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I'm a 1st year law student at UBC, happy to take your questions about applying or life @ law school
Hi,
While I was going through undergrad at SFU I certainly had a lot of questions about law school and I think if I had someone to direct them to it would have been helpful.
So feel free to ask away
While I was going through undergrad at SFU I certainly had a lot of questions about law school and I think if I had someone to direct them to it would have been helpful.
So feel free to ask away
Comments
Scratch that.
Why haven't you brought back the tricycle race?
What was your applying CGPA at SFU?
I'd rather not divulge what it was exactly, but UBC uses a 50-50 weighting in for GPA and LSAT. It is not necessarily the case that a very high cGPA is required to get in (but that would require a very high LSAT score to compensate, 167+). UBC also drops 12 of an applicant's worst credits. The median is somewhere around 3.8 after the drops.
How is your first year going at UBC law?
I'm only about a couple weeks in but so far it's been good. The best thing about starting with a whole cohort of students is everybody is new and eager to make friends. There are lots of social events, and readings have not been too overwhelming just yet (the 7 mandatory courses aside).
On the other hand, it is very much like high school. You have the same schedule as ~25 people, you have lunch hour and breaks together. You start to feel that it becomes kind of cliquey pretty fast, and that's definitely an adjustment coming from SFU. Oh well, could be worse, I could be trying to adjust from Germany or Japan like 2 of my classmates.
Why the hell aren't they doing the tricycle race anymore?
I don't know about a tricycle race but I know for a fact Blake's had some sort of humourous/toy vehicle race this year (I did not attend).
1. Holy fuck. 3.8???? Can you at least tell me if yours was above or
below the median? Do you think 3.5 could get in without having to get
super duper amazing on the LSAT? How important is having work experience
in the CJS already, volunteer stuff, resume type things compared to and
in addition to GPA and LSAT score.
Mine was right at the median. Unfortunately, with a 3.5 at least a 170 would be required to get in in the last 3 years at least. However, remember UBC does not include your 12 worst credits when calculating your GPA, so you could have much higher than 3.5 for admission purposes.
Again, this could change, but as of today, UBC does not care about work experience, volunteer or resume type stuff at all in the regular category -- admission is entirely based on how you compare to other applicants when combining your GPA + LSAT.
However, UBC does have a Discretionary category, and they do take into account the extracurriculars along with any other relevant circumstances affecting academic performance (illness, family tragedy), etc.
And why would people come from Germany and Japan to study law because
it is Canadian law. I guess the philosophical thinking is the same but
it's still Canadian law. For instance I have a friend who went to
Australia to take law although he is Canadian.
I haven't met the Japanese student but the one from Germany has expressed an interest of practicing in Vancouver/Canada. Chances are they are not here to get their law degrees and go home, given how vastly different the substantive law in those countries.
Yes on all 3. I've been McDonald's a little more than I should this term but that's mainly because it's been tough to get used to finishing school so late and having to sleep so early (leaves very little time to cook).
I think cardiovascular health is very important, so yes I run a minimum 30 minutes a day to keep that ticker healthy, but also for exam purposes. Stamina was a big part of the LSAT I think, and I have been told law school exams are not different.
As for video games, yes, I played a shit load in undergrad and I played GTAV for like 3-4 hours a night for like a week when it first came out. >_> Among my favourite games are Uncharted 2, The Last of Us, RDR, and Mass Effect.
I think it's all about time management, if you do your work when you have to you have time to do other things you like too. I'm happy to report that I've managed to beat the curve on all my assignments this term, so it's possible to do well and still do the things you like.
On GPAs generally
I just wanted to say that if anyone's GPAs aren't where they are right now, please don't fret, but consider re-evaluating your work ethic. I'm a firm believer that work ethic accounts for a very significant variance of how much we succeed in life, especially at undergrad. I'm a firm believer because I am evidence of that, I am honestly not smarter than a lot of people, but I have worked a lot harder than a lot of folks.
Congrats in getting into law school. You must have worked really hard :)
What did you major as an undergrad at SFU? Law or Criminology?
What is an effective way to boost your GPA?
How much competition was there to get into law school? Tell me in numbers. Like 15:1?
SFU Crim, it really is a great program. There really isn't much difference between CRIM 230 with Simon Verdun-Jones and 1st year Criminal Law at UBC. The best SFU Crim instructors are just as good as the best ones at UBC Law.
What is an effective way to boost your GPA?
