Top Law Schools

Hello my lovely TLSers!

I took a summer course in French in Quebec City, Canada. The transcript, of course, is in French.

I know I need to send this into them even though I never actually transferred any credits to my home institution, right? Am I supposed to still have the school send the transcript directly for LSDAS transcript purposes? Do I need to send a translation? How does one even obtain a translation?

Also, it's sort of confusing because it's basically 1 course divided into three courses. My home institution has a simple "1 semester = 0.5 credits, 1 year = 1 credit; 20 credits needed to graduate" system while this school has one of those funky "4 credit hours and 2 credit hours" etc etc. However, if I had transferred the credits to my home institution (which I didn't because they wouldn't count toward my degree anyway since they were first year credits) the school would have accepted the bunch as exactly 1 credit. So I've always thought of it as one combined course, but I'm not sure how LSDAS will interpret it with all the weighting and the fact it's so different from my UG transcript structure.

Will the converted transcript combine these with my UG grades appropriately, do you think, or will they count each course as an entirely new course? This is important because I actually did poorly on this compared to my UG (Not tootoo bad..A-'s and B+'s and it's from first year, but still), so if it counts as 1 course (which it should..) the hit will be considerably less on my cGPA than if it counts as three separate courses. Should I send in a letter explaining that it's three "one third" courses? I don't know if the process is human enough for that to make a difference -- my understanding is that you send your transcripts into a giant black hole and a surprisingly depressing GPA is bound to come out, basically.

From what I can tell:
LSDAS GPA not including these courses: 3.91
LSDAS GPA if they count as three separate courses: Between 3.82 and 3.86, depending how they're weighted.
LSDAS GPA if they count as just the one course: 3.89

I'm sort of flirting with the medians of T6 schools here so I feel like the nearly tenth of a point (between 3.91 I had initially and the 3.82 I'm seeing now) is throwing me for an unforecasted whirl!

I imagine the fact it was a summer class will have no effect, correct?

Anyway, any thoughts from you law school applicant vets and experts will be much appreciated.

As long as it was not done through an exchange or program with an American university, you don't need to send anything in.

Are you sure? It seems Canadian schools are treated domestically in LSDAS terms.

After you register for the Credential Assembly Service (CAS), you must have a separate transcript sent to LSAC directly from each undergraduate and graduate institution you attended in the United States, its territories, or Canada. . . .

. . . Copies of all international educational records must be submitted in the original language. If the transcript or other required documents are not in English, a translation must be included. . .

Transcripts to include: . . .
institutions attended for summer or evening courses
. . .

You're could be right. I always thought of foreign language study abroad as something that happens on the other side of the world, but if Canadian schools get treated like American schools ... a call to LSAC is in order.

For anyone who finds this later with a similar question:

I contacted LSAC.
-Yes, any classes taken in Quebec must be reported the same as if they were taken in any US state.

-Universite Laval transcripts, despite their being in French, can be sent to LSAC without any translation because Laval is considered a domestic school. I assume this means no translations are necessary for any transcripts issued by a Quebec school even if they're in French.

-LSAC assured me that they "weigh credits equally" between schools. I'm hoping they didn't actually mean this. I explained my degree-granting institution issues 1 credit for each full-year course and Laval issues 6 for each full-year course. If their "weigh credits equally" is true, that means the 5 week intensive course i took in Quebec City is equal to a third of my four-year degree in Ontario! They must be wrong on that or there must be some sort of appeal mechanism. That weighting would mean the one course represented my single worst entire full-time *year* of courses.