Does the reputation of an undergrad school affect admission to law school?

<p>"The purpose of having human beings is to realize that Electrical Engineers work harder than liberal arts majors, and then adjust the admissions according to the applicants' long term potential." </p>

<p>I doubt you'll find anyone who would second that view.</p>

<p>They're looking to put together a class of people who've demonstrated the willingness to work hard enough to succeed in law school and in the legal profession. They're looking for a group of people with a diverse set of academic and other experiences that will facilitate interesting classroom discussion on a variety of topics; such groups which will typically include a few engineers. Adcoms are looking for people with the high tolerance for ambiguity that's required for the study and practice of law (which might tip the balance against some graduates of engineering school).</p>

<p>Once we all stop viewing adcoms as surrogates for St. Peter, a lot of the sting goes out of the experience of being rejected. They're putting together a class of future lawyers, not rating the merits of their applicants as a human beings.</p>

<p>I work for a company that employs hundreds of people with Ph.D.'s in electrical engineering. I have immense respect for what they can do. Their minds function brilliantly in areas where mine does not. If you'll permit me to eschew false modesty for a moment, I'll admit that experience has lead me to conclude that the converse of that statement may be true as well.</p>

<p>Not every lawyer is extraverted, but a sizable majority of them are. Engineers do not have that reputation. (There's a joke I've heard that I offer not to hurt anyone's feelings, but to illustrate the reputation: An extraverted engineer is one who stares at <em>your</em> shoes when he talks to you.)</p>

<p>LOL to Greybeard's joke.</p>

<p>So, I guess a lot of this debate hinges on what "qualified" means - is it the hardest working person? Highest GPA? Most able to contribute something different to the class? Most experience with hard, intense workloads? IMO, each law school will answer that question differently, leading to very odd admissions results when non-standard types apply (older students, engineers, high GPA/low LSAT or the reverse).</p>

<p>Well, a bunch of you seem to have missed the point. Whatever you might think of the real purpose of the law school adcoms, I think we can all agree that what the purpose is not is to simply rubber-stamp what the numerical stats of what the various applicants will tell you to do. </p>

<p>Case in point, I think we can all agree that law-school admissions are very numbers-oriented. Jonri has said that, ariesathena has said that, in fact, everybody on this discussion forum has all agreed with the basic truth of that statement. Does anybody care to disagree? In fact, jonri has said on another thread that law-schools admissions are about 80% numerically oriented. </p>

<p>Hence, my point is, if you're going to make law-school admissions 'mostly' numbers-oriented, you might as well make it purely numerical oriented. After all, if jonri is correct (and I think he is) that numbers comprise 80% of the admissions, then might as well make it 100% of the admissions. After all, honestly, how much difference is there between an admissions process that is 80% numbers and one that is 100% numbers? Is it really all that worthwhile to have human beings in the process if they're there only to deal with that 20% of the admissions that are not numbers-based? </p>

<p>And so that gets back to a lot of the objections on this thread. It has been said that adcoms are out to put together a group of people who have diverse interests and experiences and who will facilitate lots of class discussion and all this high-falutin idealistic stuff. But that doesn't jive with what we all know to be the truth - which is that law-school admissions are mostly based on high grades and high LSAT scores, unless one is saying that high grades and high test scores are necessarily correlated with diversity and good class discussions, which is not a proven assertion by any means. </p>

<p>Hence, here's my take. If you believe that law school adcoms are really out to spread diversity and encourage class discussion, then you should be criticizing how admissions are currently run, with its strong orientation towards people with good stats, without much regard for diversity or anything of that nature. However, if you believe that the numbers-orientation of the current state of affairs is a good way to go, then you should believe that the process ought to be 100% numbers-oriented, and so human beings should be pulled out of the process completely. Either way, the current state of affairs deserves to be criticized.</p>

<p>"Is it really all that worthwhile to have human beings in the process if they're there only to deal with that 20% of the admissions that are not numbers-based?" In my view, yes.</p>

<p>Robert Sullivan (a professor at Yale) wrote the following about YLS's admissions process in the Connecticut Law Tribune last August: "...let me tell you how it works at Yale Law School. The admissions office gets thousands of applications for a class of 180. Less than 1,000 of these get read by faculty members. Each of us reads the files of 50 applicants and all of them have exceptional credentials. Good is not good enough. If it were up to me, I would accept about 40 of my 50 files, but, based on the scoring system, I can give the top grade to approximately 20 and, of these, only a few will be offered spots."</p>

