lookingaround

Having absolutely no interest in biglaw I can't comment on any OCI issues - but on this broader point, I think you're severely overstating it. Vancouver, Calgary, and Toronto are probably the three places in Common-law Canada that that doesn't really apply to - they know they have a lot to offer, and people from outside want in. If you can accurately reproduce anything from the Visit <City> tourism website about why you can see yourself there long-term, you're sorted (I'd say as a concept & attitude it's also arguable for Montreal, but in legal profession that has a host of other issues around language/barreau/system, so will leave it off the list). The 'no connection is a problem' tends to be the places below that - whether they simply have an inferiority complex, or are genuinely limited in what they can offer, places like Edmonton and Winnipeg, Saskatoon or St John, are far more likely to ask someone who isn't from there and didn't study there, "Why should we believe that you're really committed to this place, and we're not just your I-need-a-job backup?" Which still isn't an insurmountable problem, but it's a greater onus to actually show why you want to be there (and there you might well want to have concrete things to point to, like 'I've visited frequently, my partner's family are from here, we always wanted to be here long-term, haven't applied for OCIs anywhere else'). For what it's worth, my summer job is in a 'Most people don't list it as their first choice' location that I had no links to, but in cover letter, interview, and since arrival, I could reel off the list of 'Sure I'm not from here, but look how it's just like where I grew up, within striking distance of in-laws, and perfectly matches my ideal lifestyle, here can I show you the pictures of my non-stop weekend having fun?' People being aware of flight-risk doesn't mean rejecting incomers, it means wanting to be confident that they're not wasting their time.

A 3.12 would be facing an uphill struggle at most places, but a 3.4 L2 (and presumably B2?) would certainly not be door closing at a number of schools. Realistically though, it comes down to your LSAT - which in your case is more important. 155? Probably looking at rejections. 170? Probably going to get some admissions. In a previous post you talked about Manitoba, Windsor, and TRU. Windsor and TRU are somewhat hard to predict as they look at things like references, personal statements, but Manitoba are a pure numbers school, and their formula is published (((GPA/4.5*50)+((LSAT-120/60)*50). I think recent years early admissions index has been 76.641, so if they think you have a 3.4, a 167 would get you a first round admit, and lower scores would come into play in later admissions rounds/waitlist. Bearing in mind that a 167 is something like 94th percentile, so only you know if that's a viable possibility for you or not.

That / and what's after it vitally changes the question. Do you want to work in the UK, or in another EU state? Are you a UK citizen, or a citizen of another EU state and if so which one? If you're saying "I'm a non-UK EU citizen who wants to study law in the UK" then if your citizenship is Irish, that might be a plan, putting you in the same boat as the tens of thousands of law grads the UK spits out annually. (and the same if your EU citizenship is British and you want to work in Britain). If your citizenship is, say, Greek and you want to work in Germany, then you're planning on learning different law in a country where you might not have the right to study post October, both of which would cause you all kinds of problems. General rule for law is that it's always best to study in the jurisdiction you want to work in. If you get your degree in another country, you will almost always have more courses, if not an entire new degree, to go afterwards. Any questions about studying or working in the UK post October come with inherent questions about whether or not non-UK and non-Irish citizens will be able to, as do plans which involve UK citizens living and working anywhere else.

If you consider going to another country, getting a degree with good grades, then being accepted to an LLMCL to meet NCA requirements "Canadian law schools relaxing the entrance requirements for international students" then... your words are so detached from normal use that they've become literally meaningless. On a total sidebar, I'm quite entertained with your four pages of passionately defending UK schools against all Canadian employers, to be suddenly coupled with an explanation that you think they're trash which shouldn't be eligible for NCA/postgrads.

University of Manitoba? Probably quite a lot. University of Manchester? I wouldn't imagine anything. University of Mongolia? Don't even know if that exists or not. You're gonna need to be more specific than "M". On what basis do you believe that Canadian law schools have "relaxed standards" for international students? Is there any evidence that GPA and LSAT standards are reduced? (I mean, the answer's of course not for either one, but there's actually two ways that could even mean, first people who aren't Canadian citizens/PRs so have to pay three times extra, and second people who happen to have an undergrad degree from another country regardless of their immigration status).

