Dalhousie University Law Index Score & Grade Conversion Guide

[Renerik]

Nothing going on at work so I wanted to help out by migrating some info over to the new forum. Format stolen from @RUIQ, information consolidated from cached LS.ca threads and DAL.ca.

GPA Calculation:

DAL uses a 4.3 GPA scale for determining admissions and will convert your grades to their scale. DAL either looks at your overall GPA or your last 10 credits (equivalent to 60 credit hours or 2 years with a full course load), whichever is highest.

Conversion table

Letter Grade	DAL 4.3 GPA Scale
A+	4.3
A	4.0
A-	3.7
B+	3.3
B	3.0
B-	2.7
C+	2.3
C	2.0
C-	1.7
D+	1.3
D	1.0
F	0.0

DAL offers a calculator to check your 4.3 GPA here: https://www.dal.ca/campus_life/academic-support/grades-and-student-records/gpa-calculator.html

Matriculating classes historically had a GPA of 3.7/4.3.

 

LSAT:

The LSAT must have been taken within the last 5 LSAC testing years. DAL only looks at an applicant’s highest score.

Matriculating classes historically had an LSAT between 161-164.

 

Index Formula:

[(GPA/4.3)*60]+[(LSAT–120)*40/60]

Example:

LSAT of 167

GPA of 3.9/4.3

[(3.9/4.3)*60]+[(167–120)*40/60] = 85.75

Historically, an index over 80 has been competitive.

Note: OLSAS GPA must be converted to a 4.3 scale before calculating an applicant’s index score.

 

Useful Links:

https://www.dal.ca/faculty/law/admissions/jd-admissions/how-to-apply.html

Edited June 7, 2021 by Renerik

[Thrive92]

To add to @Renerik's very informative post:

Courses from the summer are included gpa calculations

"W" grades (Withdrawals) are ignored in gpa calculations

Courses taken outside of a degree program are included

Graduate level courses are also included

If a course is repeated, only the first grade is counted

They do not care if you have taken full/part course loads, or if there were major breaks in between semesters; they care about your most recent sixty credit hours/ten full credits.

 

[Beauregard]

If I took a 2-year course-based 60-credit graduate degree, would only grades from those courses be factored into my GPA calculation?

[Goblin King]

1 hour ago, Beauregard said:

If I took a 2-year course-based 60-credit graduate degree, would only grades from those courses be factored into my GPA calculation?

No. Dal will consider graduate degrees as "softs" in your application, but for admissions purposes, your GPA calculation only includes undergraduate grades. 

[Thrive92]

9 hours ago, Beauregard said:

If I took a 2-year course-based 60-credit graduate degree, would only grades from those courses be factored into my GPA calculation?

Here is a part of the email I have received from dalhousie admissions:

"When calculating your GPA as part of the academic assessment, we consider all courses taken for credit at an accredited, degree-granting institution. This includes summer courses, courses taken for credit outside of a degree program, and graduate-level coursework. I will note that it does not include repeated courses; we only consider your first grade in a given course. Withdrawals are not considered as part of the GPA calculation, and therefore do not affect the determined cGPA or last 2 years.

 

For a little clarity on the ‘last 2 years’, what we are specifically calculating is your most recent ten full credits/sixty credit hours, which is the equivalent of two years of a full courseload, but they need not be chronologically within a two-year period. It’s the quantity of credit hours we’re looking at, not the period of time in which they were taken."

So I would assume that those grades from those courses would be factored into the GPA calculation.

[fettuccinealfredo]

On 7/27/2021 at 1:12 PM, Thrive92 said:

To add to @Renerik's very informative post:

Courses from the summer are included gpa calculations

"W" grades (Withdrawals) are ignored in gpa calculations

Courses taken outside of a degree program are included

Graduate level courses are also included

If a course is repeated, only the first grade is counted

They do not care if you have taken full/part course loads, or if there were major breaks in between semesters; they care about your most recent sixty credit hours/ten full credits.

 

I am not sure how accurate this is-- I emailed them to ask about this a few months ago and received an email saying they only look at your full-time course-loads and will pull back as far as necessary in your transcript for this. 

[Thrive92]

20 minutes ago, fettuccinealfredo said:

I am not sure how accurate this is-- I emailed them to ask about this a few months ago and received an email saying they only look at your full-time course-loads and will pull back as far as necessary in your transcript for this. 

That's odd; I have also exchanged emails with them on June 27th, and Tris responded to my question with the following:

"For a little clarity on the ‘last 2 years’, what we are specifically calculating is your most recent ten full credits/sixty credit hours, which is the equivalent of two years of a full courseload, but they need not be chronologically within a two-year period. It’s the quantity of credit hours we’re looking at, not the period of time in which they were taken."

When did you receive this information? If it was before June 27th, perhaps their policy changed in between our emails?

[fettuccinealfredo]

2 hours ago, Thrive92 said:

That's odd; I have also exchanged emails with them on June 27th, and Tris responded to my question with the following:

"For a little clarity on the ‘last 2 years’, what we are specifically calculating is your most recent ten full credits/sixty credit hours, which is the equivalent of two years of a full courseload, but they need not be chronologically within a two-year period. It’s the quantity of credit hours we’re looking at, not the period of time in which they were taken."

When did you receive this information? If it was before June 27th, perhaps their policy changed in between our emails?