<p>The 80% factor we were talking about happens largely in selecting which applicants even get read. if they're not close to the threshhold, an acceptance won't be forthcoming. Past that threshhold, the human element plays a large role. The top schools get so many applications, they can select a diverse class (in every sense of the term) from those who pass this numerical threshhold.</p>

<p>I've gotta agree with Greybeard. Sakky is creating an artificial dichotomy that doesn't really exist -- there are plenty of people from different regions and backgrounds that have good numbers. And just because you're okay with admissions being largely numbers-based doesn't mean you have to believe it should be 100% numbers-based. </p>

<p>P.S.: I believe the proper term is "jibe", though you may very well think the current system is "jive". ;^)</p>

<p>"So, I guess a lot of this debate hinges on what "qualified" means - is it the hardest working person? Highest GPA? Most able to contribute something different to the class? Most experience with hard, intense workloads? IMO, each law school will answer that question differently, leading to very odd admissions results when non-standard types apply (older students, engineers, high GPA/low LSAT or the reverse)."</p>

<p>Clearly a relevant Q. I would add that being "qualified" probably also means being able to thrive and fully benefit from the education, meaning being best able to fully comprehend and apply the concepts involved. (Which some of your factors would relate to.) </p>

<p>It obviously can't be just how hard someone has worked -- ditch diggers work very hard, but won't always benefit from a legal education. </p>

<p>And it also shouldn't just be how bright you are -- if your record indicates an unwillingness or inablity to exert oneself, you still won't get much from the education, or do much with it. </p>

<p>Probably a combination of the two is most important, which is what LSAT and GPA are really supposed to measure. </p>

<p>In my opinion, GPA should in fact be measured more carefully, though. If there is a good way to determine what a GPA really means in different majors (by using class rank, etc., instead), then schools should obviously do so.</p>

<p>"I don't think that law school admissions properly accounts for engineering GPAs. There are two things that, IMO, should happen to evaluate engineering applicants: bump up their GPAs to account for the lower mean from engin. grades, and bump up for the fact that engineers tend to work harder. An electrical engineer and an English major might both be dead at the middle of their classes - and one would have a 3.4 and the other would have a 2.9. At least at my alma mater, the engineers had better stats (SATs and class rank) coming in than the liberal arts. So there should be a bump for that. Finally, engineers just plain work harder. I was a double major - frankly, I think I'm pretty qualified to make the comparison... and there just is no contest. So, IMO, admissions might give a slight edge to engineering applicants, but I don't think that it's enough."</p>

<p>I agree that schools should account for a lower mean. However, I don't think you can give a double value to engineering, unless you have clear evidence of higher entering SAT's, etc. You may well feel that engineering material is more difficult, but the mean adjustment would seem to control for that. </p>

<p>"Deviating slightly - the "some engineers don't do well at liberal arts" point is kind of a red herring. Again, double major here - engin. is just plain hard. I don't think that my brain for foreign languages is better than my brain for science (in fact, the opposite is probably true!), but the classes are just easier. Disagree at will, but take them both concurrently and you will probably change your mind."</p>

<p>I'm not so sure. I think people are just cut out for different things. I certainly know engineers that couldn't ace their liberal arts classes, and that would be screwed in most foreign arts classes. </p>

<p>"IMO, admissions officers at law schools aren't wilfully ignorant about engineering, nor have they studied it extensively. Roughly 1% of l.s. applicants are engineers - honestly, do you really think that they can properly analyze how well they perform in law school and adjust accordingly? I've heard, anedoctally, that engineers often perform the best because of the type of thinking involved (inductive and assimilating a lot of information), but their writing skills are often rusty (not bad - just rusty - not enough of that in engineering). While l.s. admissions people are professionals, they are also liberal artists. I doubt that many (if any) of them took a single engineering or science class beyond that required for distribution courses. Do you think they can properly analyze, from experience, how hard the major is? It's not that they are bad or ignorant people so much as a lack of exposure. Finally, there might be differences between engineering disciplines - an environmental engineer, with a more broad background and more project-type courses, may perform better than a computer engineer who spent four years writing code."</p>

