My New Mantra

Statement of Admission Policy To U of T Law School
The Faculty of Law seeks to identify and select a student body of diverse interests and backgrounds joined by a commitment to academic excellence and intellectual rigour and demonstrating unusual promise for distinguished performance at the law school, and, subsequently, in the legal profession and community. The law school is enriched and Canadian society is benefited by a diverse student body made up of students from various ethnic, racial, cultural and socio-economic backgrounds, from different regions of Canada, as well as from a range of academic disciplines, careers, and community and extracurricular experiences. The Admissions Committee, chaired by a faculty member and composed of the Assistant Dean, Students, faculty and third-year students, chooses those applicants whom it judges are likely to complete the program with the greatest intellectual return. The Faculty believes that the qualities of mind and personality necessary to satisfy its requirements are:
high intelligence,
sound judgment,
the capacity and motivation for demanding intellectual effort,
the capacity and motivation to engage in sophisticated legal reasoning, and
an understanding of and sensitivity to human interaction.
As evidence of these qualities, the Faculty looks to a number of factors. These include: academic achievement; Law School Admission Test (LSAT) score; nonacademic achievement; the response to disadvantage due to adverse personal or socio-economic circumstances or to barriers faced by cultural (including racial or ethnic) or linguistic minorities; motivation and involvement in academic and non-academic activities; and the impact of temporary or permanent physical disabilities. The Faculty seeks a diverse, stimulating and highly motivated student body. Thus, the Admissions Committee may also give weight to work experience, graduate study, outstanding accomplishment in a non-academic activity, and other special circumstances brought to its attention. While the Admissions Committee gives greatest weight to an applicant's cumulative undergraduate academic record and LSAT score, these other factors may, in some cases, play an important role in the admissions decision. For this reason, applicants are strongly encouraged to bring to the attention of the Committee the above mentioned factors in their PERSONAL STATEMENTS. Such factors will only be considered to the extent that they assist the applicant.