Yea, my email conversation with Tris took place this March. This may just be how I'm reading it, but the email you received did not necessarily indicate whether they do or do not accept a part-time courseload-- it would probably be best to email them back and clarify this?

This was the wording of Tris's response to my email asking about a part-time course load (in March):

"We would be looking at your most recent ten full academic credits/sixty credit hours, including summer courses; depending on the nature of your course load, this may mean we would take additional semesters further back than two years. We only consider full semesters; if adding a semester’s worth of academic courses would put you over or under ten full credits, we will always either include or exclude that additional semester to put you in your best position for consideration (i.e., will adding that semester increase, or decrease, your “Last Two Years” GPA?)."

There's a possibility that the policy changed since my conversation with her, but I would definitely ask for clarification if part-time studies are in your L2.

[Renerik]

You're both missing the point. They're not looking for full/part time studies. They're looking for mind readers.

[Thrive92]

9 hours ago, fettuccinealfredo said:

the email you received did not necessarily indicate whether they do or do not accept a part-time courseload-- it would probably be best to email them back and clarify this?

It did not but the answer that Tris sent to me was in response to my question very specific to the courseload:

"For the calculation of the last 2 years' worth of courses for gpa purposes, would courses taken during the summer semester be also accepted? There are also some semesters within the last 2 years of my undergraduate degree where I have taken less than five courses (not full - time); I was wondering if Schulich school of law would consider these non - full time semesters as well for gpa calculations?"

So that is why I drew the conclusion that courseload is not really a factor. I think Tris' response email to you of full semesters is the policy that the admissions committee applies when deciding to look a full semester before an applicant's most recent 60 credits/10 full courses in case they are a few credits short. As Tris states in your email:

"We only consider full semesters; if adding a semester’s worth of academic courses would put you over or under ten full credits, we will always either include or exclude that additional semester to put you in your best position for consideration (i.e., will adding that semester increase, or decrease, your “Last Two Years” GPA?)."

[Skier41]

7 hours ago, Thrive92 said:

"We only consider full semesters; if adding a semester’s worth of academic courses would put you over or under ten full credits, we will always either include or exclude that additional semester to put you in your best position for consideration (i.e., will adding that semester increase, or decrease, your “Last Two Years” GPA?)."

To clarify this, and to the best of my knowledge, Dal looks at full-time semesters but when it comes to the last semester to make 20 courses, they won’t add it if it makes it way over (23 courses) and drops your L2. I know it’s confusing but Dal will calculate your L2 in your favour so I wouldn’t worry too much about the fine details. As long as you didn’t take 2/3 courses per semester for all of undergrad, you’re fine. 

[Timmy23]

On 8/28/2021 at 7:09 AM, Skier41 said:

To clarify this, and to the best of my knowledge, Dal looks at full-time semesters but when it comes to the last semester to make 20 courses, they won’t add it if it makes it way over (23 courses) and drops your L2. I know it’s confusing but Dal will calculate your L2 in your favour so I wouldn’t worry too much about the fine details. As long as you didn’t take 2/3 courses per semester for all of undergrad, you’re fine. 

This is 100% for certain? I was operating under the assumption that they'd add my last semester (I took 4 classes in a few of my L2 semesters) for a total of 22 classes, do you think they'd only calculate my L2 using 17 courses? Adding that final semester for 22 total courses would definitely drop my L2 GPA slightly.

[Skier41]

On 9/17/2021 at 2:04 AM, Timmy23 said:

This is 100% for certain? I was operating under the assumption that they'd add my last semester (I took 4 classes in a few of my L2 semesters) for a total of 22 classes, do you think they'd only calculate my L2 using 17 courses? Adding that final semester for 22 total courses would definitely drop my L2 GPA slightly.

I don't work in the admissions office so I'm not certain when they add a semester or don't depending on the number of courses, however I vaguely remember they said they usually do it to your benefit. With that said, 17 courses is quite below the standard of 20 so personally, I think they will add your last semester. Had it been 19, then I would say they likely would not add another semester cause then it would be 24 which is way over. If it's only a slight drop, I wouldn't worry about it. 

Edited September 18, 2021 by Skier41
Typo

[Timmy23]

On 9/18/2021 at 4:42 PM, Skier41 said:

I don't work in the admissions office so I'm not certain when they add a semester or don't depending on the number of courses, however I vaguely remember they said they usually do it to your benefit. With that said, 17 courses is quite below the standard of 20 so personally, I think they will add your last semester. Had it been 19, then I would say they likely would not add another semester cause then it would be 24 which is way over. If it's only a slight drop, I wouldn't worry about it. 

I emailed asking about this and they confirmed they would calculate my L2 using just 17 courses!

[intrepidlady97]

I'm getting conflicting results when I try to convert my percentage grades from an Ontario uni to Dal's scale. If I convert each one individually to a letter grade using https://www.dal.ca/campus_life/academic-support/grades-and-student-records/grade-scale-and-definitions.html, and then use the GPA calculator listed above, I come out with a 3.82 (last 60 credit hours). But if I take the same grade scale linked above, convert each individual percentage to the 4.3 scale instead of letter grade, and then average everything /4.3, I come out with a 4.02. I'm going to e-mail Dal to find out which one is correct but just thought I'd post here in case anyone else had the same issue.

[Lawapplicant1233]

Hey, so I am super confused because my Uni does not offer an A+ at all and all grades are out of 4 so I am not sure how they are going to recalculate this because I am also not given a percentage... Any info would be super helpful. Thanks!