For the second year in a row, Alabama's admissions standards (partially) trump Yale's
For the second year in a row, Alabama has reported that its incoming 1L class has a 75th percentile undergraduate GPA of (exactly) 4.0. That means at least 25% of its incoming class has a 4.0 GPA or higher. That trumps all schools, including Yale, which this year at a 75th percentile UGPA of 3.99.
And Alabama also reports this year a 50th percentile undergraduate GPA of 3.94. That’s tops in the nation, tied with Yale. (Harvard’s is 3.88, for comparison.)
Above-4.0 GPAs are not uncommon, because LSAC calculates an A+ as a 4.33. It all depends on one’s undergraduate program and the frequency of A+s, I suppose.
Alabama enrolled 127 1Ls last year, so that’s about 32 students with a 4.0 or higher, and about 64 with a 3.94 or higher. The total, Alabama reports, includes 11 students without an LSAT score—that cohort instead relies on UGPA and ACT scores (as some schools have done in the past consistent with ABA regulations), and that cohort of 11 had a mean UGPA of 4.04. The threshold for participation in that program is a 3.90 UGPA (and it’s extending a “streamlined” program with a 3.90 UGPA requirement to a number of Alabama schools this fall).