R at UCalgary with 3.71 B2 GPA and 164 (86th percentile) LSAT?

[Yogurt Baron]

Quick thoughts:

1. It's been a million years since I applied, but it feels weird to me, too, that someone with these stats would be rejected this early in the cycle. It's not outrageous that it feels weird.

2. Full points for walking back on initially being a bit of a dick. That's hard to do. Kudos.

3. Trying to divine why you got rejected isn't really going to benefit you in any way, so I'd just focus on the future.

[pastmidnight]

OP, I don’t want to kick you while you’re down, but I think you are overestimating how competitive you are compared to other applicants, and are underestimating how many applications schools receive from applicants with similar stats to you.

Your stats are the average for UofC and Dal. You are a solid, but not exceedingly strong applicant. We don’t have data about the GPA of every applicant, but we do have data about what each person who took the LSAT in Canada this past year scored. We don’t know what GPA corresponds to each student’s score, but I still think it is illustrative of what I’m talking about, and demonstrates the spread of applications that schools receive:

Over the last year:

• 77 students scored between 175-180
• 239 students scored between 170-174
• 740 students scored between 165-169
• 1,258 students scored between 160-159
• 1,326 students scored between 155-159

1,056 students scored higher than you on the LSAT, and we don’t know how many of those 1,258 students also got a 164.

Schools get a lot of applications from students with similar stats and need to differentiate them to decide who they’re going to offer a place to. Dal, for whatever reason, decided to give you a place over other students. UofC, for whatever reason, decided not to give you a place over other students. Maybe those other students had more compelling personal statements, maybe they had better work experience (which is important to UofC), maybe they made it clear that they would accept an offer from UofC if extended one, maybe you just didn’t stand out enough. Etc. If you really want to know, you need to ask UofC.

Every school’s admissions process is holistic to a certain extent. They can't just extend an offer to everyone who has a solid GPA and LSAT – they would have to extend far more offers than they have seats. There is a certain amount of subjectivity (and as a result, unpredictability) at play in the admissions process across the board. If you had been rejected from both UofC and Dal, that might suggest that there is something wrong with your application. But you got into Dal. You just weren’t a strong enough applicant to get into Dal and UofC, and that’s okay! That doesn’t mean that you won’t get into other schools. It just means that UofC decided not to offer you a place because they preferred other applicants. Again, that’s okay.

If there is a lesson to be learned here for future applicants, it’s to try to make it easy for schools to pick you over other applicants. Students with higher stats usually get more traction because there are fewer of them. With the exception of Dal, if you are really interested in an out-of-province school, I would make that very, very clear. This is common sense IMO. Schools get a lot of applications from students who have applied to every school in the country. They want to admit people who are going to accept an offer. At the same time, the admissions process is holistic, and you can do everything ‘right’ and still not be admitted. You need to make peace with that if you're going to apply to law school.

Also:

• I disagree with UofC not being transparent, for the reasons set out by @MyWifesBoyfriend. UofC rejecting you now rather than keeping you in the lurch for the next few months also speaks to their transparency IMO.
• UofC is a good school, and there are lots of strong students who go there. This being said UofC is not fishing in the same section of the applicant pool that UofT is, and I would not want to give future applicants the impression that they are.
• UofC is the school in the west to attend if you want to practice business law in Calgary. If you want to practice business law in Vancouver, you would be better served going to law school in BC. UBC and UVic place far more students in Vancouver BigLaw than UofC does in Calgary BigLaw. The former is obviously a larger recruit than the latter, but still.
• Law schools will do everything they can to ensure students graduate (even if they shouldn’t) and are loathe to discipline students (even if a student deserves to be disciplined for the way they’ve treated others). Thinking at least some of your peers are stupid is part and parcel of law school/the profession. If you’re saying that calling someone stupid (presumably to their face) can get you kicked out, that just isn’t true.

Edited January 23 by pastmidnight
Edited to clarify that UofC lists their class's average stats, not medians.

