LSAC GPA Change 2026 - Need a GPA Addendum?

LSAC GPA Change 2026 - Need a GPA Addendum?

If you are applying in the 2026-2027 cycle, LSAC has not changed how your GPA is calculated. The change being discussed — dropping grades from college courses taken while you were in high school — was announced with a July 28, 2026 effective date and then delayed. LSAC's own sentence, published August 18, 2026: "For the 2026-2027 application cycle, for all applicants with college credits earned in high school, LSAC will continue the policy that has been in place for many years, and calculate the LSAC GPA with their dual enrollment grades included." The exclusion arrives one cycle later: "Starting with the 2027-2028 application cycle, LSAC will exclude grades from all college credits earned while in high school from the calculation of their LSAC GPA." Both sentences are on LSAC's Law:Fully post of August 18, 2026, checked September 1, 2026.

So the live question this fall is not "did the change move my number" — it did not — but the older one: does the academic record in your file need a page of context, and if so, what belongs on it? This post covers the GPA and academic addendum only, on the four beats the law school application addendum rubric reads for. A score difference is the document next door, in LSAT addendum examples. A "yes" to a character-and-fitness question triggers a different document with opposite rules — start with the two documents both called an addendum. For sentence-level models across several categories, five annotated addendum examples sit alongside this page.

The three-way decision, before anything else

What LSAC actually changed, and when

Two documents carry the rule, both re-read on September 1, 2026.

The first is the Law:Fully post, "Providing More Time for Schools and Candidates to Adjust to the LSAC GPA Changes," August 18, 2026, by Susan L. Krinsky. It opens with the history: "Last month, we announced that, effective July 28, 2026, LSAC would no longer include grades from college-level courses completed while a candidate was in high school, often referred to as dual enrollment classes, in the LSAC GPA calculation. After careful review, we have decided to delay implementation of the policy until summer 2027…" The stated reason is notice: LSAC "heard concerns about whether prospective applicants had been provided adequate notice in approaching the 2026-2027 application cycle." An applicant asking in August about "LSAC's decision to not include dual enrolment credits next year" (thread 1vzfl3z, August 27, 2026) had the timing right: next year, not this one.

The second is LSAC's standing policy page, Transcript Summarization — where to check this next month, once the blog post has scrolled away. It carries the same rule as a standing note, and adds who it reaches: "This new policy will include all applicants for the 2027-2028 cycle and beyond, including new applicants and reapplicants from previous years."

Three things follow from that wording.

There is no opt-in and no per-applicant transition. LSAC's stated design is that "all applicants in each cycle will have their LSAC GPAs calculated in the same way as one another."

Reapplicants are swept in, so the same person can be summarized one way this cycle and another way next.

The full transcript never left. LSAC: "both before and after any changes take effect, law schools will continue to have access to the Credential Assembly Service (CAS) report that includes full transcripts." A calculation is changing; nothing is being withheld from a reader.

One sourcing note: the August 18 post refers to an announcement made "last month," but we could not locate that July announcement as a separate page on lsac.org (checked September 1, 2026), so the two documents above are the two we cite. The effective cycle has already moved once — re-read the policy page before you file anything.

And a direction nobody has stated. LSAC does not say whether excluding these grades raises or lowers anyone's number, and neither will we. Removing grades from an average moves it in whichever direction those grades sat relative to the rest. Yours is on your own transcript.

What LSAC says about the addendum

The post carries LSAC's only addendum instruction here:

"Applicants who want to highlight their dual enrollment performance for a more complete picture of their academic achievements can and should provide an addendum to their application."

Read that against the calendar. For the cycle open now, dual-enrollment grades are still inside the LSAC GPA, so the sentence is forward-looking. From 2027-2028, if your strongest early coursework was earned in high school, it is no longer inside that number; the transcript stays in the file, and the addendum is what points at it. That is about what gets seen — not about how any reader will weigh it, and LSAC makes no claim there.

Note what it is not about: highlighting performance is the opposite job from explaining a low number, and the two should never share a document.

Decision tree, by situation

A term or two well below the rest, with a cause you can date

Write one. The whole document is: which term, what was happening, when it started and stopped, and what the terms after it look like. If you can date the cause, you have an addendum. If the only honest version is "that year was hard," you have a feeling — and a feeling on a transcript page reads as an argument with the record.

A CAS report that does not match your degree GPA

Write one — as arithmetic, not as argument. This is the live 2026-2027 surprise, and it has nothing to do with the change above. CAS summarizes every transcript, not just the one your degree came from. Richmond Law states the mechanic plainly (checked September 1, 2026): "transcripts from ALL undergraduate, graduate, or technical schools… must be submitted to CAS, whether or not a degree was earned. This includes any dual credits earned in high school, college-level summer school, all transfer credits, etc." One applicant this August described the result as a "3.475 university GPA but 2.68 cumulative CAS GPA" (thread 1vlt6ju, August 11, 2026). The addendum for that file identifies where the difference comes from and stops; it does not ask anyone to prefer one number.

