Canadian university's GPA ! Forum

[tianyuanlaw]

I'm from the University of Toronto in Canada, and considering about law school in America.
Since the GPA and grades are different here from the States, so I don't know what I should expect with my GPA, and whether I should take others' GPA in the forum as references.
I'm expecting a 3.2 GPA when I'll apply this winter, this is already worse than lower 25% for most law schools.
However, for my school, with this GPA, I could graduate with Distinction already. So I think this would be top20% in my graduating class.
(since at U of Toronto, the average mark of a course is restricted to C or C+ mostly, i.e. 2.0-2.3 GPA)
So, how would US law school admission treat Canadian GPA?
Thank you.

[Horsefeathers]

Hey there. I graduated from McGill in 2007 with a 3.2 in an honors program. My experience was, law schools do not care too much about the fact that Canadian schools tend to grade deflate, since they'll still have to report your GPA to USNEWS.

The schools may see the bigger picture to some degree, since your LSAC report will indicate grade distributions at U of T, but I wouldn't hold your breath for a Canadian-boost or any such thing.

Best bet - score well on the LSAT!

[tianyuanlaw]

Hey there. I graduated from McGill in 2007 with a 3.2 in an honors program. My experience was, law schools do not care too much about the fact that Canadian schools tend to grade deflate, since they'll still have to report your GPA to USNEWS.

The schools may see the bigger picture to some degree, since your LSAC report will indicate grade distributions at U of T, but I wouldn't hold your breath for a Canadian-boost or any such thing.

Best bet - score well on the LSAT!

Thanks for your reply.
So with a 3.2 and 170+, should I expect T14?

[tianyuanlaw]

Hey there. I graduated from McGill in 2007 with a 3.2 in an honors program. My experience was, law schools do not care too much about the fact that Canadian schools tend to grade deflate, since they'll still have to report your GPA to USNEWS.

The schools may see the bigger picture to some degree, since your LSAC report will indicate grade distributions at U of T, but I wouldn't hold your breath for a Canadian-boost or any such thing.

Best bet - score well on the LSAT!

Also, I checked your profile. May I know your story more detailed?

[Horsefeathers]

Hey there. I graduated from McGill in 2007 with a 3.2 in an honors program. My experience was, law schools do not care too much about the fact that Canadian schools tend to grade deflate, since they'll still have to report your GPA to USNEWS.

The schools may see the bigger picture to some degree, since your LSAC report will indicate grade distributions at U of T, but I wouldn't hold your breath for a Canadian-boost or any such thing.

Best bet - score well on the LSAT!

Thanks for your reply.
So with a 3.2 and 170+, should I expect T14?

I wouldn't expect any T-14 with a 3.2/170 except perhaps Northwestern with good work experience. Even then, expect is too strong. Still, 170 and plus makes you a contender.
Conventional wisdom is to first get that 170 +, then ED. The higher the score, though, the more schools will be foregiving of a low-ish GPA. It's a bum deal though, since you could have gone to clown college, gotten a 3.99, and stood a much better chance of elite school admissions.

[Horsefeathers]

Hey there. I graduated from McGill in 2007 with a 3.2 in an honors program. My experience was, law schools do not care too much about the fact that Canadian schools tend to grade deflate, since they'll still have to report your GPA to USNEWS.

The schools may see the bigger picture to some degree, since your LSAC report will indicate grade distributions at U of T, but I wouldn't hold your breath for a Canadian-boost or any such thing.

Best bet - score well on the LSAT!

Also, I checked your profile. May I know your story more detailed?

I'll PM you.

[Horsefeathers]

Hey there. I graduated from McGill in 2007 with a 3.2 in an honors program. My experience was, law schools do not care too much about the fact that Canadian schools tend to grade deflate, since they'll still have to report your GPA to USNEWS.

The schools may see the bigger picture to some degree, since your LSAC report will indicate grade distributions at U of T, but I wouldn't hold your breath for a Canadian-boost or any such thing.

Best bet - score well on the LSAT!

Thanks for your reply.
So with a 3.2 and 170+, should I expect T14?

I wouldn't expect any T-14 with a 3.2/170 except perhaps Northwestern with good work experience. Even then, expect is too strong. Still, 170 and plus makes you a contender.
Conventional wisdom is to first get that 170 +, then ED. The higher the score, though, the more schools will be foregiving of a low-ish GPA. It's a bum deal though, since you could have gone to clown college, gotten a 3.99, and stood a much better chance of elite school admissions.

Just thinking a bit more about what you said. If it really is true that the average GPA is like a 2.8, you might be a better contender than I was. Perhaps a well-worded addendum emphasizing the grading conventions at U of T could be helpful. Engineers and others with rigourous and low-grading science backgrounds can sometimes get by with worse GPAs. It's certainly worth a try, as U of T is an excellent school

[curiouscat]

Just thinking a bit more about what you said. If it really is true that the average GPA is like a 2.8, you might be a better contender than I was. Perhaps a well-worded addendum emphasizing the grading conventions at U of T could be helpful. Engineers and others with rigourous and low-grading science backgrounds can sometimes get by with worse GPAs. It's certainly worth a try, as U of T is an excellent school

Not too sure bout this. I graduated from UofT and I found that, reputation and all, its grading conventions are comparable enough to that of most universities at its level. It might be a little less generous in the way it calculates GPAs - there was definitely a jump when my GPA was converted from the university's calculation to LSAC's - but if you're just looking at the LSAC GPAs I think the playing field is pretty levelled out. The average college GPA for UofT that I see on my LSAC academic summary is 3.03 - a friendlier number than 2.8, and probably reasonable enough that an addendum won't go too far (unless OP did engineering or something, in which case they can get points for coming out alive ).