<p>Hello everyone! I will be going to college in fall 2012 and I have a few places to choose from. So far I have been accepted to University of Colorado Boulder, Puget Sound (with a 20k/yr scholarship) , Cal Poly SLO, and UCSC. I have pretty much narrowed it down to Cal Poly SLO and UCSC though. I will be studying liberal arts at both colleges, with the goal of going to law school after college. My question is, which school would be the better option? Cal Poly SLO has a better name but i feel like it is mostly for engineering, whereas people say UCSC is a "bad" UC but it still has the UC name and in my opinion it is not bad. Which school would give me the best chance for getting into a top 20 law school? I plan on working very hard in college and getting a good gpa. or is a CC the best route since most of my top choices rejected me?</p>
<p>lol why aren’t you going to PS? </p>
<p>UCSC is better than Cal Poly for English. Lol. They’re so mean to their liberal arts majors over there!</p>
<p>Well not necessarily english, at cal poly i would be a history major, at ucsc undelclared liberal arts. maybe poli sci.</p>
<p>Good GPA and high LSAT score are highly important, of course.</p>
<p>Note that lists of LSAT score averages by major tend to show math/physics and philosophy/religion major groups as being among the highest scoring.</p>
<p>Don’t forget to consider net cost. Law school is expensive, so bringing a lot of undergraduate debt along is not a good idea.</p>
<p>:o why are you not accepting that nice $$$ package?!</p>
<p>They would be equal to law schools.</p>
<p>well i live in cali so even with the scholarship p.s. is still a little bit more than ucsc, and p.s. is pretty far. also i dont think p.s. is as prestigious as the other 2, but please correct me if i am wrong. i do plan on working mytail off in college but my question is, which college will leave me with the best options? (assuming i do well wherever i go, high gpa & high lsat)</p>
<p>The question is where do you want to spend the next several years of your life? Waverly is an experienced poster and says that the schools are equal to law schools. I’ll take that as a truth.</p>
<p>If you want to be a public defender or work for the ACLU, or activist causes such as Green Peace or Amnesty International as an attorney go to UCSC.</p>
<p>If you want to work in business, trademarks/patent, technology or other areas of law that require interaction with other professionals such as finance then go to Cal Poly.</p>
<p>Law schools only care about gpa (and lsat). Prestige of undergrad is a non-factor: Puget Sound is just as good as Boulder which is as good as SLO which is as good as a UC.</p>
<p>But I have to strongly disagree with OsakaDad’s last two paragraphs (which just make no sense). You can be a enviro-tree hugger-Occupy type at any college. And you can interact with business types at the most liberal of colleges.</p>
<p>Working for the ALCU or public defender’s office, for example has nothing to do with undergrad college. But attending a top LS will matter to the ACLU or PD’s office.</p>
<p>Yes, attend the college where you would want to spend the next four years, AND a college that offers other options should you change your mind about LS and/or history major.</p>
<p>Couple of other factors: SLO has an extremely low four-year grad rate (23%) so you will need to budget for a fifth year. (And a 5th year will be frowned upon by top law schools since most of their students – your competition – graduate in 4 years.)</p>
<p>SLO is definitely big on engineering, architecture biz, and ag sci. Those four disciplines account for 2/3rds of the student body. SLO only has ~40 history grads each year, so the course offerings for YOU will be slim.</p>
<p>For liberal arts itself, UCSC is the clear choice between your two finalists. (But again, the only thing that matters for a top Law Schools is gpa…)</p>
<p>hi – GPA and LSAT matter, but GPA will be weighted depending on the reputation of your undergrad school. Rumor has it that Berkeley law school (one of the best law schools) was sued a few years back and had to disclose the “adjustment factors” they applied to different GPAs. (Swarthmore College, known for grading hard, supposedly had the highest one.) Law schools aren’t stupid. They won’t equate a 3.7 GPA from MIT with a 3.7 from XX community college. </p>
<p>But please, make sure that you actually want to go to law school first. The originator of this thread seems convinced… but familiarize yourself with lawschoolcure.com before getting too far along in the planning process.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Incorrect. A 4.0 from Podunk State will beat a 3.6 from a UC every time (with the same LSAT and absent a hook).</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Also incorrect. The backlash against Boalt was more political than anything else because it was blatant that they were significantly disadvantaging Cal State students under its previous policy (which was ~15 years ago). They no longer adhere to such an undergrad ranking system.</p>
<p>@ bluebayou – Thanks for calling me out! My comment about UCSC and Cal Poly were purely based on my personal bias. It was late and hey, I am only human…</p>