<p>I'm not sure if anyone who hasn't studied a given major can really determine the difficulty level. But I do think that engineers overall are probably weaker in both reading and writing than most liberal arts majors. Both skills of course, are important in law school, and the law. </p>

<p>If engineering really develops the requisite thinking skills, this should give them a corresponding advantage on the LSAT, which of course is far more important than GPA. (Though I've known engineers who struggle with the exam, probably because they don't do as much reading in their major.)</p>

<p>"Here's a further point. Again, while I don't necessarily agree that the Boalt indexing rating was built out of who tends to get the higher law school grades, let's presume that that is in fact the case. And in fact, let's presume, for the purposes of this post, that as a general principle, law schools are admitting people based on who they think will get the highest law schools grades. Presuming that all of that is true, then I have to ask, why is that desirable? Is the purpose of law school admissions to get the student body who is going to get the highest law school grades?</p>

<p>Case in point - I think that with the exception of a few law subspecialties (most notably academic law and judge clerkships), all practicing lawyers can attest to the fact that law school grades are, at best, only moderately correlated with success as a lawyer. For the vast majority of lawyers, practicing as a lawyer bears little relationship with being a law student. I don't think I really need to belabor this point too much, because I think it is fairly self-evident."</p>

<p>There are certainly plenty of people who decry the importance of law school grades (especially those who don't do well in law school!). </p>

<p>But law school grades certainly help tell us who learned the material well, and who can apply it. By doing so, they appear to be a decent (if imperfect) measure of who is getting the most from their legal education. </p>

<p>And adcoms presumably should be focused on those who will get the most from their legal education. </p>

<p>Moreover, if law school grades were really completely unrelated to success in the legal profession, it's unclear why law firms would focus so heavily on them. Presumably, these profit-driven actors would make enlightened decisions. </p>

<p>Overall, I would say that law school grades reflect the same qualities indicated by LSAT/GPA: your willingness to exert yourself, and your abliity to understand and apply the relevant concepts. (This is probably why LSAT/GPA is a decent predictor of law school grades.) Both these qualities are important factors in legal practice, which is probably why firms value grades. </p>

<p>"Hard work is not really rewarded by the adcoms. If that's blunt, then so be it."</p>

<p>I would disagree with this statement, because the whole purpose of looking at GPA (which does matter somewhat) is to measure/reward hard work. </p>

<p>I would agree that hard work is measured very imperfectly by adcoms, though this is a very different concept. As noted, adcoms would ideally focus on class rank, undergrad admission criteria, and entering student criteria for different majors instead of pure GPA. </p>

<p>It's certainly possible that USNews, etc., is causing schools to be more superficial in their grade examination than they should be. It's also possible that simple logistics makes further inquiry into grade value difficult. But I do think that law schools realize they have a vested interest in producing succesful attorneys, and this is probably the key undercurrent running beneath much of their admissions policy.</p>

<p>Cardozo said: "However, I don't think you can give a double value to engineering, unless you have clear evidence of higher entering SAT's, etc."</p>

<p>My alma mater is pretty explicit about engineering students having better grades and SAT scores. The year I entered, liberal arts averaged the top 9% of their h.s. class, while engin. was top 6%. SAT scores are something I dont' remember off the top of my head, but verbal tends to be pretty similar, and math is much higher for engineers. </p>

<p>That backs up the general philosophy that engin. programmes are harder to get into. I believe in the double bump - you work harder for worse grades (and against a slightly more intelligent/talented/whatever group of students).</p>

<p>Keep in mind that this was just your school, though, and the (high school GPA) difference, at least, doesn't appear to be that significant. </p>

<p>To the extent that any program DOES have clear evidence of more rigorous entrance standards, law schools should certainly take that into consideration, to an extent proportionate with the actual differential in requirements. That, along with any difference in mean grade, should then be used to calculate an "accurate" comparative class rank. </p>

<p>I'm not sure how anyone could argue with that. </p>

<p>However, in the absence of actual evidence, we can't simply assume this to be true of all, or even most, schools. There were certainly plenty of dumb engineers at my school.</p>

