Hi all! As you know, our deadline for admission is just a few days away. We are getting a lot of questions about very specific parts of admission to UVic Law. Here are a few notes for the last-minute applicants that might answer some questions.
- Transcripts: We ask for your unofficial transcripts when you apply. Please upload them to your application. You do not need to chase down your official transcripts for your application right now. We will let you know when and if we need your official transcripts. Please do not send them before we ask, as that just creates extra work for us and slows down our review process.
- Grade conversions: We get it; you want to know what your grades are in UVic language, so you want to do a conversion for our benefit. However, when people do their own grade conversions, the math is frequently off, leading to incorrect expectations. You are not required to try and convert your grades. In fact, the best thing to do with grade conversions is to let us do them. There is a lot that goes into them. We don’t consider some classes (performance-based and practicums, as well as second degree or graduate degree courses other than 300-400 level courses). We also discount some of your lowest grades, though the number varies, depending on the number of undergraduate units you completed.
- International applicants: Because a law degree is very specific to each country, we have very few international students who come to our school in any given year. If an international student is going to return to their home country and pursue a career as a lawyer, a Canadian law degree is not practical. If we do have an international student enrolled, it is usually the student’s intent to immigrate to Canada and become a permanent resident. Consequently, in recent history there have been no international students who have graduated with a UVic JD, obtained a work visa and then stayed to article in Canada. It is just not the normal practice. International students who become permanent residents before they graduate have the same opportunities for employment as Canadian students.
Applicants whose first language is not English and who have not completed a minimum of three full academic years of post-secondary study that was taught and assessed in English, must write the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL). Applicants who have written the TOEFL iBT need a minimum score of 100, with no less than 25 on each of the individual components. Those who have written the paper and pencil test need a score of 600 out of a possible 677. Applicants who do not meet these TOEFL minimums will not normally be admitted to the Law Faculty.
Our preference is for law applicants to write the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL). However, when applicants cannot reasonably take TOEFL and have already taken IELTS, we require an IELTS result of 7.0, but with no scores below 6.5 in the individual sections.
International students must pay differential tuition and fees that are over $47,000 (CDN) for an eight-month academic year. You can expect to pay over $141,000 for tuition and fees for the three-year degree, depending upon tuition increases each year. Other fees, books, and living expenses are over $22,000 for that eight-month period. Unfortunately, international students are not eligible for the majority of our entrance scholarships. As well, international students do not qualify for government financial aid or our bursary program.
- Transfer students: We usually accept between 15 to 20 transfer students each year and receive approximately 45-55 applications for those positions. In order to qualify as a transfer student, you must have completed or be in the process of completing the first-year requirements at your current law school in a common law degree program. You would also have to have met all eligibility requirements for admission to our first-year program. This would include having written the LSAT and having completed a minimum of 45 units of a program leading to a Bachelor’s degree prior to having started law school.
Generally, you would need a B average in first year law to be competitive.
The transfer option is only open to students who are currently completing a common law program. If you wish to apply to our first year JD program, you would still need to write the Law School Admission Test (LSAT). This requirement is not negotiable.
- Exchange transcripts: For exchange and international transcripts, use WES translation system. They should have their transcripts evaluated by WES and sent to us.
If the grading system is not easily transferable to the North American system, the grades will not be included in the GPA calculation.
You can look up grade conversions by country: https://www.wes.org/gradeconversionguide/index.asp