<p>So currently, I'm majoring in neuroscience which I have now found to be kind of difficult. Unfortunately, I am incredibly loving my classes and find it super fascinating. My grades, however, do not tell the same story.</p>
<p>I am mainly interested in human behavior and I wanted a scientific exploration into the field, thus neuroscience was what I chose. I know that with the overlaps in electives, I could easily make a switch to psychology and sociology. Why? Because I am aiming for higher grades.</p>
<p>The main reason(s)?
1. I'm not premed or going to scientific research.
2. I am aiming for T14 law schools.</p>
<p>I hear in law GPA and LSATs only matter. What are your suggestions?</p>
<p>Depends on whether you value the interesting major or the law school admission more.</p>
<p>However, it is not necessarily the case that some other major will be easier to get higher grades in. It may be, or it may not be, at your school. Of course, if you are less interested in the other major, you may have more difficulty studying it, which can have an adverse effect on your grades in that major.</p>
<p>Yes, grades to matter a LOT for top law school admissions.</p>
<p>since it sounds like you’re not going into research, then pick a major that you like AND you will do well in. If you want, take a neuroscience class here or there for interest…but only if you’re certain it won’t kill your GPA.</p>
<p>Switch majors. I disagree with @ucbalumnus in that just about any humanities major will be MUCH easier. </p>
<p>Personally I think it’s really unfair that engineering type majors are much more difficult than humanities type majors in terms homework, tests, extra credit and just about every other element of the class. But the system is what it is and doing engineering type courses will give you an artificially lower GPA. </p>
<p>If T-14 is your goal (and it should be, in this market), you need to preserve your GPA by any means necessary - once you receive your degree, no other coursework will change the GPA you received in undergrad. That is of utmost importance. You can retake the LSAT - but your GPA is set in stone. </p>
<p>You can major in literally anything (so long as it doesn’t have the word “criminal”, “law” or “legal” in it) and so long as you bang out a good GPA, you’ll be golden. Preference is not given to harder majors - the 4.0 Gender Studies major will always be picked over the 2.9 Petroleum Engineering major, with all other facets being nearly equal. </p>
<p>Take some neuroscience classes on the side, like @mom2collegekids said - sparingly, of course, unless you are certain you can do well. If you take a course out of interest, and you find yourself riding with a low C, perhaps make use of the P/F option. A few P’s (I stress the word “few”) will look better than a low GPA. </p>
<p>What are you goals with getting a law degree? Excuse my ignorance but does T-14 indicate certain 'top law schools"/?</p>
<p>I am surprised that my nephew (who is a first semester law student) is going a new direction than one expects with his background - however, perhaps he is exploring putting together another career skill in his internship this summer.</p>
<p>@SOSConcern T-14 is short for “top 14” as in the top 14 law schools in the country, ranging from Georgetown (14) to Yale (1). The top 14 are usually considered schools that have “portability” - in that you can graduate from Berkeley but work in the NYC market for instance – they also have reasonably good employment statistics relative to the abysmal legal market. </p>
<p>Again, I think anyone hiring is looking for people ‘of substance’. </p>
<p>Do these top 14 law schools become selective enough with ‘the right criteria’ that their graduates are going to step into ‘stellar’ careers? Does it mean being in the bottom half of their graduating class is better than being in the top 10% of a non-T-14 law school?</p>
<p>Some of those students in law school certainly have ‘connections’. Others have very strong talents (for example an engineer that goes to law school to become a patent lawyer).</p>
<p>Some students go to law school as ‘traditional’. Others have had some significant educational and work experiences.</p>
<p>Cream rises to the top.</p>
<p>Looking at T-14, it sets a ‘bar’. How does one make oneself a ‘person of substance’? </p>
<p>Some things are ‘following a formula’ - LSAT and GPA. Those are ‘hard numbers’ - quantitative. However there are other things to look at with candidates.</p>
<p>Interesting when we see students at particular schools, and yet they are not taking ‘full advantage’ of their academic exposure at that school - it is almost like the student wants to ‘buy in’ that the name of the institution will ‘carry them’ instead of what they learn and achieve in and out of school.</p>