<p>Well, I would argue that I think it is not just at ariesathena's school. Berkeley (which I don't think ariesathena went to) is highly explicit about the fact that the average engineering student enters with a higher GPA and SAT score (including the SAT-verbal)than do Berkeley liberal arts students do. The same is true for UCLA, and in fact, it is true for most schools that run separate admissions tracks for engineering students and non-engineering students. The evidence seems to be fairly clear. All you have to do is examine the admissions data at, at least, the UC schools. </p>

<p>And to the point that law schools have a vested interest in producing successful lawyers, well, I think that while that is true in theory, the reality is that that incentive is weak at best. AFter all, if you are an admissions officer, then the fact that you admit a class of students that is unusually strong or unusually weak won't come to light until years, possibly decades after the fact, and by then, you're probably not working there anymore anyway, so what do you care? On the other hand, if you admit a class that has an unusually low GPA or LSAT score thus causing the ranking of the law school to drop, then the Dean of the law school (who is your boss) is going to want an explanation immediately. In other words, the feedback mechanism for insuring that the adcom really is bringing in what is truly the best future group of lawyers that they can get is weak at best. It is something akin to those CEO's who manipulate short-run earnings to make themselves look good, at the detriment to the long-run health of the company, figuring that, hey, in the long run, he's not going to be running the company anymore anyway, so who cares what happens then? That's the next CEO's problem. All that matters is goosing short-run results. </p>

<p>And besides, Cardozo, we aren't talking about anecdotal anomalies there. You say that some engineers out there would be screwed in an arts class. Of course. On the other hand, I could point to some guys who are wizards in liberal-arts classes who can't handle law classes to save their lives. The point is not to look at a few isolated data points, but rather to look at where the trends lie. The fact is, the trend indicates that engineering students tend to be extremely hard working. Not all of them, true. But the trend is clear. And hard work is a key asset, arguably the most key asset, to doing well in law school. Let's face it. On average, liberal arts students are not as hard-working as engineering students are. We can all come up with isolated exceptions, but the trend is clear. This is particularly so for those students who do well enough to get into top law schools - the engineering students with top grades in general worked significantly harder than did the liberal arts students with top grades, on average. We can also talk about some dumb engineers, but the fact is, we all know that there are far far more dumb (and extremely lazy) liberal arts students. It's all about where the data points congregate, not where a few isolated data points lie.</p>

<p>"Well, I would argue that I think it is not just at ariesathena's school. Berkeley (which I don't think ariesathena went to) is highly explicit about the fact that the average engineering student enters with a higher GPA and SAT score (including the SAT-verbal)than do Berkeley liberal arts students do. The same is true for UCLA, and in fact, it is true for most schools that run separate admissions tracks for engineering students and non-engineering students. The evidence seems to be fairly clear. All you have to do is examine the admissions data at, at least, the UC schools." </p>

<p>As noted, if a school has clear evidence of a differential in admissions for different programs, that should certainly be taken into account, along with the program mean, when assessing the value of grades from that program. Similarly, the differentials in admissions at different schools should be taken into account, along with the school mean, when assessing the value of grades.</p>

<p>But you can't simply assume this is always the case in the absence of clear evidence. And, of course, liberal arts majors at many schools will have higher admissions criteria than engineers at many other schools. </p>

<p>"And to the point that law schools have a vested interest in producing successful lawyers, well, I think that while that is true in theory, the reality is that that incentive is weak at best. AFter all, if you are an admissions officer, then the fact that you admit a class of students that is unusually strong or unusually weak won't come to light until years, possibly decades after the fact, and by then, you're probably not working there anymore anyway, so what do you care? On the other hand, if you admit a class that has an unusually low GPA or LSAT score thus causing the ranking of the law school to drop, then the Dean of the law school (who is your boss) is going to want an explanation immediately. In other words, the feedback mechanism for insuring that the adcom really is bringing in what is truly the best future group of lawyers that they can get is weak at best. It is something akin to those CEO's who manipulate short-run earnings to make themselves look good, at the detriment to the long-run health of the company, figuring that, hey, in the long run, he's not going to be running the company anymore anyway, so who cares what happens then? That's the next CEO's problem. All that matters is goosing short-run results."</p>

<p>Clearly, schools are concerned with their rankings. This is one reason they focus on LSAT/GPA. But let's keep in mind that the reason LSAT/GPA is important in the rankings is because they generally denote a strong student body. So the focus on numbers is about producing a strong class as much as pure ranking concerns. (If you really don't think the admissions people at most schools care about the long-term health of their school, which will be strongly affected by the quality of their alumni, both in terms of reputation and contributions, then I think you're mistaken. These are long-term positions for most adcoms.) </p>

