African Canadian, hoping for HYS, 3.84GPA... Forum

[latif]

So I initially planned to go to law school in Canada, but I recently decided to apply to HYS and other T-14 schools I was wondering what LSAT score would make me a competitive applicant for HYS, I've looked at LSN but was wondering what the TLS community thought, please advise.

Thanks!

[Nachoo2019]

First, I am not sure, but I really don't think Canadians are considered URMs. Africans definitely are though so you are good on that front.

With URM status and a 3.8 GPA you will need a 166+ to have a shot at HYS. A 166 gives you a coin flips chance at H, but you will likely need a couple more points for a shot at Y and S

[yaliehopeful]

African-Canadian male here. Did my undergrad in Canada, grad school in Britain and will be attending Yale Law School in the fall. Not all Canadians are classified as URMs, Canadians of exclusively European heritage for instance, are not, however, Black Canadians are. As an African Canadian, you will receive the same URM boost as African Americans. Your GPA is good. I'd say you should be able to snag Harvard with a 165, but you'll most likely need at the very least a 170 for Yale. That said, in my opinion, you should forget about the URM boost while you're studying for the LSAT, aim for a 180. If you keep thinking about the boost, you may be more likely to get complacent during prep and thus underperform on the test. Due to my ignorance pertaining to the AA boost before I applied to schools, I thought that it accrued exclusively to Black Americans. Consequently, when studying for the LSAT I busted my ass and made sure that my applications were as competitive as possible (I applied with a 3.96 GPA and 174 w/ what were in my opinion fairly strong softs) , I strongly suggest you do the same. If you have any other questions don't hesitate to PM me.

[msaid29]

I thought so

[yaliehopeful]

I thought that it accrued exclusively to Black Americans - not the case

Thanks for the reply, I am definitely not taking the LSAT likely and will give it my all. I did not even expect to get a URM boost because i am a Canadian albeit of African descent. I was wondering what made you definitively change your mind that Afro-Canadians do in fact get one, considering your amazing numbers

What I meant was that I didn't know until I submitted all my applications that I would be getting any sort of boost. After submitting all my apps, I had more time on my hands and began to do my research. I found out that the AA boost in particular applied to all those with total or partial ancestry from any racial group originating from Subsaharan Africa (North Africans i.e., Moroccans, Algerians ect.. don't count as AA), regardless of nationality. You'll get the boost, I got the boost, if you browse through some of the threads on this forum you'll see that there are a few other African Canadians heading to prestigious American law schools that also got it. I like to think that my cycle would have turned out more or less the same even if I wasn't a URM, but who knows, there's no point in dwelling on counterfactuals. However, I'll admit that for me, it was kind of nice knowing that for law school admissions in the U.S, being black is a big plus and not a social handicap like it is (sadly) in many other aspects of life.