Kent Kuran (2L)
According to this year’s Undergraduate Admissions Report, after seeing applications fall 20% over three years, applications to U of T Law rose for the first time since peaking in the 2009/10 application year, which had followed multi-decade growth. The 11% rebound, to “precisely” 2,000 applicants, followed a move to a more “holistic” admissions process, and increased outreach by former admissions director, Neel Joshi. Ontario law schools as a whole saw applications decline by about 10% last year.
Meanwhile, the Faculty’s yield rate dropped 15% due to a jump in offers made, while the admission rate rose by 6%. Ben Alarie, Associate Dean of First Year and Chair of the Admissions Committee, explained that this was partly attributable to a rise in deferrals and a broader pool of Canadian applicants from outside Ontario. “The first step is to get them to apply,” he said at the October 8 Faculty Council meeting (the first of the school year). “Of course, the second step is to get them to come and land them.”
The incoming Class of 2018, for which students are currently applying, will be the first to have a curriculum fully approved across Canada, starting from first-year. Previously, each of the provincial law societies had their own rules for approving law degrees. As a result of this change, U of T is seeking to become more of a national law school, a newer concept in Canada than the US.
On whether cost pressures are a consideration for admittees, given the Faculty’s status as the most expensive law school in the country by a wide margin, Alarie did not believe it was a major factor. Instead, he speculated that the ongoing construction project, new first-year curriculum, and class beginning in August may have been factors. U of T Law is also competing with the rise of massive merit scholarships south of the border that make some top US schools less costly, if one has the grades and test scores. The school reported that some matriculants have turned down scholarships of up to $150,000—available for top students—at leading US law schools.
Alarie also continued a series of information disclosures about the incoming class, claiming that the “the class profile is improving very significantly,” backed by historical data from the past decade. Alarie credited Arnold Weinrib, who chaired the admissions committee for 44 years before stepping down at the close of the 2011-2012 academic year, for “improving the trajectory of academic performance” at the law school.
“We are about twice as selective compared to a decade ago,” said Alarie at the meeting. When asked how Toronto compared with top US schools, Alarie explained that “because of the size of U of T’s class [of 200 students] with a population one-tenth of the US, it is like comparing us to a US school that is top-ranked with 2000 students.” For perspective, Harvard, Yale, and Stanford had a total of about 940 students for the Class of 2017.
This year also saw “no one admitted with less than a 4-year honors bachelor’s degree.” While in the recent past, zero to one candidates were admitted without a degree, this year saw the category completely removed from the report.
Of note from the report were dramatic drops in engineering and math matriculants, from about fifteen total before the new admissions system was introduced (for the Class of 2016), to one each this year. “Arnold [Weinrib] probably admitted [more] than the data would support,” explained Alarie, who introduced a new system heavily based on data analytics when he assumed the committee’s chairship.
For the first time, the report also featured a racial breakdown of the class according to Statistics Canada definitions. (Note that students could choose more than one category.) For the entering Class of 2017, 3% self-identified as Aboriginal, 1% as Black, 1% as Latino, 5% as West Asian, 8% as South Asian, 15% as East Asian, and 64% as White. One percent chose “other,” and 3% chose not to report. The survey received a roughly 90% response rate.