Okay..... ... I'm not clear if you think that in some way counters that no western Canadian school charges that much, or if you were just rhetorically remarking that you're getting hosed at eastern prices. Either way, your initial assumption that "I'm baffled at is the idea that some law students will only have 40-50k in debt. Let's assume tuition of $20k" is clearly founded on the unsafe assumption that all students will be paying at least $20k in tuition, and they won't (as vast numbers are paying far less than this, even before any scholarships, bursaries etc reduce it further).

According to your post history, going to school in Ontario (specifically, Toronto)?

I can tell you for damn sure I'd never have gone to school if I was going to come out of it with close to that level of debt. My working budget going in was a total expense of about $60k, some of which would be covered for everyone by working, and for some by bursaries, scholarships, savings. I know some of the Ontario schools have insane tuition, but nobody in western Canada is paying your tuition assumption. The closest is 10% below (TRU), and many of the schools are half that.

The LSAT is intended to be written by people in their early 20s with university education. A person who gets their highest score at 18 with no university training and who subsequently fails to improve from that point has either failed to take advantage of a additional years of brain maturity and comprehensive reasoning training that they would have by the point they would be expected to take it, or was exceptionally advanced and should have been doing university in their teens instead of high school.

It would be quite worrying if he didn't.

Vancouver and Calgary are regularly ranked as two of the most desirable cities in the world. Everyone has their own views on what they want in life, but I'm not sure "less desirable" is a good way to describe that set. Perhaps "places which are less immediately lucrative for those driven mainly by money", although with the cost of living difference even that wouldn't apply to Calgary (which has near-Toronto wages and lower costs).

You want to practice in BC. You've been accepted to a fantastic, and cheap BC school. Unless the good connections are literally every person you've ever loved, all of whom refuse to ever leave the city boundaries of Saskatoon, this is a pretty easy one... (sorry to be flippant. But it does look like an easy choice, unless there's something you've not told us)

Your professors will tell you what they want to see on the exam. I mean, literally. My class notes are littered with "On exam, make sure to put: <xxxxxxxx>". They explicitly say "I want to see on the exam <xxxxx>". The thing is, they don't all say the same thing. So you want to know what an individual professor who'll be grading you wants, not what a random professor in a different country twenty years ago didn't want. That's my critique after years of law school. Before I started, but after reading the book, my critique was "Okay, I get it, embrace ambiguity, do you have literally anything to say that isn't in the title?" I was expecting a lot more (like, give a question, give the C answer, the B answer, the A answer, explain what's good or bad - part of the problem with that expectation and probably why they couldn't do it is that in order to understand that, you need to have the skills you'll learn in first year law). If you're insistent on reading something, there are ebooks on Amazon that'll tell you what to expect from 1L in terms of the sorts of people, social events, activities and environments you might want to know about.

Some students, at any ability level, will opt-out of articling (eg they may decide during the degree that it's not for them, or they may be interested in a career path that doesn't require it). Those people likely won't be included (stats you're looking at will almost certainly be 'of graduates looking'). Of the remainder, the overwhelming majority get articles (or if they're in Ontario there's a non-articles articling solution). Is it harder for the students with worse grades? Sure. They'll have to work longer at selling themselves, and have less pick of positions. eg they may need to seek work in areas they don't want to live in, or in areas of law that they're not so interested in. You may (or may not) have an idea that some areas of law are 'easy' to get into, and if so then disabuse yourself of that because just about every area will have smart people who really want to get into it. I know you won't have much context to place this in, so don't take this as an attack, or assertion that you are thinking this, it's just an easy example - the local firm doing <law that you don't like> in Prince Rupert aren't sitting around going "Ooooh, there's a class-bottommer, quick, scoop them up!". They, like all firms, want the best they can get. but, with fewer applicants and a need to provide legal services, they may be more willing to listen to someone who can demonstrate 'my grades aren't fantastic, but here's the community involvement which matches perfectly against your practice areas, that I did while working full time and getting those grades, and I come from a small town and love the kind of lifestyle that that provides'.

I spent quite a lot of time hiking, I would have done more of that and added kayaking in. I wasted money on 'Getting to maybe', and wouldn't do that if I had a repeat.