Help

[nosaj]

Hey guys,

I just wanted to ask a quick question as i have recently gotten serious about law school. I wanted to know whether or not i have a chance to at law school.

I recently wrote my lsat and scored 160 on it, but have some quite poor marks from my first two years of my UG as i was immature and a poor student.

I graduated with a 3.6/4 in my lats 2 years(honours) with a bachelor of commerce but my cgpa would be much lower as i only had a 2.7/4 for my first two years.

Do i stand a chance at any school within canada or am i going to need to rewrite my last and have a 165+ because of my first two years?

thanks in advance, i know nobody here knows the answer whether i will be accepted but is it a good idea to even apply at this point?

[obbear]

If you've already graduated, then some of the schools that look at your last 2 years only, or primarily, might be possible - look at Queens, Western, Sask, maybe Dal, maybe Alberta, if you took at least 60cr. in your final 2.  Also worth considering are the schools that drop some of your worst credits:  UNB, Manitoba (there are others - UBC, UVic - but those are probably beyond reach).  How much that helps you depends on whether you've got some low outliers bringing your GPA down.  I'd say everything else is either out or a very long shot, except for Calgary and Windsor, depending on your ECs.

I don't think you're totally safe anywhere, but if you're fine with rolling the dice and don't care too much where you might end up, it's definitely worth applying with the 160.  Good luck!

(Oh, and you'll probably get more help at lawstudents.ca than you will here.)

[nosaj]

thanks for the advice, i actually posted on both here and lawstudents.ca but so far you have given me the best answer. I graduated with over 60 credits in my final two years, I think 66 to be exact. Will this have a positive or negative impact on their decision? I also have other additional courses under my belt such as the Canadian securities program, Canadian Investment funds program and my real estate license. Would these be considered as EC's? I know volunteer work is a positive and therefore have begun volunteering with the conservative party of Canada. 

Truthfully, it is only my first two years that i think will be detrimental to my admission, but i am willing to go to whatever school i get into. These first two years are veyr oor though as even though i think my gpa was 2.7. There are also  a couple of F's from my first year (I had a lot of maturing to do when i got of high school).

thanks again for the advice/opinion

[obbear]

thanks for the advice, i actually posted on both here and lawstudents.ca but so far you have given me the best answer. I graduated with over 60 credits in my final two years, I think 66 to be exact. Will this have a positive or negative impact on their decision? I also have other additional courses under my belt such as the Canadian securities program, Canadian Investment funds program and my real estate license. Would these be considered as EC's? I know volunteer work is a positive and therefore have begun volunteering with the conservative party of Canada. 

Truthfully, it is only my first two years that i think will be detrimental to my admission, but i am willing to go to whatever school i get into. These first two years are veyr oor though as even though i think my gpa was 2.7. There are also  a couple of F's from my first year (I had a lot of maturing to do when i got of high school).

thanks again for the advice/opinion

I mentioned the 60cr thing just to make sure that you didn't take less than 60 in your final two (in which case some of the schools may have taken your second, not-so-good, year into account).  So, with that in mind, I'd be pretty confident about Alberta if I were you, and I think you're looking pretty good for Dal too.

The Fs are actually a "good" thing for a few schools: at Manitoba, UNB, UBC, even though they look at all 4 years, will drop your Fs, so the GPA they consider for admissions could be much higher than the, what, 3.2 CGPA that appears on your transcript.

For Manitoba, I'd go ahead and calculate your admission average.  You'll need to convert your GPA, course-by-course, to their 4.5 scale (A+=4.5; A=4.0; B+=3.5; B=3; C+=2.5; C=2; D=1; E/F=0), drop your 30 worst credits, including the Fs, and apply the following formula:  [(GPA with drops/4.5) * 50] + [((LSAT - 120)/6) * 5].  If the result is 75 or higher, you're good to go.  72-75 might do it.  less than 72, you're out.  If you get a funny number, check the Man law website to make sure I got the formula right.

UBC will drop your worst 12 credits.  So you may well have a shot there, especially if you've got 4 early Fs contributing to that 2.7.  But the LSAT seems a little low for them.  You'll have to do a detailed GPA conversion (to their % scale) and see where you stand at that point.  Your adjusted average would probably have to hit the 80s to be competitive with the 160.

UNB, well, you're probably good to go with the 160.  They'll drop the worst 25% of your credits (so the worst 30-ish, depending on exactly how many courses you took in ugrad), which should take care of you.

The other things - CSC, etc. - I'd say are helpful as ECs, so they're really only useful for Calgary and Windsor...and maybe Ottawa.  More important, likely, is what you've done with them and/or the story of why you took them (if it's interesting).  Can you find a way to weave it into your PS, if you apply to schools that ask for one?

To sum up, you're probably good to go at least at Alberta, Dal, UNB, and Manitoba.  You've definitely got a shot at Queens, Western, Calgary, Sask, and Windsor.  A few more LSAT points (say, the 165 you were hoping for) and UBC might come into range, though I think that about does it.  So even though you're not looking good at the Toronto schools, McGill, and UVic (Ottawa: who knows?), I think the odds are good you'll end up somewhere quite good (of those I listed, Alberta, Dal, Queens and Western are all pretty uncontroversially good places to end up, and the others would be fine too, depending on your geographic goals).  So yeah, it looks like a pretty good cycle - better than most, I'd wager.  Let me know if you've got any other questions.

[nosaj]

Wow, thanks a lot for the help. That is a lot of insight to some questions i had. I will be doing some more research on my own towards each individual school but it is sure uplifting to hear that i do have a somewhat good chance at some schools such as U of A.

Anyways thanks again

j