UMass Amherst Pre-Law Advising Office

Every law school requires that you forward your complete official undergraduate transcript to LSAC’s Credential Assembly Service.  CAS will both forward your transcript(s) to the law schools you apply to, as well as recalculate your GPA based on certain uniform rules.  This includes the transcript from every college or university at which you completed any course for credit, even if those courses appear as transfer credit on your UMass transcript.  The only common exception are classes you took through a UMass Study Abroad or Domestic Exchange program. LSAC’s complete rules about requesting transcripts can be found here.

To request your UMass transcript, you must first print the Transcript Request Form from your LSAC account, and deliver it to the UMass Registrar’s Office. You must also fill out the UMass Registrar’s request form. You cannot simply request your transcript on SPIRE, as the LSAC Transcript Request Form must accompany your official transcript.  If you are still in school when you are applying to law school, you should submit two requests to the Registrar’s Office, one for a transcript to be sent immediately, and the second to be sent when the current term (presumably fall) grades are posted. (The Registrar’s form provides an easy way to indicate this request.)

Your GPA as computed by CAS may not be exactly the same as your UMass GPA. This is because LSAC handles certain grades differently. The most common difference for UMass students is when you retake a class—UMass does not include the first time you took the class in calculating your GPA. LSAC does include that first grade, so your GPA as reported by LSAC may be lower. Rest assured that this minor difference will not have a dramatic impact on your law school admission chances.