I alluded to this earlier, but to me it is a function of hard work and not much else. The material we are learning in Arts is not astrophysics, as long as you are willing to put in the time you will understand everything. For exams or papers I always tried to start them a week in advance. For exams, it is a lot easier to study without the threat of them coming the next morning, and I believe you probably learn better having the material gradually absorbed than trying to get it all in one night.
For papers I started to think that just because a class wasn't bell curved, it does not necessarily mean you are not graded in comparison with your classmates. If a paper stands out compared to everyone else's, it is probably landing in the A range. So you can do simple things like giving them overall polish (a chance to proofread, eliminate typos), and of course spend a lot of time on them, thinking about them. I'm sorry that the advice for this isn't so good but if I recall paper writing was a bit of a messy process where you spend a lot of time looking, thinking and eventually it comes together. If you have some specific questions about paper writing I can try to answer them.
How much competition was there to get into law school? Tell me in numbers. Like 15:1?
I think almost all schools in Canada have more than a 10:1 ratio, but don't let that scare you because that's inflated by the sheer number of applicants who have no chance. If your GPA is in the 3.5-3.6 range with an LSAT of 160+ you are likely going to get in somewhere. And unlike in the US, all law schools in Canada are regarded well. The exceptions may be TRU and Lakehead which opened up last year. There may also be a stigma surrounding Windsor, but I don't really know much about that from out west. UofT is also regarded as the most difficult law school in Canada to get into.
And there are lots of varying methods schools assess applicants by. Lots of schools in the east like Queens and Western Ontario look at last 2 or best 2 years of study only. U of Alberta has an extremely generous GPA calculation system where they count only the last 60 credits and don't even care about cGPA. Some focus less on numbers and more on extracurriculars, like Calgary. So you just have to find a school that fits your strengths.
Oh, and how many hours per day do you study regularly?
If you mean undergrad, the work tends to cluster around the middle and end of the semester. So I worked hard when I had to, and the rest of the time I spent doing whatever the hell I wanted. I didn't do readings per week either. That might sound contrary to my work hard mantra, but remember what I argued about how no class is truly "not bell curved". I was willing to screw around the whole term except for the week before midterms/papers while I think most students did the same, but including the week before up until the day before everything is due. That was likely the difference.
Thank you for the sincere answers!
Did you do regular crim major or honours? Also, would working with crim prof on researches benefit you when getting into grad school or getting hired?
prof on researches benefit you when getting into grad school or getting
hired?
I did a regular crim degree. If you're wondering, an honours is likely not going to be a big boost to your application over a regular degree, if at all. The GPA will be the important factor for both,
The SFU CRIM advisors have told me, however, that doing an honours can be a means of boosting your GPA. I haven't really looked further into that claim though so I can't really vouch for it.
Sorry I never applied for grad school or did any research on it so you're probably asking the wrong person.
However, if you are talking about in terms of law school admissions, yes knowing a professor will be helpful in a limited sense because lots of schools in Ontario and back east require academic letters of recommendation. It's tough finding professors if you barely know them.
I'm not sure about the workforce either because I've never tried looking for a crim related job.
Like any stand up citizen, all day err day. Possibly right now.
@Beanbean LOL
Seeing that you answer personal questions too, are you handsome? Are u asian?
xoxo Allard Girl
many hours a week do you work? How many hours a week do you spend on
school work? and do you remain with time to socialize and go out?
I do not work and based on my conversations with some of my classmates, working during 1st year is pretty rare. Those who do often work jobs where they can control their schedules (tutoring and so forth). From what I understand, it is more common to work in years 2 and 3 because you don't have to take as many courses.
I would say 2-3 hours a night after school and several hours on the weekends. Our work consists mostly of reading and some midterm assignments.
Yes, there is definitely time to go out with friends and do stuff you like. Law school is based on 100% exams in April for the majority of credits, so it's not like they bombard you with deadline after deadline. It's a marathon and not a sprint, so there's plenty of time to still enjoy yourself.
Is your GPA from your overall GPA of all courses taken or just from your major?
All classes taken, minus your 12 worst credits. I think they even look at college courses as long as they go towards university graduation, but I am not 100% on that.
When you talk about GPA, what is max? Is it 4.33 like in SFU or 4.0 like everywhere else?
When i say 3.8 or 3.5 I mean on the 4.33 scale.
Unfortunately, the maximum GPA coming from SFU is 90% which equals 4.33. 3.8 = 82%, and the rest of the figures can be found here:
http://www.ubc.ca/okanagan/students/advising/academic-performance/gpa-equivalency.html
The conversion is pretty shitty but there's nothing we can do.