How Many Credits

LSAC GPA Calculator

Law schools rebuild your transcript on their own rules. Usually it drops.

CourseCreditsUnit GradeHow LSAC treats it
19.4 semester credits counted · 4.0 unconverted
Your school's GPA
3.58
on 18.4 credits
LSAC GPA
2.98
on 19.4 credits
Difference
-0.60
what law schools see, minus what you see

Why the two numbers differ

  • Repeated course (both attempts on transcript) — LSAC counts every attempt. Most schools count only the later grade, so a retake that fixed your school GPA does not fix your LSAC GPA.
  • PE, practical art, practical music or ROTC — LSAC includes these whenever credit was assigned, even at schools that leave them out of their own GPA.
  • Advanced Placement credit — Reported separately as unconverted credits, never averaged in.

The three that move it most: every attempt at a repeated course counts, academic forgiveness does not apply, and PE and ROTC count even where your registrar leaves them out. All three push in the same direction, and it is usually down.

LSAC’s conversion table

LSAC publishes one table and applies it to everyone. Your school's own mapping is irrelevant here — which cuts both ways.

LSAC pointsGradePercentage
4.33A+98–100
4.00A93–97
3.67A−90–92
3.50AB
3.33B+87–89
3.00B83–86
2.67B−80–82
2.50BC
2.33C+77–79
2.00C73–76
1.67C−70–72
1.50CD
1.33D+67–69
1.00D63–66
0.67D−60–62
0.50DE
0.00E / Fbelow 60

Three rows deserve attention. A+ is 4.33, so a school that caps A+ at a plain 4.0 — Indiana and Michigan both do — understates you relative to LSAC. AB, BC, CD and DE exist, which is how LSAC absorbs half-step systems like Wisconsin's. And E and F are the same zero, so the schools that fail students with an E rather than an F need no special handling.

Quarter hours are multiplied by .67

LSAC's wording is exact: "Trimester hours are treated as semester hours; quarter hours are multiplied by .67 to arrive at semester hours."

That is .67 — not .667, and not two-thirds. Nearly every third-party LSAC calculator uses one of the other two. On a single course it is invisible; across a 180-quarter-hour degree, .67 gives 120.6 semester hours where two-thirds gives 120.0. The gap lands in your denominator, so it moves the average rather than just the credit count.

What LSAC counts that your school does not
Course typeLSACYour schoolWhat it means
Repeated course (both attempts on transcript) counts excluded LSAC counts every attempt. Most schools count only the later grade, so a retake that fixed your school GPA does not fix your LSAC GPA.
Academic forgiveness / renewal counts excluded If the grade is still printed on the transcript, LSAC counts it — a line struck through it changes nothing.
PE, practical art, practical music or ROTC counts excluded LSAC includes these whenever credit was assigned, even at schools that leave them out of their own GPA.
Taken after your first bachelor’s degree excluded counts Everything after the conferral date of the first bachelor’s is excluded, including later undergraduate courses.
Advanced Placement credit excluded counts Reported separately as unconverted credits, never averaged in.
Pass/Fail, Credit/No Credit, Satisfactory excluded excluded Systems with one or two passing grades are unconvertible, so the credits are reported without a grade.
Withdraw/Fail your school treats as nonpunitive excluded excluded Excluded — but only genuinely nonpunitive ones. A WF made nonpunitive by a successful retake or a forgiveness policy still counts as zero.

The repeat rule is the one that surprises people most. LSAC's text is blunt: "All grades and credits earned for repeated courses will be included in the GPA calculation if the course units and grades appear on the transcript." A retake that repaired your transcript GPA leaves the LSAC figure untouched, because the original grade never left.

Academic forgiveness works the same way — "A line drawn through course information or a grade does not eliminate the course from GPA calculation." If the grade is still printed, it counts.

Everything after your first bachelor’s degree is excluded

LSAC stops at the conferral date of your first bachelor's degree. Graduate work, professional study, and even further undergraduate courses taken afterwards are all left out. A post-bacc year taken specifically to raise a low GPA does not raise the LSAC GPA — it appears on the report, but outside the average.

One change is coming that is worth planning around: from the 2027–2028 application cycle, college-level courses taken while in high school, including dual enrollment, will be excluded from the LSAC GPA. Applicants who front-loaded easy dual-enrollment credit will see their LSAC figure move.

Your arithmetic, step by step

Every intermediate value, including the quarter-hour conversion and which side each course lands on. Rows where the two systems disagree are highlighted.

CourseAs shownSemester hrs GradePointsQuality LSACSchool
POLS 1013 sem3.00A4.0012.00countscounts
ECON 2104 sem4.00B+3.3313.32countscounts
CHEM 110 (first attempt)4 sem4.00D1.004.00countsexcluded
CHEM 110 (retake)4 sem4.00B3.0012.00countscounts
PE 120 Swimming1 sem1.00A4.004.00countsexcluded
HIST 3005 qtr3.35A−3.6712.29countscounts
AP Calculus credit4 sem4.00A4.00excludedcounts

LSAC: 57.61 ÷ 19.4 = 2.98

What this page cannot tell you

LSAC resolves ambiguous transcripts by contacting the registrar, and it maintains a per-institution Interpretive Guide that decides how an unusual grade symbol at your specific school is read. This page applies the published general rules; it cannot reproduce a judgment call made about one transcript. Treat the number here as a close estimate and the CAS report as the fact.

LSAC says the same thing about its own margin: "There may be some variation between the GPAs calculated by LSAC and those calculated by colleges or students; however, the variation is rarely substantial."

Related

Primary sources

Every figure on this page traces to one of these. Follow the links to read the regulation yourself rather than taking this site's word for it.

Rules verified against primary sources on 2026-08-25.