Well the lack of ranking system that judges on LSAT and GPA medians means that there is a more holistic approach. While GPA and LSAT is a good general guideline, there are other factors that can make a significant difference. A friend of mine is a chartered accountant, decent GPA (3.6ish) and 155 LSAT. Accepted to UofT, Osgoode and UBC. The work experience as a CA made a HUGE difference in his application cycle.drawstring wrote:Is this really more holistic though? A different weighting of numbers is still about numbers.Yes they are. Different schooled weight gpa and LSAT differently. Wen I was considering law school uvic considered gpa 70% and LSAT 30% and Alberta did the reverse when calculation a score.
I know you decided against top schools in the US. Do you mind sharing some of the reasons behind your decision and do you think you would've done the same if your employment prospects in Canada weren't that good?
Thanks
I ended up not going to law school at all, and I would have made that same decision 1000x over. Best choice for me. However, I chose not to attend US law schools early in my exploration of law school. I probably could have got into H based on my numbers. My family is from Canada, my wife's family is from Canada, and frankly I think the Canadian legal employment is better and more sustainable. It's really hard for schools to be able to open a law school, and they are MUCH cheaper. I don't know the tuition dollars anymore, but in 2010 UofT was 21K, UBC was 11K, and UVic was 9K sticker. That's VERY affordable even for UofT. That's more sustainable. I think the articling requirement is better too. Who the fuck thinks paying 160K to some 23 year old who has never worked before is sustainable? Or people going solo straight out of LS a good idea? The requirement I think produces better lawyers.
It's also really difficult to get back. Basically you have to go through some really terrible process to be allowed to write the bar exam. You're required to take a bunch of additional exams first, even if you go to H. I had some emails with a guy at a big law firm in TO who was from Harvard and he said that given the opportunity to do it over again he would have gone to UofT. Harvard wasn't worth it, the increase in prestige in Canada is marginal at best. There used to be a great website called Lawbuzz that had quite a few lawyers on it who had a lot of things to say about it (basically not to go to a US school if you want to be in Canada), but that site got sued into the ground.
If you're 100% sure you want to work in USA, go for it. There's a poster who used to be on here who went and things worked out well for the poster. Got a biglaw job in NYC.