A pivot — you started in one program and left it

Usually don't. A change of program is legible from a transcript without help. An August thread asked whether to write one after being "pre-law at the beginning of undergrad, left the program… or just let it be" (thread 1w02pjd, August 27, 2026). Let it be — unless the transcript carries marks a reader cannot reconcile alone, such as a run of withdrawals or a repeated course sequence. Then the document is about those marks, not the pivot.

An upward trend

Don't. Rising term GPAs are the most legible pattern on a transcript, and a page explaining them converts a good fact into a defensive one. Where a school invites transcript comments, one sentence there is the whole move.

The four-sentence GPA addendum

Four beats, in this order: the fact, stated once · the dated cause · what changed · the record after. Then stop. There is no fifth beat, and the usual failure is a fifth paragraph telling the reader what to conclude.

One constructed example, written by us for teaching. The institution, dates, and figures are invented, describe no real applicant, and are not output from any review tool.

Academic addendum: community-college coursework, 2019-2020

1. My CAS report shows a cumulative GPA of 2.68; my bachelor's transcript shows 3.47.
2. The difference is 31 credits I completed at a community college in 2019 and 2020 before transferring, while working night shifts at a distribution center from June 2019 to August 2020; those credits are part of the CAS calculation and were not part of my degree GPA.
3. I left that job when I transferred in August 2020 and enrolled full time.
4. My term GPAs in the four semesters after transferring were 3.41, 3.52, 3.60, and 3.58, and I graduated in May 2022.

What it establishes: where two numbers in the reader's file come from, with one dated circumstance and the record that followed. Every figure is checkable against documents the reader already holds.

What it deliberately omits: which number is "really" mine, how hard the shifts were, any request to recompute anything. It never uses the word unfair.

Length discipline: 96 words, against LSAC's guidance on LawHub — "Addenda do not need to be lengthy; often, a paragraph or two will be plenty" — and under a third of Berkeley's 350, the tightest cap in this sample.

One line, before and after

Line 1 is where these documents are usually lost. Both versions describe the same file.

Before: "My CAS GPA is not an accurate reflection of my academic ability, and I would ask the Committee to consider my degree GPA instead."

After: "My CAS report shows a cumulative GPA of 2.68; my bachelor's transcript shows 3.47."

The first asks for a ruling and offers nothing to rule on. The second hands a reader two figures and lets the next three sentences explain the gap — the whole difference between an addendum and a plea, settled in fourteen words.

What this page will not decide

It will not tell you whether to write about a health condition, an experience of abuse, or a family circumstance. Applicants ask — one August thread asked whether physical abuse was "too controversial" to mention in a GPA addendum — and the honest answer is that this is your call and nobody else's. No writing rule requires it, we can promise no advantage for disclosing, and a shorter, more neutral cause statement is not a weaker document. "A family medical emergency" and "a change in my household's finances" are complete causes. You decide how much of the detail behind them belongs on a page a stranger reads.

About the writing, and nothing more: whatever you name as the cause needs dates on it, and the document ends once the record after it has been given.

Where a GPA addendum goes, school by school

Of the five schools whose academic-addendum instructions we checked on September 1, 2026, the spread is wide enough that "how long should it be" has no general answer.

Texas publishes the fullest invitation, and its second sentence is the half most applicants never read: "If your academic performance for one or more academic terms was markedly different from that of others, please explain. Please make any other comments about your college transcript(s) or your preparation for college that you believe will help the Admissions Committee in evaluating your application." (Texas Law, Apply, checked September 1, 2026.) That is where the one-sentence option at the top of this page lives.

Berkeley runs the tightest budget and attaches an evidence hook: "If you do not believe that your standardized test score(s) or academic record accurately reflect your ability to succeed in law school, then you may tell us why and share what you believe indicates your potential. (350 word maximum, 11 point font, double-spaced, with 1 inch margins). You may attach a copy of your SAT or ACT score report(s) to this essay (a screenshot or unofficial copy will suffice), and we reserve the right to request score reports to verify statements made in this optional essay." (Berkeley Law, Ready to Apply, checked September 1, 2026.)

Yale says both halves out loud, and quoting only the second misrepresents it: "Applicants may submit addenda to their application if any are necessary for a full representation of their candidacy. These addenda may include, for example, explanations related to transcripts or test scores, including a history of under-performance on standardized tests. It is not necessary to include any addenda, and many applicants do not include any." (Yale Law School, Application Components, page updated July 2026, checked September 1, 2026.)

