Jump to content

UBC vs UVIC


elle.woods

Recommended Posts

elle.woods
  • Law Student

Hi all! I have been accepted to UVic for next fall & have applied to UBC - still waiting to hear back and very hopeful I receive an acceptance in the new year as I am from Vancouver. I am wondering everyone's thoughts on UVic vs UBC as I have heard pros/cons about both. My neighbour is a crown prosecutor in Vancouver and told me the other day that UVic might be the better choice because it would be easier to rank higher - this may be outdated though as she is in her 50s. Does anyone have any thoughts in terms of career opportunities, networking in Vancouver, class size, school community, extracurriculars etc? Am I right in my initial thought that UBC would be the obvious choice? 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

BlockedQuebecois
  • Lawyer

Barring extenuating family circumstances or similar, I think the only compelling reason to pick UVic over UBC is if you are dead set on a career touching on Indigenous/Aboriginal law, have credentials that would make that path feasible, and get into the JD/JID program.

Otherwise, your career opportunities are going to be much better out of UBC. I have brilliant friends who went to UVic, but UBC dominates the Vancouver legal market, routinely places folks in Toronto, and gets a good slice of SCC and BCCA clerkships. 

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Darth Vader
  • Lawyer

You can't predict how you will perform in law school. You're not comparing Windsor to UBC. UVic's admissions requirements are some of the most competitive in the country.

UVic for environmental and indigenous law. UBC for everything else. 

I have heard that UVic is a social justice oriented school, while UBC is corporate-oriented. 

Edited by Darth Vader
Link to comment
Share on other sites

lawfacade123
  • Law Student

I go to UVic. It's hard for me to compare the two since I've never attended UBC. I do find the culture at UVic is really nice and relaxed. Career prospects were also quite good as far as the Vancouver formal recruit goes (pretty on par with UBC as far as I can tell).

Seems like UBC is the no brainer though if you want to stay in Vancouver. I wouldn't move cities for the sole purpose of potentially ranking higher in the class. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 minutes ago, lawfacade123 said:

Career prospects were also quite good as far as the Vancouver formal recruit goes (pretty on par with UBC as far as I can tell).

It's not on par with UBC for Vancouver formal recruit: https://ultravires.ca/2021/05/vancouver-2021-2l-summer-recruitment-numbers/. Though it's only for one year UBC placed 56/200 (28%) while UVic placed 20/110 (18%). 

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

lawfacade123
  • Law Student
On 12/30/2021 at 12:30 PM, QMT20 said:

It's not on par with UBC for Vancouver formal recruit: https://ultravires.ca/2021/05/vancouver-2021-2l-summer-recruitment-numbers/. Though it's only for one year UBC placed 56/200 (28%) while UVic placed 20/110 (18%). 

 

UVic placed 29 (26%) this year and UBC 55 (27.5%). https://issuu.com/ultravires/docs/uv_november_2021

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

CleanHands
  • Lawyer
On 12/29/2021 at 5:40 PM, elle.woods said:

My neighbour is a crown prosecutor in Vancouver and told me the other day that UVic might be the better choice because it would be easier to rank higher - this may be outdated though as she is in her 50s.

Everything else aside, this is bad advice and a bad reason to choose one school over another. Firstly because UVic and UBC have comparable admission standards, so there is no reason to believe that UBC's cohort would be significantly stronger than UVic. Secondly it's just a bad reason to pick one school over another if one cohort actually was stronger than another because employers aren't stupid and know this and dig deeper into the pool of schools with higher admission standards.

You can safely disregard any advice about admissions or school choice that this neighbour tells you.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think this might be the answer you are looking for: if you get into UBC, go there. If you don't, go to UVic.

No point stressing and worrying about which school when you only have one right now. 

Also, I summered with people from a lot of different schools and everyone seemed to know their stuff. Where you go to school does not matter as much as people think. You also cannot predict who would be in your class and how well you would do compared to them. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

TheDevilIKnow
  • Articling Student
On 12/29/2021 at 5:35 PM, Darth Vader said:

You can't predict how you will perform in law school.

In addition to this, I would point out that UVic does not release class rankings. In fact, unlike UBC, they don't even release a list of averages for each year. So, effectively, there is no such think as "ranking higher" at UVic. Of course, employers can and will still compare your grades to other applicants from UVic.

10 hours ago, lawfacade123 said:

UVic placed 29 (26%) this year and UBC 55 (27.5%). 

Indeed it seems to have been quite a good year for UVic. It's too bad so many employers did not respond to Ultra Vires; the numbers are almost too close to call. For instance, I happen to know that UVic students obtained at least 3 of the 6 DOJ* positions this year, which would improve the percentage. Of course, I don't know how many of the unreported spots went to UBC. TRU also did quite well this year.

Having said all of this, you should still go to UBC if you want to be in Vancouver. Other than the niches mentioned by Blocked above, I don't see any purpose for you to come out here. People at UVic are nice and all, but personally I'm sceptical of posts about differing student cultures... I suspect there's not that much difference. 

*Edited to add: DOJ hiring doesn't necessarily trend with corporate hiring (see Windsor's success in Toronto, for instance), so I'm not trying to extrapolate from that. Just stating that UVic, in fact, placed quite a pile of folks in YVR OCIs.

Edited by TheDevilIKnow
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...
LearnedFist
  • Law Student
On 12/30/2021 at 12:30 PM, QMT20 said:

It's not on par with UBC for Vancouver formal recruit: https://ultravires.ca/2021/05/vancouver-2021-2l-summer-recruitment-numbers/. Though it's only for one year UBC placed 56/200 (28%) while UVic placed 20/110 (18%). 

 

I think this omits the fact that proportionally, fewer students at UVic pursue the formal recruit. UBC probably still performs proportionally better but I'd wager that it's closer to par than these numbers suggest. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.


×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By accessing this website, you agree to abide by our Terms of Use. YOU EXPRESSLY ACKNOWLEDGE AND AGREE THAT YOU WILL NOT CONSTRUE ANY POST ON THIS WEBSITE AS PROVIDING LEGAL ADVICE EVEN IF SUCH POST IS MADE BY A PERSON CLAIMING TO BE A LAWYER. We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.