How LSAC calculates your GPA
When you apply to law school through LSAC, its Credential Assembly Service (CAS) takes every undergraduate transcript you’ve sent, converts each grade to a common 4.0 scale and averages the results by credit hour. LSAC’s Transcript Summarization page says the point is to give law schools one common basis for comparing applicants. It reports a GPA for each year, a cumulative GPA for each undergraduate school, and one cumulative GPA across all of them.
Two things in that process trip people up. LSAC uses every course that can be converted, even ones your college leaves out of its own average. And it doesn’t try to judge how hard a school grades: a B is a 3.00 everywhere. LSAC says its number rarely differs much from your college’s, but repeats, transfer work and failed pass/fail classes can open a real gap, which is what the calculator above is built to show.
The LSAC grade conversion table
This is LSAC’s published conversion for letter, 1–5 and 100–0 scales:
| Grade | LSAC value | 1–5 scale | 100–0 scale |
|---|---|---|---|
| A+ | 4.33 | 1+ | 98–100 |
| A | 4.00 | 1 | 93–97 |
| A- | 3.67 | 1- | 90–92 |
| AB | 3.50 | — | — |
| B+ | 3.33 | 2+ | 87–89 |
| B | 3.00 | 2 | 83–86 |
| B- | 2.67 | 2- | 80–82 |
| BC | 2.50 | — | — |
| C+ | 2.33 | 3+ | 77–79 |
| C | 2.00 | 3 | 73–76 |
| C- | 1.67 | 3- | 70–72 |
| CD | 1.50 | — | — |
| D+ | 1.33 | 4+ | 67–69 |
| D | 1.00 | 4 | 63–66 |
| D- | 0.67 | 4- | 60–62 |
| DE or DF | 0.50 | — | — |
| E and F | 0.00 | 5 | Below 60 |
Schools with four passing grades map them to 4.0, 3.0, 2.0 and 1.0; schools with three map them to 4.0, 3.0 and 2.0, and any failure is 0.00. LSAC notes that some three-grade and numerical systems are converted differently, and its Interpretive Guide to Undergraduate Grading Systems shows how your own college’s grades are read.
The formula, with a worked example
The calculator starts with eight classes: an A+, an A and an A- (3 credits each), a 4-credit Calculus I with a C- that the student retook for a B+, a 3-credit B in English composition from a community college, a 3-credit pass in a pass/fail class, and a 4-credit W.
The college averages only its own four letter grades with the C- replaced: 48.3 quality points over 13 credits, a 3.72. LSAC starts from the same four classes and gets 3.79, because the A+ is worth 4.33 instead of 4.00. Then it adds the community college B (3.65) and the original C- (1.67 × 4 = 6.68 points), which leaves 65.00 points over 20 hours, a 3.25. The pass shows up as 3 unconverted hours and the W is left out of both. One retaken class cost this student almost half a point.
The rules that change your number
- Repeated courses. Every attempt counts, grades and credits, as long as the units and grade appear on the transcript, per LSAC’s repeated-course rule. Grade replacement and academic forgiveness don’t help when the old grade still shows. If the transcript doesn’t show the original grade and units, LSAC leaves that attempt out.
- W and incomplete. Withdrawals and incompletes are left out only if your college treats them as nonpunitive. An incomplete that turned into a failure counts as 0.00, so enter it as an F. A W rarely costs anything; our guide on whether a W affects your GPA covers the college side.
- WF, WU and WNP. These count as 0.00 unless your college considers them nonpunitive, and that exception doesn’t apply when the grade only became nonpunitive because you repeated the class.
- Pass/fail. Passing grades from one- or two-grade systems aren’t converted; LSAC lists them as unconverted credits. A failing grade (Fail, No Credit, Unsatisfactory) becomes 0.00 and is counted even when your college treats it as nonpunitive.
- Which courses count. Undergraduate work only, and only up to the conferral date of your first bachelor’s degree; classes after that, graduate or undergraduate, are excluded. Grades from every undergraduate school count, including community colleges. AP credit is listed separately, not averaged.
- Dual enrollment. For the 2026–27 cycle, college classes taken in high school still count. LSAC’s August 2026 announcement says they’ll be excluded starting with the 2027–28 cycle, for new applicants and reapplicants alike.
- Credit hours. Everything is reported in semester hours. Trimester hours count as semester hours, and quarter hours are multiplied by 0.67.
- Too few graded hours. If your file has fewer than 60 graded undergraduate hours from U.S. or Canadian schools, LSAC doesn’t calculate a cumulative GPA at all.
What to do with the result
If the two numbers are close, expect the CAS report to land near the GPA printed on your transcript. If the gap is large, find out why before you apply: get your own copy of each transcript, as LSAC itself recommends, and check the classes the calculator flags. A college that drops failing pass/fail grades or replaces retakes will show a higher GPA on its own transcript than the LSAC report will.
Since post-degree work doesn’t count, the window to move an LSAC GPA closes at graduation. Our guide on how to raise your GPA shows how many credits it takes to move an average, and the major GPA calculator helps if an application also asks for your GPA in your major.
Limits of this calculator
- Your transcript decides. LSAC reads what’s printed. If a grade or its units aren’t shown, the result here won’t match.
- Your college’s rules vary. We assume transfer grades aren’t in your college’s GPA and that minus grades are worth 0.3 less. Use the settings to match your college.
- Unusual grading systems. Narrative transcripts, schools outside the U.S. and Canada, and numeric scales are handled case by case by LSAC.
GradeDuck isn’t affiliated with, or endorsed by, the Law School Admission Council (LSAC). Only your CAS Law School Report shows your official LSAC GPA. We read LSAC’s pages in October 2026.