5th Year of Undergrad?

[Boptation243 0]

Hi all,

I am currently in my third year of my undergrad at UofT. I've recently decided that I wanted to go law school and I am committed to doing so. If I finish with a 3.7 in my third and fourth year, this will bring my CGPA to a 3.27. Obviously, this is extremely low for law schools such as UofT and Osgoode (which is where I would prefer to go). I'm debating whether I should take a fifth year to try and bring my CGPA up. Has anyone been in a similar situation? If so, how was your experience and would you recommend me doing this? For L2/ B2 schools a 3.7 GPA would be fine based on my own research. Is it worth it for me to take a fifth year, or should I try my luck with L2/ B2 schools?

[CleanHands 1545]

Write the LSAT or at least do enough practice tests to get a sense of where you sit there, before investing in additional undergraduate coursework. Without knowing your LSAT score, an increase to GPA could be either unnecessary or futile.

[Luckycharm 1802]

3 minutes ago, Boptation243 said:

Hi all,

I am currently in my third year of my undergrad at UofT. I've recently decided that I wanted to go law school and I am committed to doing so. If I finish with a 3.7 in my third and fourth year, this will bring my CGPA to a 3.27. Obviously, this is extremely low for law schools such as UofT and Osgoode (which is where I would prefer to go). I'm debating whether I should take a fifth year to try and bring my CGPA up. Has anyone been in a similar situation? If so, how was your experience and would you recommend me doing this? For L2/ B2 schools a 3.7 GPA would be fine based on my own research. Is it worth it for me to take a fifth year, or should I try my luck with L2/ B2 schools?

write the LSAT first

[AJD19 253]

Doing another year to boost your GPA is no big deal. Gotta do what you gotta do. I did another year not in any specific program, and just took upper year classes I was interested in.

Edited October 21, 2020 by AJD19

[Boptation243 0]

14 minutes ago, CleanHands said:

Write the LSAT or at least do enough practice tests to get a sense of where you sit there, before investing in additional undergraduate coursework. Without knowing your LSAT score, an increase to GPA could be either unnecessary or futile.

 

12 minutes ago, Luckycharm said:

write the LSAT first

Planning on writing the LSAT summer 2021. I only asked this question now because I do not want my CGPA to hinder me regardless of my score.

[CleanHands 1545]

12 minutes ago, Boptation243 said:

 

Planning on writing the LSAT summer 2021. I only asked this question now because I do not want my CGPA to hinder me regardless of my score.

If you get a 178 you won't need to raise your GPA. If you get a 140 you'd still be screwed with a 4.0 cGPA. Hence nobody can give you any reasonably competent advice without an LSAT score.

[lawstudent20202020 445]

No, it's not worth it at all.

There is very little an extra year of of undergrad is going to do to boost your GPA in a significant way. That's the thing with averages, they are robust. Napkin math, assuming a 4.33 scale, if you get a full course load of A+ grades, your cgpa goes up 0.2 points. An extra year of tuition plus lost opportunity is a large price to pay for such a small increase. That's assuming you Ace every single course, your stats suggest that you won't. Odds are you go through all that and see an non-significant change in your gpa. Your time is better spent getting your best outcome on the LSAT.

The good news, it sounds like you aren't hellbent on any specific school and you have a competitive l2, combine that with a good LSAT and you will be able to go to law school.

 

[deliciouskiwi 41]

I'm pretty sure that if you were to take the amount of effort, time, and resources spent into doing a whole other undergraduate year into the LSAT, you could come out with a killer score that would outshine a lower (c)GPA at many schools.