Should I apply discretionary or general? 92.57 index

[cactus]

Hi,

I've been wondering whether anyone has applied as a discretionary applicant on the basis of being a part of a "historically disadvantaged group." I'm POC, but obviously I don't have any supporting documents or anything else that justifies my discretionary applicant status. My CGPA with drops is a 88.89, and my LSAT score is a 162, leading to a self-calculated index score of 92.573142. Is it worth applying discretionary, or should I just apply in the general category?

I was also wondering whether reference letters would be considered in the general category at all, or whether they would be ignored if they were to be submitted.

Thanks!

[Borat]

Simply being POC/visible minority is usually not sufficient grounds for a discretionary application, but if you believe your background has had an impact on your GPA, LSAT or other achievements (and you can articulate that in your application) then you should definitely apply under discretionary. There's no disadvantage in applying discretionary since all those applications are also reviewed under the general category.

Reference letters are not considered at all in the general category. Discretionary requires two letters.

Edited November 16, 2021 by Borat

[BlockedQuebecois]

We had this argument on the old forum, but being a visible minorities would generally qualify as “membership in a historically disadvantaged group”.

I think the idea that being visible a visible minority does not qualify as membership in a historically disadvantaged group comes from the (incorrect) idea that not all visible minorities are or have been subject to racism in Canada. 

[123]

1 hour ago, Borat said:

Simply being POC/visible minority is usually not sufficient grounds for a discretionary application, but if you believe your background has had an impact on your GPA, LSAT or other achievements (and you can articulate that in your application) then you should definitely apply under discretionary

I'm happy to admit I'm not a UBC admissions expert, and will defer to anyone who knows more, which is most people. 

Is the quoted text an actual discretionary criterion, though? Essentially, @Borat (whose avatar is endlessly amusing to me) is suggesting that there should be a nexus between an individual's race and the general admissions requirement from which the applicant seeks discretionary relief (or at least, that applicants should consider that as their own screening criterion). That's a relatively onerous standard. The effects of systemic discrimination often cannot be proven in individual cases. That's why social science data and expert reports are often required to link the two, and why courts and tribunals admit that evidence as proof as systemic discrimination. Obviously, I realize that admissions committees are not a courts of law, with stringent (or any) rules of evidence. But law school applicants are typically not expert in systemic discrimination, and are therefore poorly positioned to opine on the specific impacts that complex social and cultural forces have had on their academic or LSAT performance. Nor are most in a position to adduce corroborating expert evidence to support an articulation of how their racial background impacted their law school performance. 

The UBC website sets-out their discretionary criteria as follows: 

Quote

Discretionary Applicants

Because of special factors in life, an applicant may not satisfy one or more of the requirements for general applicants, but may have other relevant achievements and experience. The Admissions Committee has the discretion to respond to this type of situation by taking into account factors such as disability or special needs, financial disadvantage, membership in a historically disadvantaged group, and any other factors that the applicant wishes the Admissions Committee to consider. They may have other relevant personal achievements, work experience, contributions to their community, or personal challenges in their lives that are extraordinary and would not normally be experienced by other applicants to the law school. The process by which the Admissions Committee reviews these Discretionary category applications is designed to provide the opportunity for applicants of this nature to receive individual and exceptional scrutiny of their special circumstances in order for these candidates to be able to join and contribute to the richness and diverse nature of the academic community and ultimately to the practice of law in the society that is served by the Allard School of Law.

Discretionary applicants are normally required to have completed the first two years of an approved course of studies leading to an undergraduate degree at an approved college or university. A personal statement, LSAT score, and two letters of reference are required, and where appropriate, documentation such as medical reports should be submitted. Each application is considered individually on its merits. If an applicant has completed an undergraduate degree they will also automatically be considered within the general category as well.

Discretionary applicants must submit a personal statement detailing the special factors, including their achievements and work experience that they wish the Admissions Committee to consider. Each application is considered individually on its merits. It is important that applicants send detailed accounts of their circumstances, including their involvement in community or charitable organizations. In this category it is also important that applicants submit documentation (e.g., medical reports, if applicable or letters of reference) in order for the Admissions Committee to evaluate their files. Incomplete applications cannot be evaluated and it is the responsibility of applicants to ensure their applications are complete. Decisions in this category are made at the end of May.

Nothing in there indicates that they require an articulation of how racial background impacts their specific academic performance. If an applicant is a member of a historically disadvantaged group, I read them as being eligible for discretionary consideration. That doesn't mean that they will receive discretionary acceptance. But it also doesn't mean that a POC needs to demonstrate that they were unable to meet the general standards because they were a POC. The fact of being a POC in a historically disadvantaged group seems generally enough for eligibility. Presumably, the decision on whether to grant an exemption will be considered by looking at any other source of disadvantage in conjunction with achievements and experience not normally considered under the general admissions category. 