[CleanHands]

4 hours ago, Moosehead said:

And once you're in law school, it looks like you might need someone to explain to you that calling people stupid is a quick way out of law school

I'd say that nobody gets expelled over that, but with all the traction the "words are violence" dipshits have gotten in universities in general and Canadian law schools specifically in recent years, you're probably correct.

[Moosehead]

To reinforce the randomness of the admissions process generally, I got an email yesterday.....with an A from the University of Alberta. Also an L2 school, places in pretty much the same job markets as Calgary, with an applicant pool that (historically) is at least as competitive as Calgary's I think (similar median LSAT, slightly higher GPA at Alberta?). Just a complete mystery as to what Calgary saw or didn't see that led to an R a month ago, and what U of A saw that led to an offer at this stage. The lottery seems like it's less random. 

[MyWifesBoyfriend]

6 minutes ago, Moosehead said:

To reinforce the randomness of the admissions process generally, I got an email yesterday.

To your credit, there were a couple mid 3.x/15x'ers on Reddit reporting acceptances. There was one 17x rejection as well if I recall correctly. 

Very strange admissions cycle for Calgary. Congrats on your acceptance though! 

Edited February 21 by MyWifesBoyfriend

[Moosehead]

Thank you. I'm really happy, it's a good school. I should probably buy a lottery ticket today.

[Lawguy14]

Lol this thread is insane

[Pantalaimon]

Historically, UofA has been more of a stats school and UofC more of a crapshoot. Sounds like that's still the case.

[YikesThatsNotGood]

Lots of emphasis on written prompts probably explains the “lottery.”  Furthermore,  while stats are king it’s important to account for program difficulty. A 3.5 engineering student is going to be admitted over a 3.6-3.7 philosophy student in most cases when all other factors are equal. 
 

Another factor could be what courses one is taking during their L60.  In a few of the info sessions they spoke pretty harshly about people who try to stack grade boosters right at the end of their degree. 
 

Anyways what may appear as a crapshoot based off numbers alone, may be well justified in reality. That’s the whole point with holistic admissions. 

Edited March 3 by YikesThatsNotGood

[MyWifesBoyfriend]

8 hours ago, YikesThatsNotGood said:

A 3.5 engineering student is going to be admitted over a 3.6-3.7 philosophy student in most cases when all other factors are equal. 

Contentious point here. I wouldn’t agree with it.

Edited March 3 by MyWifesBoyfriend

[ZineZ]

16 hours ago, YikesThatsNotGood said:

Lots of emphasis on written prompts probably explains the “lottery.”  Furthermore,  while stats are king it’s important to account for program difficulty. A 3.5 engineering student is going to be admitted over a 3.6-3.7 philosophy student in most cases when all other factors are equal. 
 

I'm not sure if UCalgary is different, but there are many schools that explicitly refuse to do this as a part of their admissions process. This is not necessarily true. 

[YikesThatsNotGood]

I agree that most schools are not like this, but given UCalgary's at least publicly stated dedication to hollistic admissions, whether or not this is true in practice is another matter, they may be exception to the norm. From my limited understanding, when applying to most schools  your writing plays a very minor role, but at UCalgary it seems to have a much larger effect. So seeing they are paying more attention to these soft factors, it would seem probable to me that they account both for what school you attended and what degree you took as part of the hollisitic process.

The main driving point for why there's a slight edge for those odd ball degrees is due to achieving diversity which they have stated as their intention many times, and have explictly stated in info sessions that they want a class with a diverse educational background. I will admit in hindsight my numbers are probably way out to lunch though and it is probably a much smaller effect. 

[MyWifesBoyfriend]

9 hours ago, YikesThatsNotGood said:

UCalgary's at least publicly stated dedication to hollistic admissions

Almost all schools publicly state that they're 'holistic'. This isn't unique to U of C.

 

9 hours ago, YikesThatsNotGood said:

The main driving point for why there's a slight edge for those odd ball degrees is due to achieving diversity which they have stated as their intention many times, and have explictly stated in info sessions that they want a class with a diverse educational background.

