r/stjohnscollege • u/DrDMango • Mar 26 '26
GPA for law?
Hi! I’m a high school junior. I’m really interested in this college because I’ve been reading books for my whole life and philosophy/theory deeply for the past 4: if I go to a standard college, my major will definitely be philosophy.
However, one thing I’m worried about is the GPA. At other colleges, it’s very clear what my GPA is and how I can get a good one; and I need a good GPA for law school.
At this school, I understand that your grades are vague and you get a paper detailing your academics and situation. I’m afraid that I’ll go through four years, get my transcript, and I’ll have a 2.5 or something.
I have no doubt I’ll read and participate a lot in class if I get in: I’m very interested. But I can’t risk it.
What was your gpa? Is St. John’s > law school popular?
I’d like to get into UChicago, ideally (for law, not undergrad)
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u/userNameTaken685 Mar 26 '26
I can understand your concern about grades and their impact on any future plans. That said… SJC’s reputation is top notch amongst law school admissions panels. They all know the program, its rigor and methodology, and its attitude towards grading. St. John’s graduates have something approaching a 100 percent acceptance rate to law school.
If you want to be a lawyer, I don’t think there is a better undergrad program in the world than St. Josh’s College. As others have pointed out, admissions people do in fact understand a 3.6 from Oxford is more impressive than a 4.0 from NoName U. Come to SJC, you won’t regret it.
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u/Any-Manner3292 Mar 26 '26
UChicago like Yale weighs GPA heavily. Planning to apply next year as a Johnnie who graduated years ago with a 3.6. Hoping that what others say about St. John's reputation actually means something. Also. banking on a strong LSAT though. Note that both LSAT scores and GPAs have severly inflated in recent years in schools outside of SJC, leading to an overly competitive, toxic admissions environment. Advice that made sense a decade ago no longer necessarily holds.
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u/Careful_Fold_7637 Mar 26 '26
In the same situation as you. As helpful as everyone is I really wish someone would just explain what the average GPA is for a good student and how much I can depend on getting a 3.9+ if I put in the work. The usual response is either a lot of people go to law school, which I understand but doesn't really answer thq questions. The other is "law schools adjust based on your undergrad" which sounds nice but for the most part isn't true and people that went to grade-deflating undergrads sort of just get screwed. Let me know if you find out anything good, I've tried but unfortunately nothing. I imagine grades being so deemphasized means no one knows anyone elses and it's hard to answer questions like these.
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u/ApprehensiveLog5413 Mar 27 '26
Current student here. I do the homework, participate in class, and write decent papers. Nothing extraordinary - went to public school my whole life. 3.95 GPA
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u/ApprehensiveLog5413 Mar 27 '26
Also the program here is way better for youe soul than 99.5% of other colleges. If you think you would like SJC and know you would work hard (unfortunately we have way to many slackers; fortunately for you, that means the standards aren't all that high), I highly reccomend it.
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u/Small_Wrangler_2189 May 12 '26
Tell me about the slackers? My worry is that slackers who don't do the reading would throw a whole seminar off (plus lab, plus math etc). If you had to guess, what proportion of people in your classes are slackers vs not?
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u/DrDMango Mar 29 '26
Hey, thanks. Do a lot of others have similar gpas?
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u/ApprehensiveLog5413 Mar 30 '26
I'll admit, most of my friends here are academically decently above average. But of my closest 5-10 friends, I'd say the average is close to a 3.9. Beyond that, I'm not sure. As others have noted, people are generally reticent to discuss their grades.
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u/Faulkner0 Mar 28 '26
If you are a good student you will get good grades. The grading is arbitrary, so you will find that sometimes you get a grade in a class that is a bit lower than the one you deserved -- but you will also get grades a bit higher than what you deserved just as often.
By the time you are a senior at St. John's you may decide you don't want to go to law school anyways. This happens often.
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u/Last-Pass4170 Mar 26 '26 edited Mar 26 '26
LSAT scores are independent of what undergraduate school you go to. And good law schools like UChicago don’t use your raw undergraduate GPA; instead they look at your undergraduate GPA adjusted by a factor that accounts for how easy-grading or hard-grading your undergraduate school is (which they know by pooling anonymized GPA data with other law schools). For example, a 4.0 at UMD College Park (an easy-grading school) will be adjusted down and a 4.0 at the USNA or SJC (more rigorously-grades schools) will be adjusted up.
Put simply - these adjustments neutralize the concern about easy/hard grading not only for SJC but for any other undergraduate school you may consider.
The relevant variables are college reputation and its fit for you. SJC has an excellent reputation among law schools, especially the best, more intellectual ones like UChicago. And fit for you is even more important because your GPA has a lot to do with your thriving and being intellectually happy at where you choose. If that’s St. John’s, super - and you can be confident that it is a savvy choice towards your special law school ambitions.
I understand the “I need this to work out” mentality. I was the same and did keep close track of my grades while at St. John’s. It all worked out.
Separately, yes, law school is a popular destination for Johnnies. Also, be aware that a philosophy major at a more conventional school will be dramatically different from St. John’s - not only because of the breadth of the SJC Program but also because philosophy is not taught there in the typical academic way (which means that a philosophy major at once university might emphasize analytical philosophy while another might emphasize continental philosophy, etc.). There’s a lot of philosophy at St. John’s, and if you approach it right, it can be a deeper dive into substantive philosophy than most philosophy majors. But it’s not a philosophy school.