How do T14 law schools view applications from public, state universities?

Graduate School Law School
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<p>I currently attend a public school that is part of my state's college system. I achieve great grades and have a 4.0 in Criminal Justice. My goal, right now, is to attend a top law school. I'm a junior, but I am not applying to school just yet. I want to obtain a masters first and get some part time work experience that isn't just fast food. I also want to try to get some volunteer experience in if I'm able to. Once I am in my last year of my masters program, I will be applying to law school. I plan on taking the LSAT later this year in either October or December, because the masters program I am leaning toward will take me only a year after I graduate to complete. I am able to complete half the program before I graduate because of my standing and because I only have a few classes left to take. My main questions are:
1. I plan on putting my all into the LSATs. I'm studying already, and plan to study up until I take the test. I want to do everything I can to achieve the highest score possible. In the event that I achieve a great score, such as 175+, do you think a T14 would accept me despite my major and my university?
2. I already have a plan for my masters program, but it is tentative. What kind of a masters program would you suggest that would be best suited for a transcript aimed at law school admission?
3. What tips, if any, might you have for me? </p>

<p>I am pretty serious about getting into as good of a law school as I can. This is my dream, and I've been working at it for a long time. I chose a public state school because I couldn't get private loans in my name yet and my financial aid covered just enough for me to attend the school I am. Any other school, I couldn't afford and neither could my mom. But I've built up my financial history, and have confidence that I can find a way to finance a great law school. I just have to make it there.</p>

<p>Other useful information: My top three right now are Yale, Columbia, and NYU. I am confident in my ability to do well in law school. Though I'm at a public university and majoring in something that isn't extremely difficult, I do it while being an officer of a very active club, a member of an honor society, a volunteer that does service 2.5 hours a week, a member of two other clubs, and a student that works a part-time job 26+ hours a week. I know T14 schools are hard and challenging, but I truly believe I can do it if I have the opportunity.</p>

<p>Thank you for your help. It means a lot to me. :)</p>

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<ol>
<li>It’s the LSAT. You only take one. No law school will care what the name of your university or major is. In fact, that will generally be true the rest of your life if you do go into law.</li>
<li>It doesn’t matter. Law schools care about what happens before you get the BA/BS. They don’t care at all afterwards.</li>
</ol>

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<p>Only undergrad GPAs are computed for law admission purpose (from every US college that you’ve ever attended). Study hard for the LSAT to make up for your major difference, according to this research:</p>

<p>[TaxProf</a> Blog: Physics/Math, Economics Majors Ace the LSAT; Criminal Justice, Prelaw Majors Bomb the Test](<a href=“TaxProf Blog”>TaxProf Blog)</p>

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<p>I know its the LSAT. I know you only take one. That was me slipping because I was exhausted. Oops.</p>

<p>I only asked because I just wasn’t sure if it looked bad to be coming from a public university as opposed to, say, an ivy league or a private college. And they don’t care about your masters program at all? The reason I asked that is because I know that some of the law schools I’m looking at have 2/3 of their admitted students coming in after getting a higher degree. I wasn’t sure if/how they evaluated that. I also wasn’t aware they only calculate undergrad GPA. I thought they’d calculate the masters GPA as well. Though I’m not worried about my GPA. </p>

<p>Thanks for your answers.</p>

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<p>Many YLS students are admitted, subsequently defer to pursue an additional degree, and then matriculate. Some have an additional degree when applying; this probably helps more in the application process if it’s a doctorate. Columbia and NYU will not care in the least; scores will be what matter.</p>

<p>Many top-tier law students are from public universities, although mostly from flagship campuses. This probably won’t be a problem.</p>

<p>Criminal justice is the single worst major for a pre-law student to pursue; law schools discriminate against many majors (generally vocational ones rather than liberal arts majors), but they only one they’re willing to admit they discriminate against is Criminal Justice. On the one hand, I don’t think it will be impossible to overcome this – a very high LSAT will help. On the other hand, I would strongly wager that none of the top 6 law schools in the country have a single Criminal Justice major among their ranks. This is largely because I suspect that very few Criminal Justice majors score high enough on the LSAT to be considered for admission anyway, so who knows what role the major is playing.</p>

<p>At this point, if you’re strongly considering law school, my suggestion is to take a practice LSAT to see where you stand. One is available on LSAC.com – sit down, take it under test conditions (e.g. timed, no distractions) and see how you perform. Conventional wisdom suggests that you can improve a diagnostic LSAT by as much as 10-15 points through studying, although I know some friends who have “capped out” lower than that (e.g. diagnostic 150, plateaued at 158).</p>

<p>Generally, the rough rule of thumb is that if you didn’t study much for the SAT and will be studying hard for the LSAT, you can estimate a rough eventual LSAT score with (Math + Verbal)/21 + 101.</p>

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<p>I’m sorry, can you explain what that last part means about not studying for the SAT but studying for the LSAT? </p>