<p>The OP is not looking at engineering or humanities majors. Psychology and sociology are social studies majors, and neuroscience is a mix of social studies (psychology) and biological science.</p>
<p>Interesting indeed, but this isn’t what OP is asking about. </p>
<p>If you’re completely set on the law school route, then I would suggest switching majors just for the sake of preserving your GPA. You’ll still be able to take neuroscience courses, but would have an easier time of it, essentially. I have also heard that with the exception of Yale Law, most schools really do only consider LSAT and GPA in their admissions. </p>
<p>The calculus and physics courses are the less rigorous ones for biology majors, not the harder ones for engineering majors (of course, they may be full of grade-grubbing pre-meds, a disadvantage). Neuroscience is sort of like a combination of biology and psychology; if the OP is more interested in the psychology side of it, then switching to psychology may be a way to stay interested, but with fewer courses full of pre-meds (although psychology often does require some biology and other science courses, though less than biology or neuroscience).</p>
<p>In any case, none of these majors is humanities. It is also not necessarily true that humanities courses are easy A courses for all students. Not everyone likes or is good at writing essays or term papers analyzing literature or some such.</p>
<p>No law school admissions committee cares about your major, only your GPA. Everyone telling you to drop the major if you’re interested in law school is correct. Drop it and never look back.</p>
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<p>This is credited. Keep in mind, OP, that Yale Law still has an unofficial GPA floor of around 3.7 (for non-URMs).</p>
<p>I absolutely cannot believe that law school admission committees at T-14 only look at GPA and LSAT. They obviously see what institution you have your UG, and lots of other info that can be gleaned in only a few short minutes. Maybe they ‘cut’ on an initial first pass through of applicants, but surely many are looking for ‘diversity’; also they know the ‘type’ that have been successful with them. Does anyone know someone going to law school at one of these schools who has some insight?</p>
<p>Also, one needs to have an honest assessment of one’s SKA, talents. </p>
<p>Are you thinking, take classes that make me unhappy because I can earn a higher GPA in them…many people do better in classes they enjoy the learning. However I do agree with looking at Rate My Professor comments - some schools have certain profs that have unrealistic grading, or are poor in teaching but no-one gets a good grade.</p>
<p>^ I have no idea where you’re getting these comments from. Where in the world did the original poster say that he was planning on majoring in psychology or sociology because they “made [him] unhappy”? On the contrary, neuroscience makes him more unhappy because of its difficulty and * that’s why he’s switching out.* Believe it or not, law school admissions work differently than say, medical school ones. The general consensus is that the T-14 outside of YLS does focus on numbers. </p>
<p>I reread your earlier post, and it seems like you’re trying to get a discussion (several, actually) started on whether or not it’s worth it to attend a top law school instead of actually answering the question at hand. If this is the case, then please start your own thread. </p>
<p>I think this thread has gone off the rails a bit… the question isn’t about whether to attend a T-14 or not; it’s about which major to have. Let’s stick to that. </p>
<p>OP, as the others have said, make every effort to preserve your GPA. Clearly neuroscience courses have proven to be difficult for you, so choose something that you’re better at. You said you could major in sociology or psychology. Are you good at those? Do you like writing? Do you like more hands-on stuff? You’re probably going to have a lot of research papers to write that entails you both synthesizing secondary sources and making your own observations, so keep that in mind.</p>
<p>In the end, do what you can to raise your GPA because, as the others have said, that and the LSAT are all that matter.</p>
<p>Law school admissions is a numbers game. They’re interested in preserving US news rank–that’s it. It’s not like UG admissions where there’re enough 2400 valedictorians to fill an entire class, as only ~20 people each year get a 180 on the LSAT.</p>
<p>Here’s a HLS student:</p>
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</p>
<p>UG institution only matters at the extremes (read: Harvard, Yale, Princeton; no-name community college, University of Phoenix, other online school). Even then, it matters the equivalent of about one LSAT point. </p>
<p>Back to OP, if you’re thinking about law school, get away from the difficult major and hop onto psych asap.</p>