<p>Ive recently become concerned that as an engineering major, my gpa will suffer. Normally, that wouldnt bother me, as i prefer learnign to grades, but I intend to go to law school or business school after undergrad. So im starting to consider gpa while looking at colleges. This is my list:
Swarthmore
Columbia
Carnegie Mellon
Bucknell
Lehigh
Lafayette
Boston U. (possibly?)
TCNJ
Rutgers</p>
<p>Im wondering if I went to TCNJ, which is waaay cheaper than say columbia, I would be able to get a better gpa and still a good education. Anyone have opinions on the comparisons between these schools?</p>
<p>i dont have enough information to fully answer your question, but i can say that the average gpa for recent graduates of bucknells college of engineering is around 3.2.</p>
<p>I didn't know it was hard to get a good GPA in engineering. If that is true, when you apply to law or business school won't they consider that fact? But then engineering is a professional degree, so I guess very few engg majors consider changing their field of study.</p>
<p>if you want to go to law school it's better to pick a major in which you can maintain a high GPA... like the humanities. i've been told that all law schools care about are your GPA not your major or the difficulty of your classes. it's very different from under grad admissions, just keep that in mind.</p>
<p>with that said it doesn't seem very practical to switch from engineering over to law school... i mean most people who are engineering majors want to be engineers and make cash straight out of college... maybe it will be easier (not much) if you study a science instead? for instance if you are interested in chemical engineering perhaps try for chemistry instead... idk it just seems odd to go from engineering to law school</p>
<p>well i want to be a patent attorney which requires an engineering degree or a physics/chem/bio phd. therefore, i need to study engineering. now my question still stands</p>
<p>Swarthmore is known for grade deflation in all of its classes, which means that maintaining a "good" GPA will be harder. On the other hand, it is widely known that their program is challenging and their grades are uninflated.</p>
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well i want to be a patent attorney which requires an engineering degree or a physics/chem/bio phd.
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<p>This is false. A technical degree is not "required". It's useful if you want to be a patent lawyer, but not required. </p>
<p>Even if you want to be licensed to argue before the USPTO (which most patent lawyers do not need to be), all you strictly need are a certain number of units of technical courses. But you don't need the technical degree itself. Furthermore, you can take these units anywhere, at any time. For example, you could take many of them at a community college during the intervening summer after you graduate from undergrad, but before you start law school. You can even take a bunch during your final undergrad semester of your senior year. That way, you would not get grades for these classes until after you've already been admitted to law school, and hence your grades won't be able to hurt you because the adcom will never see them.</p>
<p>Don't get me wrong. It will be easier for you to market yourself as a patent attorney if you have an actual technical degree. But the point is, you're not strictly "required" to have one.</p>
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with that said it doesn't seem very practical to switch from engineering over to law school
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<p>Well, I would say that switching from engineering to law school is no more impractical than switching from engineering to, say, management consulting or investment banking, and yet plenty of the top engineers from the top schools such as MIT or Stanford do just that. It's become something of a running joke at MIT that the best engineering student who doesn't go to a PhD program is going to end up working not as an engineer but rather at McKinsey or Goldman Sachs. </p>
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i mean most people who are engineering majors want to be engineers and make cash straight out of college... maybe it will be easier (not much) if you study a science instead? for instance if you are interested in chemical engineering perhaps try for chemistry instead... idk it just seems odd to go from engineering to law school
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<p>Nah, I don't think so. The truth is, natural science majors are not significantly easier than the corrresponding engineering majors. Hence, if you're going to major in something technical (and thus difficult), you might as well major in engineering. At least that way, if you can't get into law school, you still have a decent backup career in engineering waiting for you - better than what you could get with just a science degree. </p>
<p>I agree with you that if the goal is to simply maximize your GPA to get into law school, and that's all you care about, then just choose some super-creampuff major like American Studies or Leisure Studies or Physical Education (where you'd basically be majoring in Gym).</p>