Hello there,
Been looking at colleges lately, and the University of Edinburgh looks like a pretty good bet for me. I was a pretty mediocre student for most of high school, so my GPA is about 3.55-3.6, and I didn’t do much outside of school. I picked up my socks a little recently, and my SAT scores are 2230 (790CR/660M/780W), with a 730 on Bio (taken last year) and much better results expected on US History (AP test or SATII) and Lit (SATII). UK schools, I’ve heard, don’t care about much outside of your test scores, and Edinburgh has a wonderful reputation in the field that I want to study.
However, I am still wondering if studying at a foreign university might damage my chances of getting into a top-tier US law school. Can anyone give me an opinion/info about this?
Not at all. Go for it. Edinburgh is sort of like Stanford and Notre Dame. Combination of high academics and high sports.
I didn’t think that it had much in the way of sports (that’s not really something I care about anyway).
I’ve also heard that UK universities don’t give out GPA’s, but you graduate with a mark on your degree announcing how well you did (first, upper second, etc.). Is it harder to get those than to get a good college GPA?
Law school admission is heavily dependent on your LSAT score. The bigger risk is changing your mind on grad school - lots of people go in with the intention of going to law school but then after more research realize its an over-saturated market/not worth the debt/not as glamorous as they thought.
What would “your field” be?
I hope you know what you want to study for your BA.
I’m intending to study history.
It won’t hurt you at all. You will want to get a ‘good’ degree (2.1 or 1st, but note that a 1st is harder to get than you might think). Look out for internships at law firms in both Edinburgh & London: they are offered during the Christmas and Easter breaks, as well as during the summer. They are competitive, but not ferociously so, and Edinburgh would be in the tier just below Oxbridge in terms of recruitment. As timetodecide12 notes, the LSAT will be key. Also, you will want a third non-science AP or SAT- ideally a history.