Best Universities/LAC's for Business/Pre-Law on the West Coast?

<p>Hey everyone! first post on CC here, so let me know if something's not right. I'm currently a junior in high school, and seriously looking at my college options. As of right now, I hope to go into corporate law in the future (I understand that you can major in pretty much anything for law as long as you have a good LSAT and GPA), and I am fairly sure I will be majoring in business, as I'm interested in the M&A side of law. </p>

<p>I am from the Pacific NW part of the US, and I was wondering what are good schools that are good for business, or just have good academics for preparing me for law school on the West Coast. I'm not against going East, but I wanted to examine my options closer to home first. As of right now, I'm taking a look into Occidental, the Claremonts (Pomona in particular, though I doubt I have a chance of getting in), LMU and USC. Let me know what you think!</p>

<p>Most LACs don’t offer business majors. In the Business Week rankings of undergraduate business programs, only 1 LAC (the University of Richmond) appears in the top 100.
(<a href=“Bloomberg - Are you a robot?”>Bloomberg - Are you a robot?)</p>

<p>If you want to major in business at a relatively small university in the BW top 40, regardless of location, consider the following (in order of BW rankings):
Notre Dame (8400 undergrads)
Washington U. St. Louis (7300 undergrads)
Emory (7800 undergrads)
Georgetown (7600 undergrads)
U Richmond (3400 undergrads)
Wake Forest (4800 undergrads)
Carnegie Mellon (6200)
William & Mary (6300 undergrads)
Lehigh (4900 undergrads)
Babson (2000 undergrads; this is a business school not a LAC)
Fordham (8400 undergrads)</p>

<p>If you want to major in business at a school West of the Rockies and in the BW top 40, regardless of size, then you have 3 options:
Berkeley (26K undergrads)
Brigham Young (28K undergrads)
USC (18K undergrads)</p>

<p>In case you want to consider a major other than business, consider these reflections on the best majors for law school:
<a href=“http://lawschooli.com/best-majors-for-law-school/”>http://lawschooli.com/best-majors-for-law-school/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Oxford College of Emory is Emory’s two year LAC. Students can take the prebusiness courses, and apply to Emory’s B-school either their first or second semester of sophomore year. However, Atlanta is very far from the PNW (although there are regularly scheduled flights to the area).</p>

<p>If you’re looking for a PNW LAC with a well connected business program, consider the University of Puget Sound’s Business Leadership Program. Strong mentoring opportunities and the Seattle area has a great deal of opportunities across a variety of industries. The University of Washington, University of Oregon, Willamette University (not nearly as strong as UO’s business program), and University of Denver (not West Coast, but culturally similar to Seattle) may also be worth considering. </p>

<p>If you want to major in an arts and science field (not business) at a LAC, preferably in the West, consider the following (in order of US News ranking):</p>

<p>Pomona
Carleton (Minnesota)
Claremont McKenna
Macalester (Minnesota)
Colorado College
Pitzer
Occidental
Whitman College
St. Olaf (Minnesota)
Willamette
Lewis & Clark</p>

<p>Another option would be one of the schools in the USNWR list of “regional universities (West)”, such as Loyola Marymount:
<a href=“http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/regional-universities-west”>http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/regional-universities-west&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Business tends to be among the most popular majors at these schools.
They generally are larger than LACs, but much smaller than state universities.</p>