<p>Some majors are more rigorous and time consuming, which often results in a lower gpa - do law schools take this into account at all? Or is the poor 3.5 Chem Engineering sap gonna get rejected by top schools, while the 3.9 Leisure Studies major waltzes in? (no offense to leisure studiers, it's just not as rigorous as chemE)</p>
<p>Also, do they take into account how competitive your undergrad college was? does a 3.7 from an Ivy look an better than 3.7 from 4th tier school? Or is it really just GPA + LSAT, tossing aside all other factors?</p>
<p>It's just that, if GPA and LSAT are all that matters, then anyone set on getting into a T10 Law school can just go to Easy-Breezy University, take the easiest classes, bag a 4.0, and (assuming LSAT is good) stroll into Yale Law. I mean, it can't be as simple as just GPA/LSAT, right? or am I totally off base here...</p>
<p>Nobody can say for sure whether or not law schools give any slack to students from very rigorous majors. Anecdotal evidence indicates that students from very NON-rigorous majors, however, such as criminal justice, sports management, etc. do not fare as well. </p>
<p>As for whether or not undergrad reputation plays any role, once again, we only have anecdotal evidence. According to some, graduating from the top Ivy's like HYP or top LAC's like Williams, Amherst, or Swarthmore can give a slight boost.</p>
<p>thanks...so what if someone has an easier major (economics in my case), that doesn't look bad either, right?
what about work experience in the law field? does that give a little boost? thanks</p>
<p>Economics is not considered a fluff major. It's a well-respected field within the social sciences, so don't worry about that. </p>
<p>Work experience always helps, but the fact that yours is law-related isn't going to wow the admissions officers. In general, one should not expect extracurricular or work experience to give a significant boost unless that applicant has done something truly extraordinary (i.e. founding a non-profit, Peace Corps, Teach for America, etc.).</p>
<p>thanks
I don't even have law related work experience, but I'm planning on applying to top law schools, so I wanna know what it is that sets applicants apart...I mean everyone applying to the top 10 must have decent gpa/lsat</p>
<p>Law school admissions is heavily a numbers game. Many people applying to the top 10 law schools will have a decent GPA/LSAT but fewer will have a great GPA/LSAT. </p>
<p>Undergrad and major are going to be soft factors compared to your numbers. As long as you don't go to a very bad undergrad school (and even then you can overcome it for the most part with a strong LSAT/GPA) and/or don't have a super fluff major you should be fine.</p>
<p>oh ok. I don't attend an uber competitive college or have a difficult major, so I guess it plays out to my advantage. you go to NYU law? do you think being an NYU undergrad is detrimental when applying there? I'll probably end up applying there, assuming my LSAT is high enough.</p>
<p>I'm headed to NYU in the fall. Sorry but I dunno about what effect being an NYU undergrad has, but if it has any effect I doubt it would be substantial. NYU heavily focuses on the LSAT score (it's very rare for a non-URM to get in with below a 168). </p>
<p>Work on getting a good GPA and then I'd worry about studying for the LSAT summer after sophomore year or so. While obviously a 4.0 is ideal, aim for a 3.7.</p>
<p>IMHO, applying out of a university's undergrad to that university's law school can only play to your advantage. Otherwise, it should have a neutral impact. For instance, some people say that Harvard and Yale undergrads get a slight boost when applying to their respective law schools, as shown by allegedly lower-than-average stats of accepted students from those schools. But that's mostly hearsay and can't be corroborated. However, I've never heard of a law school actually DISCRIMINATING against applicants from the undergrad.</p>
<p>"However, I've never heard of a law school actually DISCRIMINATING against applicants from the undergrad."</p>
<p>I've actually heard this, once or twice (and admittedly, the source is not necessarily reliable, so I would take it with a grain of salt). The rationale behind this "discrimination" was something along the lines of schools wanting diversity (i.e. sending their ugrads elsewhere, getting ugrads from elsewhere) and wanting to avoid establishing an image of school nepotism. But, again, I would take this with a grain of salt at best.</p>
<p>I am convinced that story is told my undergrads of top colleges who aren't accepted at the law schools affiliated with the college. So, a Harvard College grad who ends up at UVa or Penn, etc.--also top law schools, but not as selective as Harvard Law--will claim that it hurt him to be from Harvard. </p>
<p>I don't think law schools actively discriminate in favor ot their undergrads, but LORS do matter. There is a difference between reading a LOR from a prof you know nothing about and reading one from a prof you know well. I do NOT mean the prof has to be famous. I mean that if the reader of the file knows the person who wrote the rec and thinks he has good judgment, his favorable comments will help you more than if the exact same comments were written by a prof who is wholly unknown to the reader. (Of course, there's always the possibility that the reader knows Prof. X and thinks he's an insufferable fool.) </p>
<p>In an article about law school admissions, one dean of admissions at a top law school admitted that recs from TAs/TFs hurt. He said that the admissions committee does read them, but if a third year Ph.D. candidate writes a rec for an undergrad saying "this is the best student I've ever had," it just doesn't have the impact of the same statement coming from a prof who has been teaching for 20 years. His point was that there were cases in which going for the LOR from someone who knows you better may not always be the best move. </p>
<p>Again, I'm NOT claiming that you have to get your recs from "big names."</p>
<p>thanks...the thing about law schools turning down their own undergrads was told to me by a Fordham undergrad who got rejected from Fordham Law, so that explains it lol</p>
<p>eh I still don't think it's cut and dry one way or the other. At UT-Austin, for example, it is harder to get into the law school if you go to UT for undergrad because there are 30k+ undergrads at UT and a good number of them want to stay in Austin. So many of UT's law-bound students will be applying to UT Law, but the law school doesn't want to fill its class with solely UT students.</p>
<p>that makes sense...similarly, NYU is a big school and many undergrads will want to stay in NYC, of course a lot of pre-law students dream of columbia/nyu law...</p>
<p>anyway i'm just trying to get some basic info about law schools, i'm not really worried about getting into the "elite" ones at this point because for all I know, I could end up with a 3.0 and 150 lsat.</p>
<p>also, I've heard most people just take the LSAT once - is it possible to take it more than once? would top schools take the best score between the 2 or average it?</p>
<p>According to LSAC, you may only take the LSAT up to three times within a two-year period. As for whether or a school will average multiple scores or take the higher (highest?) one, that depends entirely on the school. The link below isn't completely up to date, but is probably still pretty accurate. Also check out the LSAC link for more questions about the LSAT.</p>
<p>they still see both scores, but they evaluate based on the higher score. one school that takes the exception (i think) is NYU, which averages them when evaluating. :-(</p>
<p>
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they still see both scores, but they evaluate based on the higher score.
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</p>
<p>That is a gross generalization. It varies per school; so an interested person would do well to check with each of the schools he or she might be interested in.</p>