Assessment of Applications

General

When selecting the 100 most promising students each year, the Admissions Committee considers an applicant’s likelihood of succeeding in law school and his or her ability to contribute to society. The Committee will consider the applicant’s academic record, the performance on the Law School Admission Test, extra curricular activity, work experience, community involvement, the applicant’s personal statement of why he or she desires a legal education, and reference letters.

Applications are assessed on a written basis only; interviews will not be given.

Prospective applicants are urged to be realistic about their chances for admission and about their alternative course of action should they not be admitted. Only 100 candidates of hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of applicants are admitted each year. The Faculty of Law will only admit applicants who satisfy both the requirements of being likely to succeed in law school and to contribute to society; the goal of the Faculty is to admit excellent students. .

A student who is admitted is admitted for that year only. The Faculty of Law will not defer admission to a future year.

Persons with disabilities who meet the above criteria are encouraged to apply and, once admitted, the Faculty will accommodate students in accordance with University policy.

Assessment of Applications

Applications received by the Faculty are grouped based on the applicant’s performance on the Law School Admissions Test and the applicant’s undergraduate GPA. For the purposes of grouping the files, the applicant’s GPA (grade point average) is calculated based on the applicant’s LAST 20 half courses or 60 credit equivalents. Courses must be completed by December 31 of the applicant year to be included in the GPA calculation. For the purposes of grouping the files, the Applicant’s Law School Admissions Test is the highest score that the Applicant has achieved.

In any given year, the Admissions Committee may impose a minimum requirement for an applicant’s undergraduate GPA and Law School Admissions Test score in order for the applicant’s file to be considered further by the Committee.

The process for reviewing files used by the Admissions Committee depends on the applicant’s statistical profile. Files will be reviewed either once or twice by a member of the Admissions Committee, or by staff in the Student Services Office. The decision to make an offer to the applicant, to reject the application or to give the applicant the opportunity to be placed on a waitlist will be based on the ranking given to the application as a consequence of those review processes.

A few matters that the Committee would stress to applicants are:

While the GPA is calculated on the basis set out above, the file will be reviewed taking into account the totality of the applicant’s academic performance, including performance in post-graduate programmes (i.e., Masters or Ph.D.) and in the rest of the applicant’s undergraduate degree;

While the Law School Assessment Test is recorded on the basis set out above, the Committee will take into account average as well as high scores, and will consider the number of times that the test was written;

An applicant’s work experience, extra-curricular activities and community involvement are important. The Faculty of Law encourages applications from persons who have been in the work force after university or who have come to university after their work experience;
An applicant should take care to provide the information requested in the Statement of Interest. The applicant should answer these questions:
- What led you to make the decision to apply to law school?
- What would you like to do with your law degree?
- Why are you interested in the University of Calgary in particular?
- Why you have made previous academic or other choices and how have they affected your decision to apply to law school?

There is no “right” answer to these questions. A Statement of Interest that provides a thoughtful and authentic sense of the applicant’s interests and motivations, even if it includes acknowledgement of uncertainty or ignorance, will be more persuasive to the reviewer than a Statement which tries to “tell us what we want to hear”.

Letters of reference should be from an academic source, and should never be from a friend or family member.

A form of rolling admission is used in that some offers and rejections are sent out before all the files have been read. This is one reason to have your supporting documentation in early. Once all of the applications have been evaluated and offers sent, there can still be a number of changes in the class during the spring and summer. As spaces become available, some applicants for whom a decision has been deferred will be selected and contacted with an offer. However, you should be aware that there is no pre-determined order given to this group.

Offers will be sent beginning in November; the majority of first offers will be sent by the middle of January. By the end of May, you should have received either a letter of offer, a letter of rejection or a letter asking you if you still wish to be considered if a space opens up. Successful applicants in all categories (ordinary, part-time, transfer, and letter of permission) are required to confirm, within a specified time period, their acceptance of an offer by sending a non-refundable $200 deposit, $100 of which will be applied to partial payment of their tuition upon registration.

To contact us about Admissions, email us at law@ucalgary.ca or phone us at 403-220-4155.