<p>Of course, of the two factors (LSAT/GPA), LSAT is weighed far more heavily than GPA (in both rankings and admissions), which makes sense given that LSAT is a better (and more objective) predictor of LS aptitude and success. And there's no reason to believe the LSAT unfairly discriminates against engineers. If anything, this concern is a reason to weigh the LSAT even more heavily. </p>

<p>And there's also no question that it makes more sense to choose people with higher GPA's, once other factors are controlled for. The only question here is how best to control for those other factors. </p>

<p>"And besides, Cardozo, we aren't talking about anecdotal anomalies there. You say that some engineers out there would be screwed in an arts class. Of course. On the other hand, I could point to some guys who are wizards in liberal-arts classes who can't handle law classes to save their lives. The point is not to look at a few isolated data points, but rather to look at where the trends lie. The fact is, the trend indicates that engineering students tend to be extremely hard working."</p>

<p>Based on what? All I've seen so far is ancedotal evidence. I don't necessarily disagree, but you've got to support that with facts. </p>

<p>"Not all of them, true. But the trend is clear."</p>

<p>To who?</p>

<p>"And hard work is a key asset, arguably the most key asset, to doing well in law school. Let's face it. On average, liberal arts students are not as hard-working as engineering students are. We can all come up with isolated exceptions, but the trend is clear."</p>

<p>Sorry, not to me. I mean, we all like to think that our major is the most challenging one out there, but that doesn't necessarily make it so. </p>

<p>"This is particularly so for those students who do well enough to get into top law schools - the engineering students with top grades in general worked significantly harder than did the liberal arts students with top grades, on average."</p>

<p>Maybe, maybe not. It would depend on what schools they came from, what the means were there, etc. </p>

<p>"We can also talk about some dumb engineers, but the fact is, we all know that there are far far more dumb (and extremely lazy) liberal arts students."</p>

<p>Well, you obviously believe that, but in the absence of clear evidence, we can't make assumptions just to make people feel better about their respective majors. I know from my own experience, having attended a university with a top engineering program, that the engineers I knew were no more intelligent or hardworking than most of the liberal arts students I knew. (And I lived with several.) And yes, that's anecdotal, but your impressions appear to be as well. </p>

<p>"It's all about where the data points congregate, not where a few isolated data points lie."</p>

<p>I agree, and I think the adcomms should actually look at the actual evidence, as opposed to relying on questionable stereotypes. </p>

<p>Ultimately, as I noted, where there is actual evidence that a certain program (whatever it may be) has higher admissions requirements, and a lower mean, then schools should definitely take that into account, just as they should similarly take these factors into account for different schools. This should compensate for any actual differentials in demands between different programs and majors. </p>

<p>Howver, in the absence of such evidence, we can't make blanket assumptions about any candidate simply based on major, because there is an even larger differential in admissions requirements at different universities. This is especially true in light of the fact that students who take technical majors, like engineering, may also actually be handicapped in terms of law school performance in various respects. While they may be hardworking, for example, they generally have less opportunity to develop the reading and writing skills that are required in law school. In addition, they are probably less likely to have developed the ability to think creatively and conceptually manipulate ideas, which is also important for lawyers. (I'd be interested to see how engineers actually perform in law school in relation to their classmates, if any studies have been done.) So a per se rule wouldn't make much sense to me. </p>

<p>I'm sure most engineers are bright and hardworking, and as noted, to the extent there is any evidence of differentials in demands and competition, within majors as well as between schools, that evidence should (certainly) correspondingly be factored in when determining the actual value of the GPA. (There are, of course, other majors that are even more demanding than engineering.) Write up a petition, and I'll be the first signatory. I'm just saying that, due to the many other factors involved, any differential in weighing should be based on all the actual available evidence, and calculated in a rational, meaningful manner. I doubt any fair-minded person would disagree with either of these basic points. </p>

<p>Finally, the good news for engineers, or anyone else from a more challenging major, is that the LSAT is again far more important than GPA for LS admissions. To the extent a major is more intellectually demanding or more rigorous than another, people in that major should have an advantage on the exam, presuming they have actually developed the relevant abilities in the process. </p>

