Top law school w/ Canadian ug - disadvantage?

[Mal]

Originally Posted by Viktri

No connections I don't know what his LSAT score, but his admittance was a shock to everyone. In fact, when he told us he applied, we all assumed it was a Hail Mary He's Canadian so he's not a true foreigner
He is probably way way smarter than you are giving him credit for. Harvard law requires very high numbers without exceptions. Asians are not minorities in the law school admissions, they are over-represented and thus get no boost for diversity. As far as the statistical evidence for the claim that law school admissions is almost entirely gpa/lsat based go take a look at lawschoolnumbers.com if you are truly interested. OP: Spending a huge amount of money to go to a United States school is not going to be THAT helpful for getting into a prestigious law school. These schools almost look exclusively at the grades an lsat before getting to the soft factors. In general it is an absolutely massive assumption that he will be able to go to such a school no matter how hard he tries. They are competitive to the extreme. While high grades can be achieved with hard work alone, the lsat cannot. The lsat will depend on how smart he is, and how high is logic skills/reading comprehension are. It'd also be really dumb to go to the States for undergrad and law school if he has the intention of returning to Canada. Law is jurisdictional and it is a large pain to go through the accreditation process in order to be able to practice in Canada at all. And the namebrand schools aren't nearly so well regarded that they are automatically preferred to Canadian law school graduates.

 

[Viktri]

Originally Posted by Mal

He is probably way way smarter than you are giving him credit for. Harvard law requires very high numbers without exceptions. Asians are not minorities in the law school admissions, they are over-represented and thus get no boost for diversity. As far as the statistical evidence for the claim that law school admissions is almost entirely gpa/lsat based go take a look at lawschoolnumbers.com if you are truly interested.
Yes, I wasn't sure on how Asians were treated in law school admissions but I had a hunch that was the case. I'm certain he got a solid GPA at Stern and I assumed he scored strongly on the LSAT. He's a definitely a bright kid but he's not super bright. He took the easiest courses and major he could find - and I think that was a smart move given his aspirations. ITT we're talking about paths, not about intelligence/smarts. He researched, studied hard, gave up a real life social life (everyone on this forum is too cool for him

as his social life is online gaming), and was rewarded with his acceptance. He had 4 years to prep for the LSAT, he's interested in becoming a lawyer and obviously extremely motivated. edit: I'm not saying everyone with such qualities will succeed - I'm simply sharing a story of success.

 

[Lord-Barrington]

Originally Posted by lawyerdad

What's the "massive statistical evidence"?

lawschoolnumbers.com

 

[NAMOR]

 

[lawyerdad]

Originally Posted by Lord-Barrington

lawschoolnumbers.com
I confess I have only a vague notion what the adjective "massive" is supposed to mean here, but I didn't see anything (admittedly, I only looked around for a minute or two) at that site constituting evidence (whether statistical, massive, or otherwise) that proves "unequivocally" (or at all) that law schools don't care about anything other than GPA and LSAT. I'm obviously not disputing that those are two hugely important factors, or even that at most schools they're probably far and away the two most important factors. But I'm not seeing the "evidence" you refer to in support of the proposition you put forward.

 

[lawyerdad]

Now that's some massive statistical evidence! ^ This was a tongue-in-cheek reply to a spam post that apparently has been spaminated. It makes no sense now. But I swear, it was really, really clever in context!

 

[lxlfeng]

I am entering college fall this year, having a real tough time deciding between going UBC or Michigan for undergrad studies, the opportunity cost of going Mich seems way too high. I know this is a bit of a sidetrack

 

[bigchris1313]

Originally Posted by Lord-Barrington

lawschoolnumbers.com

An always-sobering experience. But we all have to learn the truth some time. Man, was I angry when I found out that my prestigious small liberal arts college degree meant exactly zero to law schools.

 

[Lord-Barrington]

Originally Posted by bigchris1313

An always-sobering experience. But we all have to learn the truth some time. Man, was I angry when I found out that my prestigious small liberal arts college degree meant exactly zero to law schools.

I think saying that it means zero is probably inaccurate but it only starts meaning something when you're talking about the top three or so schools.

But lawschoolnumbers.com is a pretty great site. The stats rarely lie.

 

[darks0ulz]

Originally Posted by gj555

Are you sure? When I went to law school, 80% of each class at UofT got a B or B+. 10%-15% got As and the rest got Cs. This helped their students get top jobs in NY and Toronto. By contrast, other law schools in Ontario were in the 65% range in terms of Bs per class.
I go to McGill for UG and I finished my 1st year with a 3.93 (I'm a science student though and am a 2nd year credit wise). My organic 2 class had a class average of 79. A 75-80 is a 3.3, 80 is 3.7 and 85 is 4.0 here. I know a bunch of people with 3.8+ here.

Grade deflation isn't really a big issue here save for a few courses which are just killer. But then bird courses/bell curves usually even things out.

I know I'm a science student and arts courses are different. I'm just offering a picture.

 

[Viktri]

Originally Posted by darks0ulz

I go to McGill for UG and I finished my 1st year with a 3.93 (I'm a science student though and am a 2nd year credit wise). My organic 2 class had a class average of 79. A 75-80 is a 3.3, 80 is 3.7 and 85 is 4.0 here. I know a bunch of people with 3.8+ here.

Grade deflation isn't really a big issue here save for a few courses which are just killer. But then bird courses/bell curves usually even things out.

I know I'm a science student and arts courses are different. I'm just offering a picture.

Your organic chem class average is extremely high; at UBC Dr Jackie's class, w/ the highest avg of all the o-chem classes, averaged 63% when my cousin took it a few years ago.

 

[darks0ulz]

Originally Posted by Viktri

Your organic chem class average is extremely high; at UBC Dr Jackie's class, w/ the highest avg of all the o-chem classes, averaged 63% when my cousin took it a few years ago.
Yeah I know. Our prof mentioned how high the average was (midterm 1 had an 84 avg, midterm 2 had an 83 avg). She didn't curve the grades down since she thought the difficulty of the exams was on par with past exams. She taught this course for, IIRC, the last 3-4 years. Organic 1 had a B avg or a 3.0.

We might've been just a smart class (IDK but I doubt it). Each year has access to about 10 years of past exams and the concepts tested rarely change. Class size is in the mid 600s.