So I wouldn't not apply discretionary as a POC, if you couldn't articulate that "your background has had an impact on your GPA, LSAT or other achievements." That might be a factor. But instead of treating it as a requirement, I would look at whether you qualify under one of the grounds, and whether you and your circumstances, including your other achievements, would stand up to "special scrutiny" and "contribute to the richness and diverse nature of the academic community and ultimately to the practice of law". If you can articulate that, then you have a case for discretion by UBC's own criteria. 

Edited November 16, 2021 by realpseudonym

[Borat]

1 hour ago, realpseudonym said:

whose avatar is endlessly amusing to me

Thanks for the compliment!

1 hour ago, realpseudonym said:

Is the quoted text an actual discretionary criterion, though?

The criteria you pasted from UBC's website concretely states that "Because of special factors in life, an applicant may not satisfy one or more of the requirements for general applicants", which I would construe as including requirements such as (but not limited to) GPA, LSAT, etc. 

I agree with @BlockedQuebecois that being a visible minority would definitely qualify as "membership in a historically disadvantaged group" (i.e. a special factor).

1 hour ago, realpseudonym said:

Nothing in there indicates that they require an articulation of how racial background impacts their specific academic performance. If an applicant is a member of a historically disadvantaged group, I read them as being eligible for discretionary consideration.

I didn't mean to say that OP is ineligible to apply discretionary. But, the criteria you pasted above states that "applicants must submit a personal statement detailing the special factors" and that "It is important that applicants send detailed accounts of their circumstances". For example, I could theoretically apply under discretionary since I fit the category of belonging to a historically disadvantaged group, but simply stating on my application that I am a "woman of colour" without any further context or elaboration would not really make a compelling application.

All this being said, everything I've said is my personal opinion, and I don't mean to dissuade anyone from applying discretionary. There really is no objective litmus test as to which category one should apply under. I guess you could say ultimately it is up to the discretion of the applicant!

Edited November 17, 2021 by Borat

[Thrive92]

OP before I go on, keep in mind that those who have applied in the discretionary category for Allard Law also gets considered in the general category should your stats be high enough to be competitive in both categories. As your cgpa is slightly over the median and your LSAT score slightly below, I cannot give you a definitive answer as to whether you meet this consideration or not, but likely you will be considered for both categories if you apply just for discretionary. This consideration happens long before the discretionary applicants get assessed (usually around May). Having said that, I highly encourage you to apply to the discretionary category, as I see no downside int applying for it.

I would echo what some posters have already replied, but if you cannot show that your status of POC has negatively affected your grades/LSAT, I would advise against it. There are only 20 seats that Allard opens up for the Discretionary category, and I believe that unless your status of POC have significantly affected your grades/LSAT, they will likely not consider your discretionary claim. I cannot find the stats from UBC itself about this, but chances are there are more than 20 applicants who are POC for Allard. If Allard considers POC as meeting the requirements for the Discretionary category, there would be far more than 20 applicants who will be considered.

Good luck

[BlockedQuebecois]

@Thrive92 your advice is usually good, but you have to realize your advice here is nonsense, right? 

Let's walk through it: 

1. You recognize that UBC considers applicants in the general category before they consider them in the discretionary category; 
2. You then "echo what some posters have already replied", which in the context I understand to be you agreeing that being a person of colour satisfies the "membership in a historically disadvantaged group" requirement for consideration in the discretionary category; 
3. Then, despite recognizing that OP qualifies for consideration in the discretionary category and there is no downside risk to applying discretionary because you are considered in the general category first, you advise them not to apply unless they can show systemic racism has resulted in their GPA or LSAT being lower (an impossible standard to meet, as discussed by @realpseudonym). 
4. You then seem to suggest being a person of colour does not meet the requirements for consideration in the discretionary category, and that suggestion seems to be on the basis that if they did consider persons of colour to be eligible, you would have more discretionary applicants than seats for the discretionary category.

Your post just doesn't make sense. If there's no downside risk, OP should apply through the advantageous category. And there obviously will be more people who apply via the discretionary category than seats allocated to that category. I don't know why you think there wouldn't be. If there wasn't, everyone who applied discretionary would be an auto admit and UBC could tell them the day after applications are due.

If your advice was "you should apply but you may have a relatively weak access claim" that would be fair enough. But your post as constructed is illogical. 

