<p>I go to Stanford and I'd like to go to a top-14 law school, but as an undergrad, you can only get Honors if you participate in an honors program with thesis requirement. I plan to major in PoliSci and minor in Urban Studies. I could do an honors program called Ethics in Society in addition to that, but with the thesis, it's a ton of work. Is it worth doing the honors program even though I'm already coming from Stanford? Or should I just work on boosting my GPA with an easier course load?</p>
<p>Law schools like to admit people who have challenged themselves with demanding curricula.</p>
<p>They also like to admit people with high GPAs.</p>
<p>The best alternative is to do the honors thesis, plus the higher GPA.</p>
<p>That's not what I did when I was a Stanford undergrad a few decades ago, though. I bagged the honor's thesis, and still made it into a top-14 law school. Results may vary.</p>
<p>There's a lot of ambiguity in this answer, of course, as there will be in all of your assigned reading in law school.</p>
<p>Greybeard, what's a good way to let law schools know you're in the process of writing a senior thesis? I'm worried they won't pick up on the "senior honors seminar" course on my transcript... should I mention it elsewhere?</p>
<p>if you have the same professor for your honors seminar as your thesis, this would be a great person to have as a recommender ;)</p>
<p>If you feel you can maintain a competitive GPA (and for T14, that's a 3.7-3.8 or higher) while in the Honors program, why not go for it? However, I give this advice assuming that you WANT to be in one of these honors programs. And if you feel your GPA would take a hit or that the courseload would be so heavy such that you wouldn't be able to dedicate enough time to preparing for the LSAT as you otherwise would, then perhaps you should simply graduate through a standard track.</p>
<p>To the best of my knowledge, while graduating with honors certainly wouldn't hurt an applicant, it's not going to be the sort of achievement that would make or break an applicant. Numbers still trump most of the things that you do on the side in college.</p>
<p>I'm also in a similar situation, but have decided to do the honors program. Look, you already have a decent GPA to qualify for the program, so that's half the battle for law admissions. Plus, the seminars, while demanding in terms of expectation and workload, are graded highly in your favor; this isn't honors organic chemistry (unless you're a chem major!) where there are curves and whatnot. </p>
<p>Thesis writing, I believe, should be mandatory for any student who wants the true liberal arts experience. It teaches great writing, researching, and citation (haha) skills that will certainly boost your ability write to critically and effectively. Also, at least for me, the idea of working on a long term project and polishing it up into a great piece sounds exciting.</p>
<p>I think the only way to graduate with honors is to write the thesis...schools might loook at you funny when you have the 4.0 GPA but no "Summa" on your resume, but maybe that's only my reaction. Really though, none of this affects your chances in a substantial way.</p>
<p>I can't imagine it would hurt to mention it. Having your advisor write a recommendation would do the trick as well.</p>