OLSAS cGPA 2.55, L2 2.78, B3 2.77; TRU L20 2.85; UoM AGPA 3; LSAT N/A

[iamlaw]

Hello,

How do I know if law school is right for me? I have only looked at TRU and UoM and is already not looking good. OLSAS cGPA 2.55, L2 2.78, B3 2.77; TRU L20 2.85; UoM AGPA 3. I already have my BA, so I am going to need to take courses as a non-degree to improve my gpa. The best I can upgrade to for TRU L20 and UoM AGPA is 3.3-3.4 even after replacing 8 C+ with 8 A. I haven't written any LSAT yet. If I want to try for law schools next year, I have to enroll in courses as a non-degree for 1 or 2 terms (summer+fall), write LSAT twice (Jan and one more time before application starts 2022), hoping to get a high 150. If the gpa doesn't work out, I will switch plan and apply for second degree bachelors (comp-sci) with the courses I have taken as a non-degree. I don't know if I should spend the time and effort to study for the LSAT. If I do, I want to apply this year as well for non-Ontario schools because I believe re applicants get an advantage.

Realistically, my TRU gpa and UoM AGPA can be 3.2-3.3 and LSAT high150 for next year. I haven't researched how the other schools gpa works. Any chance for any law school in Canada or should I just look for other programs?

 

Thanks Can Law Forum!

[GGrievous]

30 minutes ago, iamlaw said:

I have to enroll in courses as a non-degree for 1 or 2 terms (summer+fall), write LSAT twice (Jan and one more time before application starts 2022), hoping to get a high 150. If the gpa doesn't work out,

With that GPA I think you're going to need a high 160 at least, not everyone can get a score that high even with a lot of studying. I would suggest just taking one of the free LSAT samples online on our own, under strict time conditions, this will cost you nothing (except time). If your plan is to spend years and thousands of dollars upgrading just for a shot you should have a really good reason for wanting this career. 

[BirdsArentReal]

It will definitely be tough to get in any law schools with that GPA, however you have a few options. Look into holistic schools that put more weight on other factors of your application and really aim to perfect your personal statement, sketch, and reference letters based on what those schools look for. (i.e. Windsor Single JD, Windsor Dual, Lakehead). You may have a chance at the Windsor dual if you are dead-set on going to law school (however, the program is extremely expensive and you are going to have to study in both Windsor and Detroit).

Your other option would be to finish school, work for a few years and apply as a mature candidate (each school might have different requirements but my guess would be ~5+ years of work experience). 

Oh yes, you can also pursue a masters and apply after that, as some schools consider this.

[WiseGhost]

It's possible to get accepted to a law school in Canada with a low gpa and high lsat as Barry said. However, I feel that a more important question to ask yourself is if you really want to shoot for law. There are many careers where you can earn a similar amount of money while doing less work. 

Furthermore, if your gpa right now represents your full effort without any extenuating circumstances, you might not be a good fit for law. Law school is difficult (duh), and from what I've heard you have to more or less like academics to do well. 

[Yogurt Baron]

Yeah, sorry - I usually give motivational speeches about how anyone can do anything if they try, but in this case, you're coming in with lower grades than anyone I've ever seen admitted, no LSAT score, and a goal of getting a really mediocre LSAT score at some point in the future. Despite your username, you probably aren't law. Look for other programs. There are plenty of other things you can do. Best of luck.

Edited October 20, 2021 by Yogurt Baron

[scooter]

What's the reason your grades are low? (You don't actually need to answer that, just think about it yourself)

In the admissions process, the GPA and LSAT are used to predict success in law school. At face value your GPA would indicate to admissions that you're unlikely to succeed in law school. Unless something changes by the time you attend law school, either external factors or personal changes, there is a decent chance you'd struggle with law school. Along those lines, are you being honest with yourself that you'd get 8 A's if you took more classes?

[Whist]

Having to get a whole other degree to not be guaranteed entry to law school is a lot of time and money to pour into an uncertainty. Some schools won't even weigh second degrees or non-degree classes as heavy as your original degree either. Your goal LSAT isn't going to help very much. 

Doors in life don't stay open forever. There are many, many fulfilling careers outside of being a lawyer. If I were personally having to make this decision, I would go find one of those other careers. 

[Piffle]

OP, if you do not get accepted this year, I very kindly suggest that you think long and hard before enrolling into more non-degree courses in an attempt to boost your GPA.

For the record, I was a re-applicant who had uncompetitive grades after my 4th year of undergrad (my cgpa was a low-mid 3.x).  I then took a full 5th year of extra non-degree courses solely for the purpose of getting into law school, and got admitted.

But here's the thing. There was a specific, personal, non-academic reason for why my grades weren't good enough for law school during my earlier years. And absent those reasons, I knew with certainty that I was capable of straight A's. 

Can you say the same for yourself? I don't know your full story, of course, but seeing that you're consistently hovering around a high 2.x -- that doesn't bode well.

