-process/cas/requesting#sponsorship
• Reporting of Study Abroad Grades Document: https://advising-content.oit.duke.edu/pre-law-advising/applying-law-school/grades-transcripts/reporting-study-abroad-grades
• Grades: Notations: https://trinity.duke.edu/undergraduate/academic-policies/grades-notations 
• Transcripts: https://registrar.duke.edu/student-resources/transcripts/ 
• LSAC Requesting Transcripts: https://www.lsac.org/applying-law-school/jd-application-process/cas/requesting
• LawHub Requesting Transcripts: https://app.lawhub.org/article/requesting-transcripts