There's a Canadian in my buffet dining club at school who explained his decision to come to Vandy full-sticker over UofT. Reportedly, the bandwidth of student quality at UofT is much greater than you'll find at US law schools, since it is the top in the country but loses a lot of students to lower-ranked schools in the US. There are a lot of people with Yale-like numbers who just didn't want to accrue debt and move to the US for their JDs, so they go to UofT figuring they'll do well enough vs. the low 160 LSAT kids to get the jobs they want. They push the level of competition way up, to the point where the people for whom UofT was their top acceptance could end up not doing well and facing limited job prospects. You have Yale-quality students competing with Emory-quality students for the same jobs, and that's gotta make things messy. Since employers don't necessarily know which students were the brightest going in, they have to employ the same gpa cutoffs you see at US schools with a 166 LSAT. So even though some of the brightest students head to UofT each year, firms will still only look at the top of the class.

I apologize for the anecdote.. I'm sure current students at UofT could speak more authoritatively on this. This was just my friend's reasoning in deciding to come to Nashville... he figured there was a better chance at doing well enough to land a job coming from Vandy than if he'd gone to Toronto.

I think how it compares will also depend on the subject, like I'm sure UofT probably has a great polar bear rights program, and maybe a pretty good clinic on igloo property rights.

Hey, you never know when you're going to be in a board meeting and there is a moose that needs skinning or you have to build a bear trap out of tree branches.

I was trying to think of the American equivalent of those stereotypes, but could only come up with "gun-related criminal offences" and "that hot coffee was too hot" type suits. Sadly, you probably have (and need) a lot of expertise in those two fields.

U of T, McGill and Osgoode Hall are traditionally viewed as the top rank of common law Canadian schools, which is why New York firms seeking talent rightfully recruit there. The rest (except for two or three others at the lower end) are generally more or less equal to each other and not far apart from the top three. Getting into any law school in Canada is much more difficult than getting into one in the U.S., as there are only about 20 schools north or the border and all of them (except the few I alluded to above) are good. This is the main reason many Canadians go to the U.S. or Australia for law school after not getting into their home country (except of course for the students who opt for a T14). We don't have any Cooley or Phoenix equivalents here.

LUCKY

Apparently it's a live issue, Chuckles.

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They ensure that their television shows are mostly Canadian because they do not want Canadians doing what many fools around the world do...look up to America/Americans.
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thats a joke...Canada pumps out american tv shows like its their job. You should see the studios in Vancouver...hugely American

Toronto MAY be different (i doubt it) but at least BC has nooo shame in taking American money

They ensure that their television shows are mostly Canadian because they do not want Canadians doing what many fools around the world do...look up to America/Americans.
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thats a joke...Canada pumps out american tv shows like its their job. You should see the studios in Vancouver...hugely American

Toronto MAY be different (i doubt it) but at least BC has nooo shame in taking American money[/quote]

wow clearly getting in on this thread a little late. and so much to correct, goodness!
but to just start with the above - you misunderstand. Canadian studios are happy to take money for American TV shows to be made here, but there's a limit to how much American content is actually shown on television.

Just to clear up something...

The median GPA and LSAT for most Canadian law schools (especially U of T, Osgoode and McGill) is 3.8-3.9 and 162-169ish. The reason why the LSAT is generally lower is not because Canadian schools suck, but because CANADIAN SCHOOLS DON'T CARE AS MUCH ABOUT THE LSAT AS AMERICAN SCHOOLS and weigh it less in admissions decisions accordingly. For instance, you don't even need to take the LSAT to get into McGill.

Keeping this is mind, it would seem that Canadian schools are much harder to get into that "equivalent" american schools (I heard Duke suggested as one) - unless Duke boasts a median 3.9 GPA. In this sense, admissions into Canadian law schools can be thought of as similar to admissions in CCN and HYS.

And having gone to McGill for 4 years I can tell you that I have yet to encounter a course on Polar Bear Rights or Igloo construction.

