Colleges that transform undergrads into great writers?

[Anonymous]

Dickinson College. During first semester freshman year, all students are required to take a seminar that teaches them how to write. It is an excellent way to transition from high school to college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Denison

My sample size of two confirms this is accurate.

Seriously though, I think that most small SLACs tend to crank out great writers. I would look at a few and see if any are a good fit.

[Anonymous]

St. John's College

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Kenyon

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
No, not a silly question. Being a good writer as an attorney is a must. Being a great writer as an attorney puts you head and shoulders above. Anything that puts you in that second category is a HUGE plus.

And being a great writer in business, coupled with very good quantitative skills, makes you stratospheric.

Being a good LEGAL writer is a must. There are plenty of generically good writers who can't write like lawyers to save their lives. You need to understand the difference.

The question is can being a good writer helps you to be a good legal writer?

If you’re willing to unlearn everything you know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What do you mean by great writer? A novelist, or just someone who is able to write a grammatically correct email, Power Point presentation, or business plan? IMO, the best way to become a good writer is to read a lot.

OP here

Yes, fair question.....

DC, a HS junior, wants to pursue a career in law or business. So in that sense.

Well, according to DH none of his firm's new legal associates can write. So, presumably it is learned on the job.

Every lawyer has said that about every new batch of associates since the beginning of time. It is an apprenticeship tradition.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Top SLAC

Any SLAC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Top SLAC

Any SLAC.

A SLAC that depends on students' being happy with their grades (which is to say, any that's highly tuition-dependent) will let bad writers graduate. Not that motivated students won't learn to write -- their instructors will be happy to teach them -- but you can slide through if your parents make a phone call to the dean.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What do you mean by great writer? A novelist, or just someone who is able to write a grammatically correct email, Power Point presentation, or business plan? IMO, the best way to become a good writer is to read a lot.

OP here

Yes, fair question.....

DC, a HS junior, wants to pursue a career in law or business. So in that sense.

The best major for law school admissions is philosophy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What do you mean by great writer? A novelist, or just someone who is able to write a grammatically correct email, Power Point presentation, or business plan? IMO, the best way to become a good writer is to read a lot.

OP here

Yes, fair question.....

DC, a HS junior, wants to pursue a career in law or business. So in that sense.

Such a silly question for someone interested in law or business. If you want to pursue a career in law, get top grades in a good school and score well on the LSAT while majoring in whatever you want. If writing is a big deal to you, major in English or philosophy. If you want a career in business, go to a school with a good B-school.

No, not a silly question. Being a good writer as an attorney is a must. Being a great writer as an attorney puts you head and shoulders above. Anything that puts you in that second category is a HUGE plus.

And being a great writer in business, coupled with very good quantitative skills, makes you stratospheric.

Being a good LEGAL writer is a must. There are plenty of generically good writers who can't write like lawyers to save their lives. You need to understand the difference.

The question is can being a good writer helps you to be a good legal writer?

Yes, obviously. Legal writing is not that hard, IMO. You're quoting a lot of case law and rules to prove your argument.

the only undergraduate class that really helped me in this regard was symbolic logic because it made me thing about the structure of arguments. Law schools have writing classes and legal writing really doesn't have too much in common with writing for a history or philosophy class. I think if you wrote a history paper in the same format as a legal memo you'd probably get an F

Symbolic logic is a philosophy class. Writing philosophy papers is definition good preparation for legal writing.

http://www.nationaljurist.com/prelaw/classics-philosophy-majors-do-best-when-it-comes-getting-law-school#:~:text=Economics%20and%20philosophy%20majors%20had%20higher%20LSAT%20scores%20and%20GPAs%20overall.&text=Philosophy%20majors%20scored%20sixth%20best,of%20data%20provided%20by%20Muller.

https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.apaonline.org/resource/resmgr/Data_on_Profession/Philosophy_performance_on_LS.pdf

[Anonymous]

If you're a good writer, you can become a good legal writer. It's basically IRAC, and you don't have to be inventive. In fact, if you are inventive, the court will be less likely to rule in your favor, because winning arguments are built on precedent. There is very little new under the sun. You just have to be able to find it on Lexis/Westlaw. OTOH, in something like literary analysis, you're supposed to be inventive and not make arguments that are already made.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Top SLAC

Any SLAC.

There are some mediocre SLACs that do not have robust writing requirements.

[Anonymous]

High Point U, the life skillz university.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:High Point U, the life skillz university.

Good one. Uh, no.

[Anonymous]

Goucher