The issue is that you're smuggling an assumption into this argument. You're assuming certain degrees receive an 'edge' since they're intrinsically more difficult, than say, philosophy. This just isn't true. The school may strive for an equitable distribution between different degrees/fields of undergraduate study, but they'll be taking the most competitive individuals from within each category. These individuals will have very competitive application profiles. 

Edited March 4 by MyWifesBoyfriend

[YikesThatsNotGood]

4 hours ago, MyWifesBoyfriend said:

Almost all schools publicly state that they're 'holistic'. This isn't unique to U of C.

 

The issue is that you're smuggling an assumption into this argument. You're assuming certain degrees receive an 'edge' since they're intrinsically more difficult, than say, philosophy. This just isn't true. The school may strive for an equitable distribution between different degrees/fields of undergraduate study, but they'll be taking the most competitive individuals from within each category. These individuals will have very competitive application profiles. 

I may have lost the plot from what my initial comment was. Although I think you’ve worded the edge that I’m referring to better than I could have. 

A 3.5 in engineering may be one of the most, if not the most competitive candidates in that category and therefore get accepted. This would be due to not many engineers applying, specifically the amount of engineers getting a 3.7+ and applying to law school is near nonexistent as they have careers waiting for them out of undergrad. Meanwhile, a 3.6 in philosophy may not be competitive in their respective category due to a very large number of philosophy students applying, and hence a larger number of strong candidates who have a 3.7-4.0. 

From the outside looking in it might seem like a less-competitive candidate was accepted. However, when you account for degrees and like you mentioned categories, it’s clear they were never being compared to each other in the first place. In effect though if that engineering student didn’t exist, the philosophy student may have gotten accepted.

[MyWifesBoyfriend]

You've just recapitulated your incorrect take. 

Let's take U of T, for example: https://www.law.utoronto.ca/about/jd-first-year-class-profile

Humanities and Engineering comprise a similar percent of the class. Business and Social Sciences make up almost 40% of the class at 19 and 20 percent, respectively. 

English and linguistics sits at 9% while visual & performing arts is at 2%. Do these students get that 'edge' you're talking about? 

Regardless, this horse has already been beaten to death, see enclosed thread: 

 

TLDR it doesn't matter. 

 

Edited March 4 by MyWifesBoyfriend

[YikesThatsNotGood]

2 hours ago, MyWifesBoyfriend said:

You've just recapitulated your incorrect take. 

Let's take U of T, for example: https://www.law.utoronto.ca/about/jd-first-year-class-profile

Humanities and Engineering comprise a similar percent of the class. Business and Social Sciences make up almost 40% of the class at 19 and 20 percent, respectively. 

English and linguistics sits at 9% while visual & performing arts is at 2%. Do these students get that 'edge' you're talking about? 

Regardless, this horse has already been beaten to death, see enclosed thread: 

 

TLDR it doesn't matter. 

 

We wouldn’t be able to tell l based off the class size / makeup amongst categories. We would need, the statistics that each individual group was getting accepted with, and ideally the amount of people from each group that initially applied. So I’m not sure what you’re trying to get at here? 

Aside from that question on statistics:

“Moreover, we take into account the nature of the program and the undergraduate institution (or institutions) at which an applicant has studied. Specifically, programs and institutions have varying grading practices, which we take into account in our assessment. In general, the Admissions Committee examines each applicant's academic record with a view to meaningful and fair comparisons of undergraduate performance.”

https://www.law.utoronto.ca/jd-admissions-policies

[MyWifesBoyfriend]

33 minutes ago, YikesThatsNotGood said:

We wouldn’t be able to tell l based off the class size / makeup amongst categories. We would need, the statistics that each individual group was getting accepted with, and ideally the amount of people from each group that initially applied. So I’m not sure what you’re trying to get at here? 

I agree. There’s no data to suggest that engineering students have an edge over others in terms of cGPA. Glad to see you came around.

33 minutes ago, YikesThatsNotGood said:

Moreover, we take into account the nature of the program and the undergraduate institution

This is holistic. I never claimed the nature of the program does not matter. I am just stating that I doubt certain degrees are afforded more leeway in terms of cGPA.