How law school transfer admissions actually work
Transfer admissions to law school are different from 0L admissions in ways that surprise most 1Ls. The LSAT, which dominated your initial application, becomes a secondary signal. What matters most is your 1L GPA — and more specifically, where that GPA places you in your 1L class. A 3.6 from a top-ranked law school often beats a 3.9 from a regional school for transfer purposes, because admissions committees read GPAs in the context of the school's grading curve.
What this calculator can and can't tell you
The signal we're using — your 1L GPA compared against each target school's actual 2025 transfer admit GPA percentiles from ABA 509 disclosures — is a strong first-pass estimate. It will correctly tell you that a 3.7 from a T14 transfers easily to most T30s, and that a 3.2 from a regional school is going to need something else exceptional to crack the top of the rankings.
The factors it doesn't see: your personal statement, your "why X school" essay, your faculty recommendations, your exact class rank (only your raw GPA is an input), and slot availability in any given cycle. Transfer admissions are rolling, which means the same numerical profile can succeed in October and miss in March simply because the school filled its seats. Use the results as a starting point for your transfer list, then do the rest of the work.
Build the strongest 1L GPA you can
Your 1L GPA is the single biggest lever for transfer admissions, and unlike LSAT, you have less than a year to build it. The students who transfer up most successfully are the ones who treat 1L finals as the highest-stakes exam they will ever take — because for transfer purposes, they are.
Case Cub is built specifically for the 1L exam grind: AI-generated case briefs across 20,000+ cases, issue spotters built around your own syllabus, smart flashcards, and outline generators. If transferring is on your radar, your final-exam game has to be. Try it free and see whether it fits your study workflow.