<p>I'm a HS Senior right now, and after I finish Undergrad, I'm planning to go into Grad School before I get into Law School. One of the main things I regret about my HS career is that I didn't plan ahead: I didn't think in terms of the future [ie, work hard to get into a top-20 school], so I didn't perform to my full capacity.</p>
<p>So for Grad school, I've decided that I'm going to MAKE SURE that I don't make the same mistakes, and as a result, I'm posting to this board asking for any advice I might get to help steer me towards one of the top-20 pre-law grad school by the end of my 4 years. I'm planning to turn my SIR in to UC Davis, but if Reed picks me up from their waitlist, I'll be going there.</p>
<p>Any advice would be VERY MUCH appreciated, thank you!!</p>
<p>What do you plan on studying in grad school before you go to law school? Graduate school is quite a time commitment and you should probably have a very good reason for choosing it before law. What do you mean by a pre-law grad school? If you really want to go to law school, I believe that they mainly look at GPA and LSAT. LOR's may also be important.</p>
<p>The best thing that you can do is to study hard so that you achieve good grades. If it is applicable, conduct research in your field of interest. Maybe try and get involved in any student groups related to your major. You have plenty of time to think about this, so try and relax so that you can enjoy your undergraduate experience.</p>
<p>I'm planning to either go in PoliSci [which is my Undergrad Major] or Political Theory, depending on which spectrum interests me more by the end of my 4 undergrad years. </p>
<p>By "pre-law", I mean one that has a good law/polisci program, so that I can get the best education for what I'm planning to do in the future. Do you think it's worth it to go to Grad school, or should I take a year off to work/etc and then go straight to applying for law school?</p>
<p>Excuse my ignorance, but what are LOR's?</p>
<p>And thanks for the advice, I'll def. keep it in mind!</p>
<p>It seems that if you're dead-set on going to law school when it comes time to apply you might think about going directly there. Business schools prefer work experience but many people enter law school directly after their undergraduate careers. Whatever you decide good luck in college and with your future plans!</p>
<p>Definitely go straight to law school, I think most people who go to law school do. You can do other graduate work later if you want to expand your credentials</p>
<p>I know nothing about political science or law, but my poli sci teacher in high school made us all promise not to major in it. He said if you want to go into law, major in history or english.</p>
<p>You say that you want to attend grad school before law school. You mean at the Masters level rather than full PhD, right?</p>
<p>What is your reason for completing a grad program in addition to law school? </p>
<p>The only suggestions I can offer for grad school preparation are the obvious: get good grades, go to class, learn about the profession you hope to join, arrange an appropriate internship if the opportunity arises (?next presidential election?), get to know your teachers well enough to ask for recommendations, etc.</p>
<p>But try not to get too obsessed with preparing yourself for a particular career path before even beginning college; it might blind you to the other options available. Most people switch career goals/majors several times during college.</p>
<p>Oh, yeah, def. just masters. And I want to get one because over the summer, I was working at a federal district courthouse in LA, and most of my colleagues were law students, and they said that not only was grad school an excellent chance for them to mature and prep for law school, it also looked a lot better on a resume, in that you have more background education. Also, they said, there are more and more law students who are going into grad school first, so to go there beforehand is an easy way to get a step up [in terms of education/networking] compared to your fellow law students.</p>
<p>I don't really know how good that advice is, makemehappy. I don't think the networking opportunities in graduate school are all that great if you want to go into law plus if you don't get funding (which is a good possibility with a master's program) you will simply be adding around $40,000 in debt. For a career in law, all the education you will really need you will learn during the course of earning your JD, unless you are thinking of some really specialized are of law (which, as you are not yet an undegraduate, seems very unlikely to me.) If you want to be an academic, maybe you should consider a JD/LLM, which is like a combined law degree/"master's of law". The problem is that you probably won't know what you want to specialize in when you enter law school. Thus, your graduate work may not even be in any way applicable to your eventualy field.</p>
<p>Oh, and I think what GoldenBear may be talking about is the desire of law schools to have a diverse entering class.They don't want a bunch of poli sci majors. It seems like it doesn't really matter what you major in as long as you GPA and LSAT scores are high, you are a decent writer, and you interview well. Plus, with poli sci your choices of a career may be fairly limited if your law school dreams don't work out. </p>
<p>Here's something from the website of Texas Tech University:
"Graduate Work
The Admissions Committee reviews any graduate transcripts submitted with an application, and these transcripts may serve to enhance the application, depending on the quality of the work. The committee recognizes that applicants may have several reasons for deciding to attend graduate school prior to applying for law school. An applicant attempting to show that his or her undergraduate record does not represent academic ability must show outstanding performance in graduate school. Because the committee considers many factors beyond graduate work, attending graduate school for the sole purpose of securing entrance to law school is not recommended. Further, if an applicant chooses to attend graduate school before law school, he or she should pursue a graduate course of study that will enhance other career opportunities."</p>
<p>"Oh, and I think what GoldenBear may be talking about is the desire of law schools to have a diverse entering class.They don't want a bunch of poli sci majors. It seems like it doesn't really matter what you major in as long as you GPA and LSAT scores are high, you are a decent writer, and you interview well. Plus, with poli sci your choices of a career may be fairly limited if your law school dreams don't work out. "</p>
<p>and with a history major their choices of a career wouldnt be limited.... but with poly sci they would be? what?... i would argue quite the opposite. further, if law didnt work out for the poster, for grad school and a tenure teaching job, there is a greater demand in poly sci than in history, as there is an abundance of ph.d's in history. for law, i personally would prefer majoring in poli sci, but for admission to law school its all about your lsat and gpa, as long as you dont have a truely strange major that admissions wouldnt like.</p>
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Definitely go straight to law school, I think most people who go to law school do. You can do other graduate work later if you want to expand your credentials
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<p>I see no reason whatsoever to go straight to law school. In fact, most of my friends in law school (one at Boalt, one at UCLA, on at UT, buncha others) wish they had taken time off.</p>
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Plus, with poli sci your choices of a career may be fairly limited if your law school dreams don't work out.
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<p>As a BA in poli sci, I haven't found this to be the case.</p>
<p>"and with a history major their choices of a career wouldnt be limited.... but with poly sci they would be? what?"</p>
<p>"As a BA in poli sci, I haven't found this to be the case."</p>
<p>Good point. Thinking about it more, I think there are some really interesting opportunities for poli sci majors. I was thinking more about the people who are disatesfied with that major at my school, but there were some issues with a lot of faculty leaving a few years back and I don't think the program is what it used to be.</p>