We know there is a lot of speculation this time of year about whether or not any given applicant will get into UVic Law. What are my odds, we hear a lot. Truthfully, if you’re looking at numbers alone, the odds aren’t great. For 2025, we received 1357 applications for roughly 125 seats (100 JD and 25 JD/JID). If your math is mathing, you know that’s around a 9.2% applicant to incoming class rate. However, there is good news in that.
- Not everyone who is made an offer will start in the next incoming class.
The 9.2% figure doesn’t really mean a lot because of the movement that will happen on the waitlist. Not everyone who is made an offer at UVic Law will become a student the next year. Some people decline their offers right away; they’ve received other offers or have decided UVic Law isn’t a good fit. Others take a bit to decide; they may be waiting on an event to happen that will affect their decision. Still a few others really want to start in the next incoming class but won’t be able to make it work and will need to withdraw their acceptance later. How much movement there is from the waitlist to the offer list varies every year.
- There is no quota in any of our admission streams.
We don’t aim for our class to be 20% Inclusive, for example. What we DO aim for is having highly qualified applicants with a diverse make-up in our incoming class, however the percentages by admission stream may fall. By not setting quotas, we give ourselves a lot of space to make reasoned decisions on who gets made an offer in our applicant pool. It allows us to consider each application, the merits of it, the qualifications and lived experiences of the applicant, and so on. If you are made an offer, it’s because we really believe you are a good fit for UVic Law and that you will succeed.
- Throw all of that out the window.
If you’re one of those, there is no math, only vibes people, this might be music to your ears. There is definitely a percentage of people who apply to UVic Law who actually become part of the incoming class. However, there is so much more to it than that. What was your LSAT score? What was your cumulative GPA for your first undergraduate degree (minus performance-based classes and practicums)? How well did you follow the instructions of the admissions requirements? How strong, concise, and logical was your personal statement (or other statements)? Was your statement one of the ones that would have made us laugh, cry, or feel like you were going to change the world? Or did it just read like a resume? Did you apply early on in the application cycle, or did you wait until the clock was ticking the last seconds towards the deadline?
The reality is that there is so much more to admissions, particularly to UVic Law, than a number. Odds are a really peculiar concept to us because you aren’t reduced to just a number here. You are the sum of all of the parts of your application.
If you don’t get an offer this year, will your odds increase next year? Well, that depends on a lot of things as well. My best advice to you is to wait until the incoming class has actually formed. That will give our admissions team some time to breathe and consider things a bit. Then reach out to us. We’d be happy to talk to you about your application at that point – whether re-applying next year makes sense or what you can do to strengthen your application.