Starting list for pre-law

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Another ancient 50 yo retired from law. I'll be Gram. I agree completely with Gramps.

Also agree with logical thought from CS or math being useful in brief writing. A math proof, in paragraph form. I dislike flowery writing that is not concise.

We have somewhat tried to dissuade our kids from law. Our advice for law school is T14 or bust. Not particular about which undergrad.

I would not go that far. Any T-25 school will give great options to strong students. The differences between Georgetown and UVA matter for the kids at the bottom of the class, but the kids at the top of the class from each will all be absolutely fine. Ditto for Texas, UCLA, etc.

[Anonymous]

You don't have to be that outstanding to go to law school. Tell your DC to enjoy life more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here’s the best advice for someone who wants to be pre-law. Take a year after college to work as a paralegal. If you still want to be a lawyer after that, you are likely to be happy with your career. So many lawyers are unhappy because they go to law school with little knowledge of what practicing law actually entails.

Gramps here.

This is very good advice. Many of the top law firms in DC hire freshly-minted, high achieving college grads (regardless of their major) for temporary stints (think 1-2 years) as paralegals. The pay is decent, and there's typically overtime. For some of these paralegals, the experience cements their desire to go to law school and work in Biglaw. For others, it doesn't dissuade them from law school, but steers them them into another direction in the profession (public interest, government, smaller firms, etc.).

For others, the experience sends them running for the hills.

I’m the pp. In addition, the paralegal can wind up with some good references and will have hopefully been able to put some money away to pay for law school.

If you mean good references for future employment, I guess they can help. By law firm references for paralegals for law school generally carry little to no weight, especially when it comes to elite law schools. Most make clear that they place much more value on references from college professors. See, for example: https://hls.harvard.edu/dept/jdadmissions/apply-to-harvard-law-school/the-application-process/application-components/#tab1-8

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Another ancient 50 yo retired from law. I'll be Gram. I agree completely with Gramps.

Also agree with logical thought from CS or math being useful in brief writing. A math proof, in paragraph form. I dislike flowery writing that is not concise.

We have somewhat tried to dissuade our kids from law. Our advice for law school is T14 or bust. Not particular about which undergrad.

I would not go that far. Any T-25 school will give great options to strong students. The differences between Georgetown and UVA matter for the kids at the bottom of the class, but the kids at the top of the class from each will all be absolutely fine. Ditto for Texas, UCLA, etc.

Gramps here. I tend to agree, especially if you're fortunate enough to graduate when the economy is good and the legal market is strong. I graduated in the late 1980s from a law school consistently ranked in the 18-25 range over the last 20 years and had no trouble getting job offers from very top firms. Admittedly, I was ranked very high in my class, but I far from the only member of my class who had no trouble. I've also noticed a trend over the years where more students from law schools in this range are getting top job offers than before -- probably because big law firms are really big now and the T14 simply don't produce enough graduates to fill them up.

This isn't to say that law school rank doesn't matter. It absolutely does, and the T14 will always give graduates a leg up. But I wouldn't consider attending a 15-25 law school as a career death sentence nowadays.

More than anything else, do NOT incur massive debt to go to law school no matter where you choose to go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Get the highest undergraduate GPA possible. Major is totally irrelevant. In fact, a Theatre major would stand out in a sea of polisci majors applying to law school

Supplement the high GPA with some kind of relevant interest that connects to law school. Like volunteer for a drama program that works with incarcerated people or with at-risk kids. Then write a personal statement about how this experience has been the inspiration for a career using the law to address societal iniquity

Get a 170+ on the LSAT

+1 don't worry about "pre-law" and study what DC is excited about and does well in

Going to a higher ranked college is a huge leg up as well, just in terms of the numbers of who is admitted to the same selective grad programs at those colleges

- HYS undergrad and law school grad here

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You don't have to be that outstanding to go to law school. Tell your DC to enjoy life more.

You don't, but you have to go to a good law school to get a good job in law.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Get the highest undergraduate GPA possible. Major is totally irrelevant. In fact, a Theatre major would stand out in a sea of polisci majors applying to law school

Supplement the high GPA with some kind of relevant interest that connects to law school. Like volunteer for a drama program that works with incarcerated people or with at-risk kids. Then write a personal statement about how this experience has been the inspiration for a career using the law to address societal iniquity

Get a 170+ on the LSAT

+1 don't worry about "pre-law" and study what DC is excited about and does well in

Going to a higher ranked college is a huge leg up as well, just in terms of the numbers of who is admitted to the same selective grad programs at those colleges

- HYS undergrad and law school grad here

HLS Class of 2024 has graduates of 171 colleges, many of which are "no name" schools. Yes, higher ranked schools are leg up, but you're overstating how much of a leg up they are.