Hope this helps clear up the confusion!

sorry i don't think you will convince anyone on this board that U of T is even close to CCN much less HYS that's ridiculous. if anything from what you described its sounds more like boalt and I think even that might be a stretch

All the idiotic Canada bashing aside, if OP or anyone else wants real information about going to school in one country and working in another, I'll try to answer. I know more about going to school in the US and working in Canada because that's what I'm doing, but I went to law school in Canada for a year, so know about the law school system there as well.

As for U of T, it's obviously percieved differently in the US and Canada; but I will say that even in Canada HYS are valued more (in part because so few HYS grads go to Canada, so they are sought after). Firms want big name schools because clients want to see that the lawyers on their case went to big name schools. You can go from U of T to biglaw in NYC, but it's not as easy as from a top US law school. Basically, I wouldn't go to a Canadian law school unless you are willing to stay in Canada. If nothing else, all the OCIs are geared to Toronto firms, and inertia will take you there.

Perhaps you misunderstood me jcunni5....

I did not say that CCY and HYS are equivalent to U of T in quality of education, job opportunity, prestige, etc. - I said the admission standards (because Canada tends to focus more on GPA - except UBC) were more equivalent than law schools it has traditionally been compared to in the US. That is all... So Shadyb, I totally agree with you about job opportunities and prestige - U of T isn't as good, but the admissions standards are more equivalent than those categories (in my opinion).

What do you mean admission categories? Do you mean GPA/LSAT score? GPAs are probably pretty similar, but the LSAT scores sure as hell aren't. A 3.9-4.0 with a 165 will get into U of T, they will not get anything from HYS.

I know a Canadian who chose a top 20 US school over going to law school in Canada. He basically said that you didn't get a huge advantage in employment based on school name by going to top Canadian law school. Basically, he said employers just grab the top students from each school. He thought he would have a better chance at a high paying job by going to the US school. I don't know whether or not he ended up with a US biglaw job or not. If he didn't get biglaw, and had to take out big loans to attend the US school, he's probably kicking himself for not going to school in Canada.

U of Toronto's medians are 3.8/167, or about the same GPA as UIUC and Berkeley with an LSAT between the two.

Plus they only count the best 2 or 3 years of grades in the GPA. I'm sure the actual median is lower.

This is true. I think it is the best two years, or the last two years, or something like that.

All Canadian schools have some system of "drops", some drop your worst 6 or 12 credits, some drop your worst year, some take your best 2 years, some take your last two years. We aren't as numbers based up here and a little more holistic.

How about this as a way of comparing difficulty of entry:

- USA has 9.05 times the population of Canada

- UoT takes 190 new students per year

- therefore it's about as competitive for a Canadian to be one of those 190 at UoT as it is for an American to be accepted in one of the top (9.05 x 190 = 1721) places for new students in US law schools

- If you count down from YLS using the 2009 US News rankings then the 1721st place is at NYU (ranked #5)

- Therefore, UoT is about as difficult to get into for Canadians as the T5 is for Americans

Good analysis to above poster, unscientific, but a nice calculation.

I think it's top 3 years, but if you apply in the last year of your schooling, it's first 3 years. I'm not sure though, the website says nothing about it, may be unofficial, but they are competitive enough that i'm pretty sure they look at all the grades.

I find the analysis interesting even if I don't really get the utility in comparison; T5 makes sense as a measure of placement power or of difficulty of admissions, neither of which comes into play from crunching these numbers. Also, rather than population of the country, the relevant number is probably either the number of practicing attorneys in Canada or the number of law students each year (which I imagine would exaggerate the noted effect).

But you treat Canada like it has a wholly separate legal education system. Canadians try to get into American schools, especially the good ones, and it's my understanding that a top US JD is an acceptable replacement for an LLB.

If that's the case and Canadian legal education is somewhat connected to the US at the top of the food chain, then you might say more that the top 5 schools for Canada are the top 5 US schools. Or at least that the top schools for practicing in Canada are HYS.

Which state is Toronto in again?

toronto is in the province of ontario.

How do you mean?

americans love canada jokes. my boyfriend is american (hence the applications to american law schools). its been years and i'm still a walking punch-line for a lot of people down there... don't take it personally haha.

p.s. shout-out to all the other mcgill students/grads here.