Richmond sets no ceiling and asks for a header per item: "Additional written material may be useful to discuss grade inconsistencies, gaps in work history, or to provide context for the Admissions Committee on any other topic relevant to the holistic review of the application. Addenda should be long enough to fully disclose and explain each topic. All written submissions should include headers or titles identifying each separate item." (University of Richmond School of Law, Apply, checked September 1, 2026.)

Michigan names grades first: "If there is any information in your application you wish to clarify (for example, particular grades; a history of standardized testing that under-predicts your academic performance; gaps in employment) you may submit that information in the Attachments section of the LSAC FlexApp under 'Addendum.'… You may submit as many addenda as you need." (Michigan Law, Apply to the J.D. Program.) Retrieval note: that page refuses direct automated requests — HTTP 403 to us on September 1, 2026 — so the sentence was read the same day through a public text-proxy rendering of the live page.

Getting a second read on the page you wrote

An addendum is the piece of a J.D. file most applicants have nobody to show. The public law school application addendum rubric sets out what an experienced reader checks: whether the first line names the exact item, whether the cause carries dates, whether the record after it is given, and whether the document stops instead of arguing. Paste the school's own prompt above your draft — the wording differs enough across the five schools above that a page written to one can miss another.

Three limits, plainly. A review reads writing; it cannot see your transcript or CAS report, so it cannot confirm a figure against a document it has never held. It does not decide what you disclose. And addendum reviews stay private to you — this rubric carries no share link and no third-party reviewer option, which is deliberate given what the other kind of addendum contains. Two free Quick Reviews are available each day; your first Full Review costs $5 and is typically ready in about 2–3 minutes, and Pro includes ten Full Reviews for $50. Full Reviews include an AI-authenticity check, which is a signal, not proof — a reason to re-read your own sentences, never evidence about anyone's authorship.

Read your school's rule before you run any tool over any part of your application. Authorship, AI, and assistance rules differ school by school, change by cycle, and at least one school names addenda specifically; the certification you sign at submission is the sentence that applies, over any summary including this one. Do not use a review where your school prohibits it, and submit only your own writing. GradPilot reviews writing you already wrote and never drafts replacement prose. Our law school AI-policy guide explains how to find the sentence that applies to you, and the law school AI policy directory holds the published language school by school. Absence of a rule is not permission.

The rest of the file runs on rules of its own: the prompt map is in the 2026-27 law school essay prompts crosswalk, letters are covered in our LSAC letters of recommendation guide, and the shelf sits on the law school essays hub. If it is the main essay you want read against a rubric, that is our law school personal statement review.

Before you submit

• Which cycle are you applying in? In 2026-2027 your dual-enrollment grades are inside your LSAC GPA, and nothing announced in August changes your file.
• Does your CAS report actually differ from your degree GPA? Open both before writing a word.
• Can you put start and end dates on the cause? If not, do not write the document.
• Does the first line name the item — the term, the two figures, the marks — or ask for a conclusion?
• Does the school publish a limit, and are you inside it? Berkeley's 350 words and Texas's one page are the smallest we found.
• Explaining a low number and highlighting coursework that no longer counts are two documents; do not merge them.

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Sources checked September 1, 2026. Every quotation was transcribed from the page linked below; where retrieval needed a different method, it is recorded.

• LSAC, Law:Fully — "Providing More Time for Schools and Candidates to Adjust to the LSAC GPA Changes," August 18, 2026, by Susan L. Krinsky
• LSAC, Transcript Summarization
• LSAC LawHub, Addenda to Your Law School Application
• Texas Law, Apply
• UC Berkeley School of Law, Ready to Apply (J.D.)
• Yale Law School, Application Components — page states it was updated as of July 2026
• University of Richmond School of Law, Apply — reachable only after the site's consent redirect; a plain request returns a content-free page
• Michigan Law, Apply to the J.D. Program — HTTP 403 to direct requests on September 1, 2026; read the same day through a public text-proxy rendering, and the method is recorded beside the quotation. The school's 2026-27 annotated-application PDF returned HTTP 500 the same day — retrieval blocked — so nothing is quoted from it.
• The July 2026 announcement referenced in LSAC's August 18 post could not be located as a separate page on lsac.org (checked September 1, 2026).
• Applicant threads cited by id and date only, one sentence each, no usernames: 1vlt6ju (August 11, 2026), 1w02pjd, 1vzfl3z and 1vzffga (all August 27, 2026). Self-reported figures are not evidence about how the LSAC calculation behaves.

Nothing here is legal advice, nothing predicts an admissions outcome, and no part of it tells you what to disclose. The effective cycle has already moved once; re-read LSAC's policy page before relying on a date above.