Hi everyone, so I am looking into these four colleges & I was wondering which you’d advise if I was going into pre-law,
I want to major in either political science, journalism, marketing/business management, or criminal justice
My options are:
- Bucknell (I love the 9:1 student to teacher ratio)
- Lafayette (Again, I love the small classes)
- The University of Rochester (good social sciences program)
- The University of the South: Sewanee (I really love the campus)
I prefer small classes because I ask a lot of questions. I have looked at their websites but wanted other POVs.
Thank you!
any of those four will get you to a top law school. Go to the place where you can thrive by earning A’s, and lots of 'em. GPA is much more important than college pedigree.
btw: Criminal Justice is not a highly a very rigorous major by top law schools, so choose one of the others. Add in some philosophy classes which will help you with critical thinking.
I agree that one’s undergraduate GPA is much more important than is school attended. I also agree with @bluebayou that majoring in criminal justice is unlikely to help one’s law school application. Additionally, taking a more intellectually challenging major should result in a better LSAT score.
Only one semester left to pay for D at Notre Dame. I wish we had realized that undergraduate GPA is important but where you go isn’t. If you don’t end up going to law school it will matter where you went
My D is applying this fall to law schools so we have some insight. She is a senior at Notre Dame with a 3.88 GPA and a 172 LSAT score. I think this year 172 puts you at the 99th percentile which is competitive for most T14 schools but probably not strong enough for Yale, Harvard, or Stanford - we’ll see in a few months. From what we can read and what we’ve learned by speaking with others who have gone through the admissions process where you go to school as an undergraduate is not that important at all. The criminal justice degree is viewed somewhat negatively as kind of a “trade school” major by law schools but other than that what you major in as an undergraduate is really not that important. Something you should consider though is what GPA you can achieve for a given major. Some engineering programs or other hard science majors are very difficult to achieve a high GPA on. D started as a math / poly sci double major and ended up dropping math after about 2 1/2 years. Her GPA wasn’t tanking but it needs to be extremely high to get into a prestigious law school and more than a few B grades can be a problem. What is different about law school admissions vs. undergraduate is that in many ways it is more straightforward - you either have the numbers or you don’t. Estimates vary but the LSAT is probably between 50% and 70% of what admissions decisions will be made on with your GPA being another 30% or so. Where you went to undergraduate is far, far less important than how you did academically. If you don’t end up going to law school of course, where you got your undergraduate degree becomes important. Of the 4 schools you are looking at the only one which I would question is Sewanee because I recall they had some financial difficulties and were very close to closing and because it probably does not have the same reputation for academic rigor that the other schools have. The other thing which we’ve been surprised by is that law schools give a lot of merit money, far more than undergraduate schools do. The sticker price can be $90K/year but strong applicants particularly those with killer LSAT scores can get $50K/year or more in merit money. If you have any other questions feel free to send me a PM
A 3.88/172 female has a great shot at Harvard. Ask for fee waivers, apply broadly and watch the money roll in.
Good luck.