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Hello, I just finished a bachelor's degree with Thomas Edison State University, I did almost the entire degree using pass/fail exams such as DSST and Clep. I know that lsac requires 60 graded credits to have a GPA listed for you and I only have 12 graded credits. Everything else is pass fail. Is this a dealbreaker for any decent law school. I'd like an opinion before I get too deep into studying for the LSAT
Thank you.

michaeleid811 wrote:Hello, I just finished a bachelor's degree with Thomas Edison State University, I did almost the entire degree using pass/fail exams such as DSST and Clep. I know that lsac requires 60 graded credits to have a GPA listed for you and I only have 12 graded credits. Everything else is pass fail. Is this a dealbreaker for any decent law school. I'd like an opinion before I get too deep into studying for the LSAT
Thank you.

You have non pass-fail classes? Use the guidance on the LSAC website and calculate your LSAC GPA. LSAC doesn't care if your school issued a GPA or not. Remember fails count, passes don't.

albanach wrote: You have non pass-fail classes? Use the guidance on the LSAC website and calculate your LSAC GPA. LSAC doesn't care if your school issued a GPA or not. Remember fails count, passes don't.

The issue is that the LSAC doesn't calculate a GPA if you're under a certain credit hour threshold (60) for graded classes. I'm not sure how law schools would view an app from a US applicant who had a degree with mostly pass/fail credits. Perhaps they'd treat it like a foreign app? I assume, based on a cursory search for some of the acronyms OP used, that this is a degree obtained while serving in the military, so I doubt that this issue would be wholly unknown to the law schools.

OP, It may be worth calling the admissions offices at a couple of your target schools and asking them how they'd handle it.

totesTheGoat wrote:

albanach wrote: You have non pass-fail classes? Use the guidance on the LSAC website and calculate your LSAC GPA. LSAC doesn't care if your school issued a GPA or not. Remember fails count, passes don't.

The issue is that the LSAC doesn't calculate a GPA if you're under a certain credit hour threshold (60) for graded classes. I'm not sure how law schools would view an app from a US applicant who had a degree with mostly pass/fail credits. Perhaps they'd treat it like a foreign app? I assume, based on a cursory search for some of the acronyms OP used, that this is a degree obtained while serving in the military, so I doubt that this issue would be wholly unknown to the law schools.

OP, It may be worth calling the admissions offices at a couple of your target schools and asking them how they'd handle it.

Good point, I'd missed that the cutoff was as high as 60 hours. I'd anticipate it would be treated like a foreign degree if there's some way of showing this is typical for the school, i.e. a letter from a dean or similar. If OP is the only graduate in the past decade to take this approach, I could see law schools being skeptical.

Thank you! I did reach out to my local university and left a message with admissions, I am awaiting their call back as we speak. Assuming I'm treated the same as a foreign student does that mean they will mainly focus on my lsat score? From what I understand a good portion of students at TESU do graduate the way I did.