Please, just be honest with youself before taking more courses. Because it's a gamble that comes with a high financial/time/opportunity cost, with no guarantee that you’ll be successful. You’ll have to ask yourself: are you truly assured in your capacity to dramatically improve?

Edited October 21, 2021 by Piffle

[stressedoutlawstudent]

16 minutes ago, Piffle said:

OP, if you do not get accepted this year, I very kindly suggest that you think long and hard before enrolling into more non-degree courses in an attempt to boost your GPA.

For the record, I was a re-applicant who had uncompetitive grades after my 4th year of undergrad (my cgpa was a low-mid 3.x).  I then took a full 5th year of extra non-degree courses solely for the purpose of getting into law school -- and indeed, I succeeded.

But here's the thing. There was a specific, personal, non-academic reason for why my grades weren't good enough for law school during my earlier years. And absent those reasons, I knew with certainty that I was capable of straight A's. 

Can you say the same for yourself? I don't know your full story, of course, but seeing that you're consistently hovering around a high 2.x -- that doesn't bode well.

Please, just be honest with youself before taking more courses. Because it's a gamble that comes with a high financial/time/opportunity cost, with no guarantee that you’ll be successful. You’ll have to ask yourself: are you truly assured in your capacity to dramatically improve?

Same experience for me. For the poster, if you have good reasons and present them properly in the application you'd have a chance but this "chance" will depend heavily on your LSAT. Not to say it has to be 180, but it will need to be very strong.

[iamlaw]

Thank you everyone for the honest input. I really appreciate it. After researching law programs for the past few days, I am seriously reconsidering my options now.

I know this might not be the right forum for this, but if anyone is willing to provide input regarding other less competitive (but still lead to great careers) school programs/career options, it would greatly be appreciated. Do law applicants who couldn't get into law schools look toward paralegal programs?

Thanks again!

[Yogurt Baron]

Well, that's a good way to take advice! Most people get defensive, so I appreciate that you didn't.

My advice would be to look at the program offerings at grad schools. You don't have to apply for any (and might not be competitive for some of them anyway), but it'll give you a sense of what kind of career paths are out there other than law, and something could spark in your brain - maybe you'd love to be a speech language pathologist and just didn't know that's something you could do.

Another path that worked for me was to find a cause I was passionate about, volunteer, and see what the volunteers do for a living and how they got there. This seems to be the main thing I say on this new forum: there are a million career paths that many young people just don't know about or think of. I don't want to doxx myself, but I will say that I now work in two completely different fields - nice white-collar jobs. In the case of both, I knew from childhood that the kinds of establishments where I work now existed. I knew there must be some people there who did work in the buildings. But it quite simply never occurred to me that these were jobs I could do. I'm sure you have your own blind spots like that, jobs you know exist and know you'd like, but you haven't quite had that eureka "I can do that!" moment. I hope you have it eventually.

[Avatar Aang]

34 minutes ago, iamlaw said:

Thank you everyone for the honest input. I really appreciate it. After researching law programs for the past few days, I am seriously reconsidering my options now.

I know this might not be the right forum for this, but if anyone is willing to provide input regarding other less competitive (but still lead to great careers) school programs/career options, it would greatly be appreciated. Do law applicants who couldn't get into law schools look toward paralegal programs?

Thanks again!

Do you want to be a paralegal? You shouldn't pursue a lifelong career path just because you are a failed law school applicant. You should do some introspection and figure out what other career paths you can see yourself doing for the next couple decades of your life. Are you good at programming? Comp sci is a good field to go into if you think you'll enjoy it and be good at coding. There are too many people in the field now who are just mediocre and struggle with even entry-level jobs. Every high schooler I talk to nowadays is going into computer science or business. As suggested above, research different career paths and look at their admissions requirements as your GPA is too low even for many master's programs.

What did you study in undergrad and what were your career goals while you were in it? 

[iamlaw]

I really appreciate these advice and won't get defensive because I am flexible in my options. I haven't really looked deeply into law programs before. I'm glad this forum provided a good sense of where law is at. Law was popular among my classmates when I did my undergrad. My BA was in Criminology.

I really enjoyed learning about cyber crime, so I want to work in the field of cybersecurity. Like what Avatar Aang mentioned, there are too many new comp sci grads who are also applying to entry level jobs in IT and programming. That's why I wanted to get a 2nd degree in comp sci, which require a few comp sci/math courses to be taken during undergrad (I didn't take those because Crim students don't require those courses). I will have to take these as a non-degree before applying, which is another risk. I can get a few certificates in IT/cyber security, but many IT positions list a 2 yr diploma or BSc in Comp Sci as requirements.

Other than Comp Sci, I am also looking at a course-based Master in Arts, Criminology. I believe the only one in Canada is U of Ottawa. I don't how true this is, but masters in crim lead to government jobs in security departments (police/RCMP, national defence, CSIS, CSE, etc.)