Frequently Asked Questions

What is this thing?

This is an interactive database designed for Law School Applicants, by Law School Applicants. The site has two main goals: 1) store an individual's progress in the application cycle and 2) aggregate sitewide information for access by current and future applicants. Lawschoolnumbers allows you to enter and display your individual stats for friends and family, as well as search aggregated sitewide statitisics by GPA, LSAT, and school. This original idea and software was written by xMatt in 2003 and adjustments were made for Law School Purposes by Mars Attacks and Justin. The current incarnation of lawschoolnumbers for the 2004-2005 application cycle was overhauled by Justin and offers many new features.

I lost or didn't receive my Validation Email. Can you re-send it to me?

First you need to make sure your email address exists and is available - we get a lot of bounced emails from mailboxes over quota or that do not exist. Similarly, you should check your spam folder to make sure that the verification email did not end up there by mistake.

If you are certain that the verification email never arrived, you can have it resent by logging into to your account, clicking on the My Account button, and then clicking on the link to resend the verification email.

Do I have to enter all this information? What if I don't want to tell people where I live?

All the fields are optional (except username, password and email). There is also an open text field for any additional information at the bottom of the account edit page. Feel free to use this to explain anything that won't fit into the main fields.

What is an Admissions Index Number?

Admission Index Numbers are used by many law schools to combine your GPA and LSAT into one number that takes into account what the law school wants to emphasize - it allows them to weigh your GPA or LSAT. All Law Schools who use index numbers multiply your GPA and LSAT by two specific numbers and then add a constant:

Index Number = GPA(xGPAnum) + LSAT(xLSATnum) + CONSTANTnum)

To find out how your Admission Index Number stacks up to past applicants plug in a school's 25/75th percentile GPA and LSAT and compare it to your index number (the higher the better).

What do the other terms mean?

LSDAS GPA -- The GPA used in Law School Applications as outlined by LSAC, 4.33 to 0.00 scale. A+ = 4.33, A = 4.00, A- = 3.66, B+ = 3.33, etc.

Degree Granting GPA -- The GPA received by your degree granting institution. This may differ from your LSDAS GPA depending on you school's grading policies.

LSAT -- The Law School Admission Test, 120 - 180 scale.

ED -- Early Decision: An application sent out early in the application cycle with the expectation of an early decision (hence the name). Admission is usually binding and non deferrable

EA -- Early Action: An early completed application with the hope the school in quesion will give you a decision on your application before a preset date. Usually the decision will be Accepted, Rejected, or Deferred to the regular admission pool.

Waitlisted -- An application decision where the applicant will be notified of their Acceptance or Rejection at a later date. Usually the school likes the applicant but does not have enough room to guarantee them a seat. Final decision sometimes come weeks before the start of school.

Deferred -- An applicant where their final decision has been pushed back to a later time. Synonymous with "Held."

How do you determine the most popular users?

Each time a user's info page is viewed, the views counter is incremented. The number of times the page has been viewed is displayed right under the username on the info page. The users on the "Most Popular Users" sections are ranked by the number of times they've been viewed (in the event of a tie, the user whose account is oldest wins). The number displayed next to the username is the number of page views for that user.

What do I do if I have a suggestion or found a bug?

Please Contact Us about it.

Do you have any other law-related resources for pre-law students or law school students?

Yes. Check out our Other Resources page.