<p>For one thing, their brains should presumably be more developed by the more challenging material, which will enable them to score higher. </p>

<p>However, just as importantly, if they really are harder working, and had to develop that ethic even more in the major, this should also give them an advantage on the test. Unlike the SAT, the LSAT requires far more preparation for most students, and the willingness to invest a great deal of time and energy on the exam, in my opinion, is almost as important (if not more so) than innate ability in terms of one's eventual score.</p>

<p>MIT has the reputation of requiring very hard work, and giving low grades. The first part may be true, I don't know, thankfully I did not go there. The second part is definitely not true. See <a href="http://web.mit.edu/faculty/reports/pnrap/report3.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://web.mit.edu/faculty/reports/pnrap/report3.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>in which one finds the intriguing report "almost half (49%) of grades assigned to upperclassmen are A's, compared to 22% for freshmen." </p>

<p>The law school obsession with grades makes sense. They don't care if you are an engineer- why should they? They want to know whether you are alert enough to work the system the way you have to work it to get into law school. After all, they are turning out lawyers, not monks. If you take demanding courses, get lower grades, then in your senior year realize you have ruined your shot at the top law schools, then you never belonged there in the first place. They want people who enter college understanding the system (take courses and majors that will result in at top gpa), and work it that way.</p>

<p>Well, if this is true, afan, it is a dismal assessment of the legal profession. Won't better prepared students fare better in law school? I'd sure like MY attorney to be intelligent and able to take on a challange, and not just be looking for an easy way to work the system. Of course, I suppose there is a wide variety of folks in all professions. I just hope that law school has room for "B" engineers as well as those who got "A" in less demanding courses of study.</p>

<p>"Well, if this is true, afan, it is a dismal assessment of the legal profession. Won't better prepared students fare better in law school?"</p>

<p>I don't think that's the point Afan is trying to make --of students merely playing the system to get to LS. As far as I understood it, he's not saying one should try to evade the rigors of a tough undergraduate program. He is trying to say however, that one should learn to formulate strategies that will lead one to success --Inferring that if one doesn't have "vision" and "self- awareness", one may not be the best candidate for a top LS. Also, law school will provide an intellectual stimulating environment, so I see no point in referring to an attorney's intelligence based on their undergraduate major, as they still have to get through law school --note that in some states you can sit for the bars without finishing law school too. Furthermore, even if you have a master's on "how to play the system", you still have to take the LSAT! I don't think there is any room for discussion in that regards. Either you ace it, or you do not. So, it is not a matter of playing the system. It is a matter of being wise about your choices, of being responsible, and of being mature --and doing damn well on the LSAT, or else, the rest may be irrelevant.</p>

<p>I mean, honestly, why would you major in engineering if you know you want to be an attorney? Especially, knowing that will affect your GPA. I definitely understand people trying to explore different fields, but sometimes --if not always-- one has to sacrifice things and desires in order to succeed. Nonetheless, if you do have the potential to do well in both professions, by all means go and do it! If not, well...why waste your time, and occupy a spot that somebody else may want --with true seriousness of purpose? Especially, at a top school. </p>

<p>As far as the importance of the undergraduate institution you attend, I am getting the sense that it's not a determining factors. From what I have gathered, it goes somewhat like this --in order:
1) LSAT
2) GPA
3) Recommendations
4) Personal Qualities of the applicant/ "hooks"/ uncommon strengths-circumstances
5) ECs-accomplishments
6) School of attendance </p>

<p>Anyway, just my thoughts on the issue for all they may be worth.</p>

<p>Yes, it is a dismal profession.</p>

<p>I don't care how well educated my lawyer may be. I do care how well she games the system on my behalf. Does she exploit the loopholes? Does she find the cheapest way for me to comply with rules I cannot evade entirely? Does she resort to obfuscation when the plain meaning of the law is disadvantageous to her client? Does she manipulate opposing lawyers to her client's benefit? If so, then she is a good lawyer. Does she build impressive intellectual arguments? Does she understand why there are two tides everyday? Can she comment intelligently on Etruscan poetry? Does she have a profound appreciation for CPE Bach? Who cares? Perhaps this makes for pleasant dinner party conversation, but what does it have to do with practicing law?</p>