https://hls.harvard.edu/dept/jdadmissions/apply-to-harvard-law-school/undergraduate-colleges/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Get the highest undergraduate GPA possible. Major is totally irrelevant. In fact, a Theatre major would stand out in a sea of polisci majors applying to law school

Supplement the high GPA with some kind of relevant interest that connects to law school. Like volunteer for a drama program that works with incarcerated people or with at-risk kids. Then write a personal statement about how this experience has been the inspiration for a career using the law to address societal iniquity

Get a 170+ on the LSAT

+1 don't worry about "pre-law" and study what DC is excited about and does well in

Going to a higher ranked college is a huge leg up as well, just in terms of the numbers of who is admitted to the same selective grad programs at those colleges

- HYS undergrad and law school grad here

HLS Class of 2024 has graduates of 171 colleges, many of which are "no name" schools. Yes, higher ranked schools are leg up, but you're overstating how much of a leg up they are.

Wow, it is the whole gamut.

https://hls.harvard.edu/dept/jdadmissions/apply-to-harvard-law-school/undergraduate-colleges/

[Anonymous]

On a list of SLAC’s in the Boston area, Babson College should be included. Often overlooked because it identifies as a business college, truth is that it’s a fabulous liberal arts education. There are business courses included in their core, but there’s nothing wrong with that. And because the college believes in collaboration, learning in teams, and developing problem solving and decision making skills, what students get out of their business courses is often much more than just business knowledge.

There are a number of non-business majors available at Babson, including Econ/Poli-Sci. Anyone choosing such a major will be taking 2/3 of their courses in Arts & Sciences, not business. Babson’s approach to teaching and learning is unique and innovative. The college is very selective, has about 2400 students, and has cross registration with Olin College of Engineering next door and Wellesley College 2 miles away, making fir a trial of 5200 students collectively in their 3-college consortium of highly selective colleges.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm a T-14 law professor and have served on our admissions committee. OP, major really does not matter. GPA and test scores matter.

Does anything other than GPA/LSAT matter? Like references, personal statements, ECs

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Get the highest undergraduate GPA possible. Major is totally irrelevant. In fact, a Theatre major would stand out in a sea of polisci majors applying to law school

Supplement the high GPA with some kind of relevant interest that connects to law school. Like volunteer for a drama program that works with incarcerated people or with at-risk kids. Then write a personal statement about how this experience has been the inspiration for a career using the law to address societal iniquity

Get a 170+ on the LSAT

+1 don't worry about "pre-law" and study what DC is excited about and does well in

Going to a higher ranked college is a huge leg up as well, just in terms of the numbers of who is admitted to the same selective grad programs at those colleges

- HYS undergrad and law school grad here

Correlation =/ causation. Few kids from a “bad” college are applying to top law schools anyway, hence fewer matriculating.

[Anonymous]

https://www.collegetransitions.com/dataverse/top-feeders-law-school
Best law school feeder schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:https://www.collegetransitions.com/dataverse/top-feeders-law-school
Best law school feeder schools.

Not this again. No. "Feeder" implies causation. Please let go of the feeder myth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:https://www.collegetransitions.com/dataverse/top-feeders-law-school
Best law school feeder schools.

This is very interesting. The top feeder list is roughly reflecting usnwr rankings with two exceptions, Yeshiva and Brandeis. What is special about these two t50+?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Strong writing ability is the most important criteria. He can major in anything. He has to be able to write a decent sentence, paragraph, and essay.

Law grad here. Pretty much agree with this. In my experience engineers struggled in law school, but math, econ, and hard science majors did not, for whatever reason. I’m not sure why that is really. Just anecdotal. Of the ones in my class who were Law Review (top 10% of class), we came from a mix. Private top 100(Usc, Vanderbilt, Gtown, Syracuse that I can remember), state schools like Wisconsin, UMass, W&M, and SLACS like Bowdoin, Holy Cross, Grinnell, Haverford, F&M. Those are the ones I can remember. There were 25-30 of us. PoliSci offered no real advantage. No major did that I can recall.

Funny, I remember a Villanova engineering grad in my grad program who could not write for shit. Poor grammar, poor structure. Other students called out his group emails and said he shouldn't write anything that represents the school - it was that bad.

OP, if he loves government, then that's a great major (poly sci at most schools). He might also try a few philosophy classes. It will really push his writing, and a class in logic might be interesting for him.

Ha! I disagree in that the engineering majors in law school seemed to grasp the concepts quickly, though they may not have been the best writers. My understanding is that engineering majors found the law school coursework easier once they got past all the reading. Law is not rocket science, but engineering can be rocket science.