<p>And that’s a little frightening. I know CJ isn’t the best major by far for law school, but it is too late to change it now. However, I know most of the LSAT studies say my major doesn’t do that well on it, and I believe that I can do well on it. I’m good at standardized testing. I did great on the SAT and the ACT and I believe I can do well on this too. I hope that, if I do as well as I hope, they will overlook my major. </p>

<p>I also was hoping to use my masters program as a chance to ‘redeem’ myself by choosing a subject that isn’t CJ, like Sociology or Anthropology (which was my minor until I dropped it to graduate on time). I just hope they won’t reject me on that fact alone.</p>

<p>Also, I’m going to finish this practice logical reasoning book I’m studying, and then I will take a practice. I am curious about how I will do, too. That will probably give me a good idea on how well I am capable of doing on the real thing, and if I should be looking at schools that aren’t T14.</p>

<p>By any chance, do you know if its worth it to attend a school lower than the first tier? I feel like my job prospects won’t be nearly as good.</p>

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<p>The formula I suggested is most accurate if you (1) did not study for the SAT, and (2) will study for the LSAT.</p>

<p>If your LSAT score is considerably above, say, a school’s 75th percentile, I suspect they’ll discriminate against your major but admit you anyway. I don’t think a mere Master’s will help much in this respect.</p>

<p>Bear in mind that high LSAT scores are easier said than done – by all means, I would go ahead and figure out where you’re likely to end up before we go picking schools or making other plans.</p>

<p>Employability is much harder outside of the top ten or so schools, but can sometimes still work well if you have a particular region in mind. It depends on the precise school you’d be looking at.</p>

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<p>What evidence is there for this? It’s a trope I’ve seen repeated here (and nowhere else) but I have yet to see any basis for it.</p>

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<p>And if you did study for the SAT? Because I studied like madness for that.
Or do you mean the practice LSAT, not studying for that?
And I plan on seeing how I will do before picking a school. I just wanted to know my chances of getting in with my gpa, school, and major in the event that I obtain a high score. I know I may not get a score, but I need to know if its even worth it to try doing amazing on it before I go about working as hard as I can. I don’t want to try this hard if it isn’t even possible to go to a T14. That’s why I asked. I simply want to know that, with my current stats, if I ace the LSAT, will admittance to a T14 law school be possible? That’s really all I wanted to know. I wanted to know it because, if it is possible, then the LSAT test is going to be my game for the next 6 months. If it is not possible, then I need to reevaluate if I should go to law school based on whether or not my job prospects will be good at all. I know of law schools nearby that would accept me as long as I get a certain score, but they’re in the 4th tier, and if nobody would hire me from the 4th tier, then I don’t know if putting in the money would be worth it.</p>

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<p>I’ve personally spoken with the admissions directors of the law schools to which I was admitted (5 of the top 6), and I have memories that a couple of them mentioned that pre-law and criminal justice were the majors that they frowned upon.</p>

<p>Additionally:</p>

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<p>

</p>

<p>But note:

</p>

<p>[Future</a> Law Students Should Avoid Prelaw Majors, Some Say - US News and World Report](<a href=“http://www.usnews.com/education/best-graduate-schools/top-law-schools/articles/2012/10/29/future-law-students-should-avoid-prelaw-majors-some-say]Future”>http://www.usnews.com/education/best-graduate-schools/top-law-schools/articles/2012/10/29/future-law-students-should-avoid-prelaw-majors-some-say)</p>

<p>[TaxProf</a> Blog: Physics/Math, Economics Majors Ace the LSAT; Criminal Justice, Prelaw Majors Bomb the Test](<a href=“http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2009/09/physics-math.html]TaxProf”>http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2009/09/physics-math.html)</p>

<p>[Don?t</a> Major in Criminal Justice If You Want to Go to Law School « Above the Law: A Legal Web Site ? News, Commentary, and Opinions on Law Firms, Lawyers, Law Schools, Law Suits, Judges and Courts + Career Resources](<a href=“http://abovethelaw.com/2009/09/dont-major-in-criminal-justice-if-you-want-to-go-to-law-school/]Don?t”>http://abovethelaw.com/2009/09/dont-major-in-criminal-justice-if-you-want-to-go-to-law-school/)</p>

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<p>[Harvard</a> Law School](<a href=“http://www.top-law-schools.com/harvard-law-school.html]Harvard”>Harvard Law School - TLS wiki)</p>

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<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/law-school/317799-more-reputable-major.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/law-school/317799-more-reputable-major.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>The LSAC does say:

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<p>But then notice their actual list:

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<p>[Pre-Law</a> | Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar](<a href=“http://www.americanbar.org/groups/legal_education/resources/pre_law.html]Pre-Law”>http://www.americanbar.org/groups/legal_education/resources/pre_law.html)</p>

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<p>I think that your plan is a bit over thought. Why a master’s if you’re not committing to CJ? Consider that your time, energy and money will be better spent by going directly into law school?</p>

