Chance?

[dimemay]

cGPA 2.9-3.1 (im not sure how to find out my actual GPA but it’s somewhere around there.)

Going into my final (potentially) last year of undergrad. My second year GPA was a 3.1 and my third year (most previous year) was a 3.4. So I have an upward trend.

Haven’t written the LSAT yet, I plan to write in OCT. What should my goal score be? I’ve been studying on and off all summer. 

Strong ECs- Varsity Athlete first 2 years of my undergrad. Volunteered for a non-profit since I was 14, they sent me to Argentina (international experience) for a year (before I started uni) through one of their programs that is very social justice focused. They have organizations all over the world, joined my uni’s branch. Became an exec in my last 2 years on the club. Worked part time in my 3rd year and will again for my 4th/final. Was also a member of pre-law society and did intramural soccer at my uni. 

A lot of personal considerations- trauma and mental health issues. Explains my first 2 years of bad grades.

Double major Political Science and Spanish. 

Top choice is Windsor. Looking at Ryerson and Lakehead as well. 

[CleanHands]

With a poor cGPA and no LSAT yet, your chances of admission anywhere in Canada are low to non-existent even with an access claim you can back with medical documentation.

Come back when you have an LSAT score. Your "goal score" should be as high as you can possibly get. If you've been studying "all summer" you really should have done practice tests multiple times by now but since you aren't disclosing any PT scores I'm guessing that's not going so well?

Edited to add: And 3.4 is an "upward trend" in a relative sense but is still poor by the standard of law school admissions, so you aren't well placed for L2/B2 schools either.

Edited August 28, 2021 by CleanHands

[PacificOcean]

use the lawapplicants.ca website to calculate your current OLSAS CGPA and L2.

With a 3.1 CGPA, you will most likely need an LSAT in the mid to high 160s, likely a 165+.

Windsor is known for being a bit unpredictable with who they admit sometimes, so you just never know. Put in your best effort for the LSAT and apply if you do relatively well.

[dimemay]

5 minutes ago, PacificOcean said:

use the lawapplicants.ca website to calculate your current OLSAS CGPA and L2.

With a 3.1 CGPA, you will most likely need an LSAT in the mid to high 160s, likely a 165+.

Windsor is known for being a bit unpredictable with who they admit sometimes, so you just never know. Put in your best effort for the LSAT and apply if you do relatively well.

Thanks for the polite & non-condescending response. Highest PT was a 163 (with a little more than a month to go) which makes me nervous because everyone says to -5 for actual test day due to nerves. 

[Avatar Aang]

1 hour ago, dimemay said:

Thanks for the polite & non-condescending response. Highest PT was a 163 (with a little more than a month to go) which makes me nervous because everyone says to -5 for actual test day due to nerves. 

@CleanHands response to you was pretty spot on and not condescending just because he told you what you did not want to hear. This is a chances thread so as an applicant you want people to accurately predict your chances and not give you false hope. The only school where you may have a shot is Windsor/Detroit Mercy - and only because they are a last chance program and unpredictable with their admissions. You have a shot at Lakehead only if you have connections to Northern Ontario. I know a lot of people that got into Ryerson and they had strong social justice or tech backgrounds and/or were mature students.

The fact that you are still completing your undergrad makes your situation worse, because the majority of people that get into law schools here with stats that low are mature students and access students. Your ECs are pretty average as well - 2-3 clubs, sports, and a part-time job. These are common activities that many university students engage in. Your GPA is between a B to low B+ which is far too low by law school standards, as most of your fellow successful applicants will be applying with 3.6+ GPAs (cGPA and/or B2/Last 2), or they may have a very high LSAT score to offset a lower GPA (which is known as being a splitter). It also sounds like your personal issues can only explain your grades for the first two years, and not your third year, and your grades moving forward.  

You may need to take an extra year or two to raise your GPA. Based on how you perform on the LSAT, I would give this some serious consideration because you can still change this. Your stats and profile are not competitive for most law schools as a KJD applicant. Coming straight out of undergraduate, the admissions committees focus most heavily on your academic performance and LSAT score. 

[luckycharm]

A sub 3.0 GPA is a huge barrier.

One applicant with 2.98 GPA was accepted to Windsor this cycle but she had a 179 LSAT.

 

[CleanHands]

The reason I responded the way I did was because, reading between the lines, the question here is really "I simply do not have competitive stats but I will be able to apply access, so will that allow me to get admitted?" And I think it's important to emphasize that no, that's not how admissions works.

I'm sympathetic to people whose undergrad studies are compromised by mental health issues but that's precisely the reason this question needed to be clearly answered that way, because it would be insulting to successful access applicants to suggest otherwise. Many law students received terrible grades for a year or two of undergrad due to mental health issues, but the key to a successful access claim is being able to receive treatment, improve one's situation (i.e. get better grades in upper years after being medicated or whatever), and have successes to point to to show that those poor grades were not reflective or your abilities and that said mental health issues are resolved (they don't want to set people who don't have issues under control up to fail). An access claim explains hiccups, it does not override entirely uncompetitive stats. Honestly with a best year GPA of 3.4 and no LSAT you have nothing in your profile to demonstrate to admission committees that you would be a successful JD student.

[123]

1 minute ago, CleanHands said:

An access claim explains hiccups, it does not override entirely uncompetitive stats.

It took me a couple of reads to get that you were referring to temporary disruptions, and not an access claim based upon having the hiccups. 

[Londonlawyer]

10 hours ago, dimemay said:

Thanks for the polite & non-condescending response. Highest PT was a 163 (with a little more than a month to go) which makes me nervous because everyone says to -5 for actual test day due to nerves. 

I would book a second test... I did poorly on my first LSAT due to technical issues and, because frankly, I was ill prepared (eg. my test was paused/ stuck on a loading screen a couple times while I was writing, started an hour later than expected etc.)

Be safe and book another one, you can always cancel it if you knock it out of the park the first time around.