2021 Admissions Data Released

[Philosophy]

 

Both median LSAT and median GPA have been the highest in recent memory. 

Reference: https://www.law.utoronto.ca/about/jd-first-year-class-profile

Edited August 29, 2021 by Philosophy

[luckycharm]

26% jump in number of applicants  !

[CheeseToast]

Will never understand who these people are that manage to get straight A/A+s for three whole years. A 168 seems far easier to achieve.

[Avatar Aang]

4 hours ago, CheeseToast said:

Will never understand who these people are that manage to get straight A/A+s for three whole years. A 168 seems far easier to achieve.

What about the schools that look at cumulative GPA or only drop a few of your lowest credits? A 168 LSAT is in the 96th percentile, so most people can never achieve that. At least with GPA, you can focus and find something that interests you and you are good at, and work hard for a few years to maintain your grades. 

[LordBONSAI]

2 hours ago, Avatar Aang said:

What about the schools that look at cumulative GPA or only drop a few of your lowest credits? A 168 LSAT is in the 96th percentile, so most people can never achieve that. At least with GPA, you can focus and find something that interests you and you are good at, and work hard for a few years to maintain your grades. 

I second to your opinion. High cGPAs are not that difficult to achieve these days.

[CheeseToast]

12 hours ago, Avatar Aang said:

A 168 LSAT is in the 96th percentile, so most people can never achieve that.

For most applicants (in Canada at least) it’s entirely unnecessary to get anything above 162, give or take a point or two. I don’t think the question is whether people can or not, it’s whether it’s worth it which, for many, it  simply isn’t.

12 hours ago, Avatar Aang said:

What about the schools that look at cumulative GPA or only drop a few of your lowest credits?

I’m equally impressed by high GPA applicants at these schools.

12 hours ago, Avatar Aang said:

At least with GPA, you can focus and find something that interests you and you are good at, and work hard for a few years to maintain your grades.

Maintaining a consistent 4.0 throughout 3-4 years at a presumably rigorous institution strikes me as far harder than grinding out PTs a few times a week for a few months. Perhaps others have different experiences but my undergrad courses were curved such that it was quite difficult to get the straight As which it seems so many manage to achieve. 

[QueensGrad]

11 hours ago, LordBONSAI said:

I second to your opinion. High cGPAs are not that difficult to achieve these days.

Agreed. Even back when I was in undergrad, as long as you picked a major the required courses for which you knew you could get consistent A’s in, you could fill out the rest of your degree with bird courses. 

Edited August 30, 2021 by QueensGrad

[TheCryptozoologist]

On 8/29/2021 at 4:25 PM, CheeseToast said:

Will never understand who these people are that manage to get straight A/A+s for three whole years. A 168 seems far easier to achieve.

There's a few undergrad programs that literally average A's. A really famously selective one called McMaster Health Sci sees 70% of its grads go to med schools here and they do it. 

Then there are programs that practice hard curves e.g. engineering. My program curved to a B minus or C+ but people I knew in engineering would see classes that curved at C or D since half the class would fail.

 

[CheeseToast]

15 hours ago, TheCryptozoologist said:

There's a few undergrad programs that literally average A's. A really famously selective one called McMaster Health Sci sees 70% of its grads go to med schools here and they do it. 

Then there are programs that practice hard curves e.g. engineering. My program curved to a B minus or C+ but people I knew in engineering would see classes that curved at C or D since half the class would fail.

 

My arts undergrad always had class averages between 2.9 and 3.2

[MapleLeafs]

15 hours ago, TheCryptozoologist said:

A really famously selective one called McMaster Health Sci sees 70% of its grads go to med schools here and they do it. 

That's a pretty bad example, considering it's more difficult getting into that undergrad program than med school itself. 

[ClarkGriswold]

1 hour ago, CheeseToast said:

My arts undergrad always had class averages between 2.9 and 3.2

To second this, I was told by a professor that all undergrad students in my faculty (social science) were curved to a B- in first/second year courses and a B in third/fourth year courses.

[ClarkGriswold]

16 hours ago, TheCryptozoologist said:

There's a few undergrad programs that literally average A's. A really famously selective one called McMaster Health Sci sees 70% of its grads go to med schools here and they do it. 

Can attest to this as someone who had about 75% of their high school graduating class and friends attend McMaster. 

Another program that strikes me as the same is McMaster Arts & Science, where roughly as many students in the program get into law every year as the polisci, jppl, humanities, and history programs combined. 

[undertheletter]

In my Arts program(s) at U of T the averages in first two years were a mix of B- and C+. Third year was mostly a mix of B- and B+. Fourth year was B+ across the board (though it was fully online with CR options etc.).

Either way, I think this cycle was more competitive due to many factors which appear temporary (LSAT flex, online school, CR options, more applicants due to COVID). Although the general trend (across decades) is that average undergrad grades have gone up (more A's given out etc.), I think we might see a dip in numbers either next cycle or the one after...though I'm prepared to be proven wrong!

[Pendragon]

4 hours ago, ClarkGriswold said:

Can attest to this as someone who had about 75% of their high school graduating class and friends attend McMaster. 

Another program that strikes me as the same is McMaster Arts & Science, where roughly as many students in the program get into law every year as the polisci, jppl, humanities, and history programs combined. 

The grade inflation in these programs is ridiculous. Mac health sci is basically a feeder into Mac and U of T medical schools. If you look at U of T med's admissions stats, the Mac bar graph is so high because of the health science program (https://applymd.utoronto.ca/admission-stats). I've verified that the class averages in the Mac health science, arts & science, and integrated science programs are in the 3.9 out of 4.0 range. Queen's new health science program apparently had class averages in the 90s for first year because they're now following Mac's example. 

[QueensGrad]

24 minutes ago, Pendragon said:

The grade inflation in these programs is ridiculous. Mac health sci is basically a feeder into Mac and U of T medical schools. If you look at U of T med's admissions stats, the Mac bar graph is so high because of the health science program (https://applymd.utoronto.ca/admission-stats). I've verified that the class averages in the Mac health science, arts & science, and integrated science programs are in the 3.9 out of 4.0 range. Queen's new health science program apparently had class averages in the 90s for first year because they're now following Mac's example. 

Queen’s Kinesiology is (was?) also notorious for huge grade inflation leading to lots of med admissions.