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Special Considerations

Faaabs93Faaabs93 Alum Member
edited August 2015 in General 82 karma
So I'm starting to prepare my law school applications, and I have a question about bringing up "special considerations". For myself, it has to do about my cGPA being on the lower side while my L2 is above the average for all of the law schools I'm concerned with. Keep in mind that I am Canadian/applying to Canadian schools.

In particular, from gr.12 up to about the end of my second year of university, my father was overcoming a disease that would render him bedside for several days. I went to school away from home, and on weekends I often traveled back home to help take care of my brother, whom has spina bifida and is a paraplegic. I'm a first generation student and the son of immigrants, so my father and mother always wanted to make sure I succeeded in school so I could fulfill my dream of going to law school, as they didn't have the economic resources to go to post-secondary. Thankfully, my father fully recovered when I was entering my 3rd year. Thus I no longer had weight on my mind, and didn't go home as much to help out. My grades drastically increased.

Now are schools going to require medical documentation of bother my father and brothers conditions? Will they require bus/train receipts to show that I actually went home a fair amount? Or are special considerations done more so on the honour system, where I won't have to provide any documentation? This adversity will mostly be described in my Personal Statement.

Getting notes from a doctor will be no problem, just we have no actual documentation saying that his disease went away. Also, things like travel receipts will be near impossible to obtain.

Thanks for the assistance!

EDIT: Incase it's not clear, going home to take care of my brother rendered me with not a lot of time to do work. And obviously knowing that your family cannot sustain itself because your father is bedridden brings an emotional burden alongside it as well that made it hard for me to focus.
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Comments

  • inactiveinactive Alum Member
    12637 karma
    I think it's best to get as much documentation as you can, but I'm not 100% sure they will consider this a special consideration. You may want to contact someone about it at the school(s) of your choice.
  • Faaabs93Faaabs93 Alum Member
    edited August 2015 82 karma
    Hmm, I'm just sort of wondering if it's even worth explaining and getting the documentation. Like my cumulative isn't THAT bad, but there is a huge jump between my first two and last two which is explained by this.

    Just don't know if it's even worth explaining or not, regardless of if I'm taken under 'special considerations' or just a general applicant.
  • PacificoPacifico Alum Inactive ⭐
    8021 karma
    If you were applying to an American law school I would say just a short addendum would suffice. AFAIK we don't really have a separate class of applicant here like the kind you are describing, but I couldn't imagine you would need to provide all that stuff up front. I would think a brief explanation would be good in most cases and then maybe certain schools would ask for more information. But as Dillon said, this is something you can easily call any admissions office and ask how to proceed.
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