undergraduate institution

[bblue359]

If my goal after college is a top 5 US law school, should I choose a Canadian university or an American one? Right now, I have to choose between UofT, UBC, and NYU Stern. Going to a Canadian university will probably inflate my GPA to some degree (especially UBC), and NYU Stern will be the opposite. How much does GPA/undergrad institution matter? Thanks.

[bigs5068]

It matters very very little. Get the best grades you can and nail the LSAT. If you are just going into undergrad take some B.S. classes to get some free one unit classes that are free A's like Frisbee Golf, basketball whatever. Those classes will boost your GPA and help you get scholarship money or admissions to other schools. 

It is complete B.S. that is the way it works and I got very lucky because I played basketball and they gave me a million free A's for doing nothing you can see the complete b.s. below and I got scholarship money for that. My actual UGPA is 3.6, but my academic GPA was 3.08 they did not really care if I got an A in rocket Science or underwater basket weaving to schools it is an A and I got scholarship money. My friend that went to UCSB a decent school and got a degree in Molecular Biology and pulled a 3.0 got no scholarship money. This whole retarded system is perpetuated by U.S. News, but it got me 48,000 so I will take it and you should do the same.


So for classes like this I got scholarship money I don't know how many different ways you can say basketball, but this b.s. certainly boosted my G.P.A. wrongly and got me money and admissions to more schools than I probably even should have.
   THEORY OF BASKETBALL    1.00    A         
    PEMA 5    VARSITY CONDITIONING    1.00    A            
   PEMA 6    MEN VARSITY BASKETBALL    1.00    A            
   PEMA 6    Men's Varsity Basketball    1.00    A         
   CIRCUIT WEIGHT TRAINING    1.00    A         
    PEAC 4    BASKETBALL BIA *V*    1.00    A         

My friend probalby had something like this.
Molecular Biology  B.
Advanced Chemistry A
Ridiculously Hard Science Class C+
Curing Cancer 101 B

Since he actually took hard classes he got no money and had got accepted into less schools. So I fu**ed around putting a ball in a basket and got free A's and he is doing crazy science stuff at a better school then I went to and he got screwed.  It is a completely retarded system, but rack up any free A's you can if you want to go to law school and it will help your admission and scholarship chances.

[Morten Lund]

I would have to partially disagree.  GPA-padding can definitely be helpful to a degree, but "top 5" schools all look beyond the GPA.  You still need the GPA, but a GPA built on basket-weaving will not do well when the other applicants have the same GPA and a chem/bio dual major.

But to go to any of those schools you absolutely must do extraordinarily well on the LSAT.  Your LSAT score is far more important than your choice of undergraduate school.

[bigs5068]

You might be right top 5 schools might notice, but I am sure if you threw in a few easy A's it would certainly not hurt your chances at any school. If it was as blatant as my transcripts were they might  notice. They still might not care since everybody wants to satisfy U.S. News who does not care to look in depth into anything. To U.S. News a 4.0 in underwater basket weaving is more valuable to a school's U.S. News Rank then someone who gets a 3.1 in Rocket Science.   

You are also probably right the LSAT is probably more important than your GPA.

To go to the OP's question the institution probably really does not matter that much. 

[cooleylawstudent]

yes, and your lawschool essays are graded on grammer, spelling and math skills......

I would have to partially disagree.  GPA-padding can definitely be helpful to a degree, but "top 5" schools all look beyond the GPA.  You still need the GPA, but a GPA built on basket-weaving will not do well when the other applicants have the same GPA and a chem/bio dual major.

But to go to any of those schools you absolutely must do extraordinarily well on the LSAT.  Your LSAT score is far more important than your choice of undergraduate school.

[bblue359]

thanks for the input guys. but getting back to my original question - would law school see a material difference between the colleges listed above? Would they have a clear preference for one or the other?

[bigs5068]

No I think the only possible time a school might be suspicious if they saw a transcript from Devry or University of Phoneix and even then they probably wouldn't care. There are 1,000's of colleges and universities out there and admissions officers have no idea about 90% of the universities out there. If you have a 4.0 from UC Riverside it will be the same as a 4.0 from Wayne State they just don't know or care. Schools want to satisfy U.S. News rankings and they will count a 4.0 GPA in Under Water Basket Weaving from Timbuktu State or Advanced Nuclear Physics from Harvard the same way. U.S. News does not look into any more depth than the pure number and admissions officers won't either.

[bblue359]

OK, and just to make sure, law schools won't care whether the applicant is from a Canadian university will they?

[bigs5068]

I really doubt it, but the best person to ask would the admissions office at the law schools you want to apply to. There job is to literally answer questions like this so shoot him an e-mail or give them a call.

[bblue359]

I really doubt it, but the best person to ask would the admissions office at the law schools you want to apply to. There job is to literally answer questions like this so shoot him an e-mail or give them a call.

thanks for the suggestion. from what I've experienced in my university applications, admissions offices tend to not admit that they have quotas for specific countries even though they do have them anyways. Are law school admissions offices more forthcoming?