<p>LSAT: I thought LSAT was just the SAT, 4 years later. Does getting a rigrous liberal arts education result in higher LSAT scores? Do the Reed, Chicago, and Columbia students do better, after controlling for SAT scores, than the Caltech, MIT, and CMU engineers? Does anyone know of a study like that?</p>

<p>"Does she build impressive intellectual arguments? Does she understand why there are two tides everyday? Can she comment intelligently on Etruscan poetry? Does she have a profound appreciation for CPE Bach? Who cares? Perhaps this makes for pleasant dinner party conversation, but what does it have to do with practicing law?"</p>

<p>I would not underestimate the value of an education, and/or the importance of a good dinner conversation. I wouldn't be surprise if many deals are brought to life, or closed for that matter, during one of those conversations. At the same time, it all depends. It will vary depending on the law field and level you practice. Law school will be much more focused than College, so a good broad education is always good and valuable. Any person can be a good persuader, but without an education you will not be a lawyer --you could always be an used-car salesman though. If the ABA didn't think an education was important I am sure we'd be studying law like most of the rest of the world --as an undergraduate degree.</p>

<p>As far as the LSAT goes...IT IS NOT THE SAT FOUR YEARS LATER!!! If you re-take it, you will have your scores averaged for a total score, unlike the SAT. your score will also determined what LS you attend, unlike the SAT where people always have the option of transferring once they prove themselves in a lower-tier school. I would also argue that the LSAT is somewhat aptitude oriented that the SAT; although practice can help.</p>

<p>Can she build an impressive intellectual argument? YOU BETTER HOPE SO!</p>

<p>There are very few professions which involve both geophysics and Etruscan pottery. In fact, as an engineer/classicist, I think that the ONLY one would be materials archaeology, and that's more engineering. Trust me, I looked for professions which combined those two things. That said, if you rate professions on intellectual diversity required, you're going to come up short on anything outside of academia. Salesman? Investment banker? Doctor? Web designer? Management? Engineering? Elementary school teaching? </p>

<p>The legal world is large. There is a lot to do outside of litigation, and a lot of it can be done ethically. I've heard a lot of people say that the legal community is small, and your reputation is the best asset you have. Don't be so quick to stereotype.</p>

<p>Deals may be struck during those dinner conversations, but not because of the liberal education topics. Unless the deal makers are fools, the deals are made because they serve the interests of those who are making them, not because they had an entertaining discussion of something unrelated to the issue at hand.</p>

<p>Of course lawyers reputations are important. On the other hand, they can do things that would be considered appalling in most other lines of work, and retain reputations as ethical- by the standards of this profession. Most (nearly all?) of legal practice is routine handling of common situations - essentially by definition. Much of the rest is manipulation, exerting influence, obscuring the facts, delaying until the other party can no longer sustain the fight, etc. </p>

<p>Perhaps someone whose job is generating original legal thought- a law professor for example- may have use for building impressive arguments, but this rarely comes up for people outside that narrow world. Who is going to read this brilliant piece of work? The opposing attorney? I can assure you she will disagree, with whatever you say, if your argument disadvantages her client. Or, if she is better, pick the few points that support her side, and try to discredit the rest. You see, this is her job, this is what she is supposed to do. She is a lawyer. It would make as much sense to complain about her doing this as to pretend that guards and forwards in the NBA are really engaged in something grander and more noble than playing basketball.</p>

<p>Face it, you don't get a liberal education because it is useful. Engineering is way more useful- who do you want designing your car, or the bridge you are driving it across? You study literature, art, philosophy, and music for their own sake. The debate about who works harder is pointless not because the engineers are wrong about thier longer hours, but because it is irrelevant. No one will hire you to reward you for pulling all-nighters in college. They hire you because they think you will do a worthwhile job for them. Employers do not care whether that job is easy for you, or hard for you. They do not care whether you stayed up all night to get it done, they care whether you got it done. If the job is engineering, then they have to hire an engineer- no one else can do it. If the job is not engineering, or something else that requires strong quantitative skills, then your hard work at MIT will not impress them. If the job requires writing, then they are going to be skeptical that an engineer is able to do it well.</p>

<p>"[Lawyers] can do things that would be considered appalling in most other lines of work, and retain reputations as ethical- by the standards of this profession."</p>

<p>Oh, really? Care to proffer an example?</p>