P.s. someone tell BQ not to post after a few hours at the pub—the proofreading on my post above is attrocious.

[123]

17 hours ago, Borat said:

I didn't mean to say that OP is ineligible to apply discretionary. But, the criteria you pasted above states that "applicants must submit a personal statement detailing the special factors" and that "It is important that applicants send detailed accounts of their circumstances". For example, I could theoretically apply under discretionary since I fit the category of belonging to a historically disadvantaged group, but simply stating on my application that I am a "woman of colour" without any further context or elaboration would not really make a compelling application.

 

I don't want to get into a protracted back-and-forth on this, because protracted back-and-forths are bad. But I do think that the question of what constitutes a compelling application is important both to the decision to apply discretionary and to actually preparing a discretionary application.

You seem to be continuing to read-in elaboration of racial impact, as a necessary condition for discretionary admission as a POC. If not as an eligibility requirement, then as part of the actual discretion decision. That may be the case. The UBC adcom might attribute to significant weight to this. Again, I don't know anything beyond what the school publicly posts. 

However, they have been very clear that there are explicit, required components for a discretionary admission. Namely, showing that you (a) fit a profile warranting discretion and (b) would "contribute to the richness and diverse nature of the academic community and ultimately to the practice of law".

In both deciding to apply discretionary, and preparing the supporting materials for a discretion application, I would advise applicants to focus more on explicit, clear criteria than unwritten, implied factors for the simple reason that you know the explicit ones are relevant.

In terms of writing your personal statement, if you can establish that you fit a profile warranting discretionary consideration with a relatively concise statement on race fitting into a historically disadvantaged group, I might want to turn my attention to showing how my experience and achievements will contribute to the profession. Given how accomplished some of the competition is going to be, that doesn't seem an easy part of the pitch for discretion. So with whatever space I have in my statement, etc, I would probably be inclined to make that part of my application compelling, rather than spending too much space trying to prove an element like discriminatory impact, as UBC has stated that they will give weight to discretionary considerations from historically disadvantaged groups, and hasn't required proof of present-day, individual disadvantage.

Again, I'll stipulate that I have no personal, insider knowledge of how UBC admissions work. But that is how I read the criteria re race.

[Thrive92]

3 minutes ago, BlockedQuebecois said:

@Thrive92 your advice is usually good, but you have to realize your advice here is nonsense, right? 

Let's walk through it: 

1. You recognize that UBC considers applicants in the general category before they consider them in the discretionary category; 
2. You then "echo what some posters have already replied", which in the context I understand to be you agreeing that being a person of colour satisfies the "membership in a historically disadvantaged group" requirement for consideration in the discretionary category; 
3. Then, despite recognizing that OP qualifies for consideration in the discretionary category and there is no downside risk to applying discretionary because you are considered in the general category first, you advise them not to apply unless they can show systemic racism has resulted in their GPA or LSAT being lower (an impossible standard to meet, as discussed by @realpseudonym). 
4. You then seem to suggest being a person of colour does not meet the requirements for consideration in the discretionary category, and that suggestion seems to be on the basis that if they did consider persons of colour to be eligible, you would have more discretionary applicants than seats for the discretionary category.

Your post just doesn't make sense. If there's no downside risk, OP should apply through the advantageous category. And there obviously will be more people who apply via the discretionary category than seats allocated to that category. I don't know why you think there wouldn't be. If there wasn't, everyone who applied discretionary would be an auto admit and UBC could tell them the day after applications are due.

If your advice was "you should apply but you may have a relatively weak access claim" that would be fair enough. But your post as constructed is illogical. 

P.s. someone tell BQ not to post after a few hours at the pub—the proofreading on my post above is attrocious.

Yeah I noticed the contradiction not too long after I posted it, but the contradiction was the "there's no downside to applying discretionary" and then "don't apply as your discretionary claim is weak".

For some dumb reason, the "echoing" of some other posters was referring to the post by @realpseudonym whose post I mistakenly thought that unless OP is able to discuss in detail how their identity of POC negatively impacted their stats, OP should not apply under that category.

To be honest, I really didn't read thoroughly -- i just skimmed this thread overall before making my dumb mistake.

OP please apply to discretionary category, but the fact that you will be considered for both categories should your stats be competitive for the general category is correct.

13 hours ago, BlockedQuebecois said:

your advice is usually good

13 hours ago, BlockedQuebecois said:

 

P.s. someone tell BQ not to post after a few hours at the pub—the proofreading on my post above is attrocious.

Is this a silent message for help?

Because you posted this at 8am pacific mate.... 11am eastern...

pm me if you need a shoulder friend