<p>as an aspiring law school applicant, i was wondering if the major that i studied has any bearing on my acceptance? would a legal studies major be given preference over a near eastern languages & civilizations major? english over poli sci? business over psychology? etc....</p>
<p>also, what about double majoring...or being involved in the honors program? any ideas? THANKS :)</p>
<p>major has a very small affect on your admissions. double majoring also has a smalle effect on your admissions (of course it'll help but its pretty tough and i'd rather not sacrifice my GPA for it)
honors program also helps but not as significantly as one would hope.
All three are soft factors which makes up maybe 15-20% of an application. The other 80-90% is made up of UGPA (only undergrad not grad) and Lsat.</p>
<p>So does that mean raw GPA, regardless of what kind of classes you take? i.e. easy courses and a high GPA is better than harder courses and a lower GPA?</p>
<p>depends on how much lower. 4.0 in English would look better than 3.0 in EE. Dont know about majoring in fashion though, but Elle Woods made it.</p>
<p>The major matters in the sense, as alluded to by tired_student, that some majors are easier than others, which translates into a higher GPA and more time to do EC's and study for the LSAT.</p>
<p>sakky, do u think majoring in something like legal studies at berkeley will help/hinder me in my pursuit of going to a top notch law school? a lot of the classes taught in the field of legal studies are done so by bolt hall law professors, so wouldnt this put me at an advantage?.....maybe for recs? </p>
<p>i'm thinking about majoring in legal studies in conjunction with business at haas....so with a decent GPA and Lsat score, I should be fine, right? I'm contemplating between choosing Poli Science, Legal Studies, English, or History as my second major....any ideas? Thanks!</p>
<p>Legal studies would hurt you. Don't do it. It's not impressive and will not translate into better law school grades. Statistically, econ, classics, and engineering majors do the best in l.s. NOTHING you learn in legal studies will help you in law school, except for some of the jargon.</p>
<p>Major in something you LIKE, because you'll do better. Major in something with professors who are accessible and helpful, because they will push you further (and write good recs). </p>
<p>IMO, there are three big groups of majors. Group 1: communications studies, legal studies, etc - the "wimpy" majors that will actually hurt your chances at law school. (There was a case where a woman sued to get into law school, claiming that her stats were well above those of admitted minorities. She lost - because her major was so fluffly that they didn't know if she could handle the workload.) Group 2: econ, English, languages, classics, history, poli sci, psych - the majors that 90% of law school applicants will have, that won't really help or hurt you, and that you'll be able to get decent grades in. Group 3: engineering, physics, astrophysics, hard sciences - the rigorous, tough majors which will prepare you well for the l.s. workload but give you such lousy grades that you'll never get in the door.</p>
<p>Statistics on LSAT scores and major:</p>
<p>That website is so old though, but still people who take really rigorous classes such as the hard sciences tend to do better on the lsat</p>
<p>Tired_student, I don't know if I can agree with your last statement. I think you are only saying that because physics is on top, which I do agree is weird, but may be due to a selection bias. However, you can see that engineering and computer science are #13 and #15 respectively, and I don't think you will find too many people who claim that engineering and computer science are not rigorous. In particular, I think you would find it extremely difficult to argue that International Relations (#4), Government (#6) or Anthropology( #7) are more rigorous than Engineering or Computer Science.</p>
<p>Well it cant be proven but IMHO I just feel that those who take majors that require constant critical analysis and logical reasoning usually would do better on the Lsats. Of course I know where you are coming from and I do hope everyone takes information from these forums with a grain of salt.</p>
<p>Well, again, I would point to engineering and computer science, and say that if there were ever any majors that required things like logical reasoning, it would be those majors. Yet the average LSAT scores of people of those majors is rather mediocre.</p>
<p>bah...ok ok you win :)</p>
<p>I'm a graduating legal studies major from Cal, so I have to weigh in here. While law schools pretty much just look at the GPA without really looking to your major too much, since that's what affects their rankings, I do agree that just a legal studies major in particular could very well hurt your application to law school (ummm, there's a reason that profs start classes every semester by saying that legal studies is not intended as a pre-law major and will not help you get into law school). HOWEVER, some people in the legal studies major do very well when applying to law school. Some guidance:</p>
<ol>
<li>Like someone said before, the legal studies major by itself is pretty much a joke. It's not academically rigorous and everyone knows that, including the law school adcomms. The classes are ridiculously easy. If you are at all interested in legal studies (i.e. with the study of the function of the law within a society, not with the study of the law itself), then by all means, do the major -- but definitely do a double major, like you're planning on. I have a double major and a minor.</li>
<li>If you do choose to do legal studies, make sure you do very well in your classes. It's easy, so you won't get any lenience in your gpa, like someone from eecs might. Hint: do the darned reading. It's incredibly easy to get a 4.0 in the major if you just do the reading, since no one else does. And learn to write well. If you write well, you pretty much automatically get a grade boost on every legal studies paper.</li>
<li>Yes, you are being taught by law profs from Boalt. This by itself will not help you in admissions, because they don't teach the classes like law classes. However, they're all really willing to talk to you in office hours, they often have connections to good internships, and they're pretty experienced with writing law school recommendations. Because my profs know me and my areas of interest, they can put me in contact with profs they know at top law schools who share my interests.</li>
<li>As someone said above, use the extra time provided by having an extremely easy major to do very well on the LSAT (yeah, legal studies really won't help you with that critical thinking, so take a lsat prep class).</li>
</ol>
<p>Anyway, as long as you do very well in your classes and on the LSAT, the legal studies major won't hurt you. The law school admissions process is mostly a numbers game ...</p>
<p>Just wondering, what is your other major and minor?</p>
<p>Also, what law schools are you applying to/have applied to?</p>
<p>And lastly, have you had small classes or large ones? Do you feel that there was an intimate atmosphere throughout your studies at Cal, or not so much because it was too big? Also, did you feel there was a lot of competition in the humanities?</p>
<p>Thanks!!</p>
<p>I'm double majoring in poli sci and rhetoric when I begin this fall at CAL; since the LSAT is composed of logic, reading/comprehension, and argument analysis, wouldn't rhetoric classes help?</p>
<p>is management with an emphasis in business economics or public policy a good major for law school?</p>
<p>Yeah its a good major.</p>