Updated applicant profile for the 2021 cycle

[Thrive92]

the school has recently updated its applicant profile, and like many other schools last cycle its average statistics of admitted applicants have increased from its previous years.

An average of 3.9 L2 gpa compared to the average of 3.8 L2 gpa in the cycle prior to 2021, and an average LSAT score of 165 compared to the average of 161 LSAT score before.

keep in mind that for the 2021 (and current) cycle, only the highest LSAT score is used by adcom, while in the past all LSAT scores were averaged. this may partially explain the increased statistic. 

Good luck to all of you applying in the upcoming cycle

Admitted Applicant Profile.pdf

Edited October 8, 2021 by Thrive92

[CheeseToast]

Are they considering more people under the holistic category than they used to? These averages only apply to like half the class.

[Toad]

There used to be only 25-35 holistic applicants. This year it looks like 79 of the 180 seats went to people receiving holistic consideration.

 

[nitzy]

Wow! This is low key (high key!) stressful to see.

May the odds be ever in our favor this cycle!

[109234]

the leap in average LSAT scores is HUGE! Any explanations?

 

[Timmy23]

14 minutes ago, 109234 said:

the leap in average LSAT scores is HUGE! Any explanations?

 

The LSAT Flex, I'd assume. Thanks LSAC!

Edited October 8, 2021 by Timmy23

[Toad]

The increase in the average GPA/LSAT scores are likely caused by three main factors:

(1) Due to the pandemic there was an increase of approximately 30% in the number of applications received by Western Canadian law schools. A similar thing happened during the great recession. When the economy is bad people seek out additional education in order to avoid graduating into a bad economy. 

(2) This applicant profile chart includes only 101 regular applicants versus the 140-155 that is typical. If you happen to have access to an old applicant profile chart you can experiment by removing the 40-50 people with the lowest stats and seeing what it does to the averages. I'd suspect you'd see around a 3.9/163 average.

(3) The school went from averaging LSATs to taking the highest score. 

Since the economy is getting better I expect the number of applications to decrease a bit closer to average. I still anticipate this will be a more competitive than average cycle but not as bad as the most recent cycle. It now appears clear that this most recent cycle was the most competitive cycle in the U of A's history overtaking even the peak cycle during the great recession. 

The more intriguing question is whether the U of A is now going to continue to consider 45%~ of the class in holistic categories. It could be a permanent equity initiative or it could be a temporary measure that the school used when they realized that they were receiving way more applications than average and that the regular yield rate strategies might lead to a situation like what TRU experienced. 

Edited October 8, 2021 by Toad

[Whist]

For all the applicants panicking - the chart neglects to include the not-insignificant number of people admitted through the holistic process. Anecdotal, but I know multiple people in my class whose stats were similar to the old medians. Moreover, you're not competing against last year's pool, you're competing against this year's. Hang in there and good luck.

[TheMidnightOil]

I'm just reiterating what's already been said, but as a further reassurance to the many countless applicants, I want to repeat that the reduction from ~140 seats to 101 seats very significantly explains this increase in stats. Had the ordinary ~140 students been included, I think that the average would be around 3.8/163.

Edited October 8, 2021 by TheMidnightOil

[Thrive92]

I really did not mean to scare off anyone with this updated post -- as others have mentioned, the decrease in the seats in the profile compared to the cycle before, as well as the fact that many consider the competitiveness of the last cycle being an anomaly should encourage the upcoming applicants from being shaken up by this applicant profile (not to mention the recently changed LSAT score policy).

Enjoy your weekends everyone.