1L Summer Job - What is a competitive GPA? Anxious 1L at Allard

[traintogo]

I just got most of my grades back from UBC Allard and I'm wondering what a competitive GPA is for 1L recruit in Alberta and Toronto and even the few jobs there are in Vancouver?

My GPA is not great I suspect (probably will be around a 74/75% once I get my last few class grades back). Is this any good? Would I be competitive at all for 1L positions? I don't have extensive work experience (only in non-profits and I went to law school straight from my undergrad). 

Thanks for any help!

[CleanHands]

Odds are not in your favour for formal 1L recruit positions. It never hurts to apply but I'd honestly be surprised if you got any interviews. If your grades stay the same you'll likely (but not necessarily) get a few 2L OCIs if you apply broadly.

If you're interested in some area of retail law and have relevant volunteering you would have a decent chance of snagging a 1L position with a small shop, but given the lack of specification I'm guessing you are asking about the formal recruits.

Edited January 13, 2022 by CleanHands

[CheeseToast]

39 minutes ago, CleanHands said:

Odds are not in your favour for formal 1L recruit positions. It never hurts to apply but I'd honestly be surprised if you got any interviews. If your grades stay the same you'll likely (but not necessarily) get a few 2L OCIs if you apply broadly.

I was under the impression that the 1L recruit in Alberta is actually quite large and thus not “extremely” competitive. That is, one can get their foot in the door with relatively average midterm grades. In fact I recall hearing somewhere that the 1L recruit is actually bigger than the 2L recruit in AB, though I may be mistaken.

[CleanHands]

7 minutes ago, CheeseToast said:

I was under the impression that the 1L recruit in Alberta is actually quite large and thus not “extremely” competitive. That is, one can get their foot in the door with relatively average midterm grades. In fact I recall hearing somewhere that the 1L recruit is actually bigger than the 2L recruit in AB, though I may be mistaken.

This is true, but the OP most likely has slightly below-average grades. I personally knew people who got 1L jobs in Alberta (applying broadly to other provincial 1L recruits and striking out) with averages around 76% (which would put them slightly above-average, around the top third of the class) but there is a very significant difference between that and a 74% average due to Allard's extremely tight curve.

ETA - I'm open to correction if anyone got a 1L AB job with a 74%-75% average from Allard and wants to chime in. Just going by my own anecdotal knowledge from my peer group, and general knowledge of ranges for formal recruit competitiveness from there.

Edited January 13, 2022 by CleanHands

[traintogo]

Thanks for all the input!

I actually got above average (by 1-3%) in all my classes and only one in which i was 2% below the average. This is why I'm anxious! I was above average in most classes (averages were anywhere between 70-75%) yet my grades are not that good. In some classes, the average was 72 and I got a 75 or 74 and I got a 77.

It feels like my group at UBC is just pretty strong and we all had similar grades, but this might hurt me in the end in looking for a job this summer as my GPA seems low without looking at the averages. Or, is getting 1-3% higher than the average not even impressive?

[CleanHands]

3 minutes ago, Allard2024 said:

Thanks for all the input!

I actually got above average (by 1-3%) in all my classes and only one in which i was 2% below the average. This is why I'm anxious! I was above average in most classes (averages were anywhere between 70-75%) yet my grades are not that good. In some classes, the average was 72 and I got a 75 or 74 and I got a 77.

It feels like my group at UBC is just pretty strong and we all had similar grades, but this might hurt me in the end in looking for a job this summer as my GPA seems low without looking at the averages. Or, is getting 1-3% higher than the average not even impressive?

Interesting, either the overall curve has changed in the past few years or your small group got the short end of the stick. The latter is possible as individual profs have to hit that 70%-75% average (with classes of the size you get in 1L) but in some small groups virtually every prof will make it as high as possible while others (such as your by the sound of it) get unlucky and have profs that are fine with hitting the lower end of the range. So a 74% average could be above-average relative to your small group (which is where you are actually competing against your peers) but below-average relative to the whole class. The school provides grade distribution letters every year that allow employers to compare you to the overall class of 200ish rather than your individual small group. So it really sucks if you get a bad draw as a small group, because a few percentage points at Allard does mean a lot.

But if memory serves you will not have the grade distribution at this stage, only your grade report showing your grades and the class averages (which is great and will help you).

Even 1%-3% higher than average should be good for OCIs (and perhaps the Alberta 1L recruit but not Vancouver or Toronto).

[Pantalaimon]

1 hour ago, CheeseToast said:

I was under the impression that the 1L recruit in Alberta is actually quite large and thus not “extremely” competitive. That is, one can get their foot in the door with relatively average midterm grades. In fact I recall hearing somewhere that the 1L recruit is actually bigger than the 2L recruit in AB, though I may be mistaken.

I heard that too, but I think they're about equal in size these days.

Allard's curve sounds bonkers. Why jam all your students into a few percentage points of each other? The entire point of curves, usually, is to spread students out to allow differentiation.

[CleanHands]

9 minutes ago, Pantalaimon said:

Allard's curve sounds bonkers. Why jam all your students into a few percentage points of each other? The entire point of curves, usually, is to spread students out to allow differentiation.

As an Allard grad I totally agree. In my year a 75% 1L average would make someone pretty much right in the middle of the pack while a 76% average put them in the top third of the class (and was the general cutoff for competitive OCI grades). This makes the 5% gap permitted in class averages massive and is really unfair to students who are assigned to a small group with harsher graders. Less than 4% of the class achieved an A- (80%+) 1L average and literally nobody achieved an A (85%+) average, which goes to your point about it being extremely difficult to differentiate oneself.

[TheSocratic]

Everyone I know at Allard who got a big-firm 1L summer job (in Vancouver) had a top 10% GPA. This was 78% or higher in my year (very tight curve, even by Allard standards).