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<p>Yes.</p>

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<p>Again, to recap: two ways to project an LSAT score:
1.) Start with an SAT score for which you practiced very little. If you study a great deal for the LSAT, your peak score will likely be:
(Math + Verbal) / 21 + 101</p>

<p>2.) Take an LSAT absolutely cold – no studying whatsoever. Studying generally brings up your score by about 10-15 points. If you study some before you take your “first” LSAT, then obviously your score will rise less.</p>

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<p>Well, the masters program isn’t necessarily going to be CJ. I want to gain experience doing hard graduate-level work before law school. As much as I love my classes, they just don’t prepare you to read and write the way a law student does. They are simple, and I wish they weren’t, but they are. I want some upper-level experience before going right into law.</p>

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<p>And okay. I will take a practice LSAT in the next few days and see how I do… I can’t really do the formula with the SAT because I don’t remember my exact scores, and, besides, I studied before I took it. Thanks for the answer about the possibility. In that case, I’m going to put my all into the LSAT. Whether it works out in my favor or not, I’m going to try.</p>

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<p>@kaitlyn: All the law schools really care about is your GPA/LSAT. If you get a good LSAT score, you can absolutely get admitted to any of the T14. A lot of hard data can be found [url=&lt;a href=“Recently Updated J.D. Profiles | Law School Numbers”&gt;http://lawschoolnumbers.com/]here[/url</a>].</p>

<p>@bluedevilmike: I appreciate the length of your response, but it seems to me taking the data you suggested and finding major discrimination in it is a bit of a stretch. We already know that certain majors tend to do better at the LSAT than others, so a disparity in the presence of majors at high-ranked (read: LSAT restrictive) schools is perfectly consistent with a GPA/LSAT theory of law school admissions. The data at LSN, linked to above to kaitlyn, also strongly suggests against major discrimination. LSN charts by GPA/LSAT. If there were a 3rd factor, you would expect to see anomalies. Instead, acceptance/waitlisting/denial proceed in relatively clear bands, and where you do see anomalies they are inevitably URMs. The anecdotal claims that admissions officers “cringe” or otherwise disfavor certain majors just don’t seem to be borne out in the data.</p>

<p>I suppose a simple test would be to send in applications as a CJ major and as a (say) econ major, with otherwise identical stats, and see if there is a disparity. Given the data we have on law school admissions, I submit there would be no difference. I say this because a law school’s economic future is tied to USNWR, which consumers have inerrantly used as a proxy for law school selection since its creation. USNWR ranks law schools based on their LSAT and GPA medians, not by their majors. Consequently law schools have no incentive to select against “easy” majors. In fact, their every incentive is to get as many easy majors (and thereby presumably higher GPAs) as they can, while keeping their LSAT medians high.</p>

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<p>First, let’s point out that Demos and I are almost entirely in agreement. A very high LSAT score – above a school’s 75th percentile – combined with a 4.0 is very likely to be admitted. </p>

<p>In my view, a major in criminal justice will be discriminated against, but that it is not an absolute bar with a spectacular LSAT performance. Demos is arguing that they don’t receive even this minor disadvantage.</p>

<p>But the two positions are really not so far apart.</p>

<p>Second, I want to apologize for the fact that this thread is now officially off track, but I think it’ll be a valuable reference for future discussions.</p>

<hr>

<h1>1: LSN Anomalies</h1>

<p>If you look closely, LSN has several high-stats anomalies per year per school. A lot fewer than undergrad would, or than other professional schools would, but these lines are not 100% divisions by any means.</p>

<p>Take Yale last year, for example:
[Yale</a> University - Admissions Graph | Law School Numbers](<a href=“Recently Updated J.D. Profiles | Law School Numbers”>Recently Updated J.D. Profiles | Law School Numbers)</p>

<p>Why all the 3.8+, 177 rejections? Or the 179, 3.91? Could be anything. Maybe major, maybe bad essay, maybe former disciplinary incident, who knows? But it COULD be major, couldn’t it?</p>

<p>Or let’s look at Columbia, a much more numbers-driven program:
[Columbia</a> University - Admissions Graph | Law School Numbers](<a href=“Recently Updated J.D. Profiles | Law School Numbers”>Recently Updated J.D. Profiles | Law School Numbers)</p>

<p>Look at the two 176s: one 3.45 was admitted, while a 3.5 was rejected. Why? Again, could be anything – essay, personal conduct, who knows? And that’s already ignoring all the waitlist anomalies (e.g. 178, 3.78).</p>

<p>And NYU clearly has a few anomalous rejections as well. 171, 3.63, for example. Again, could be anything, but it COULD be major.</p>

<p>[New</a> York University - Admissions Graph | Law School Numbers](<a href=“Recently Updated J.D. Profiles | Law School Numbers”>Recently Updated J.D. Profiles | Law School Numbers)</p>

<p>Yes, law school is an extremely numbers driven process, but it’s not 100% numbers driven.</p>

<p>Bluntly, I don’t think these are criminal justice majors, because I suspect there are very few criminal justice majors who score high enough to even be considered at programs like these anyway. But the presence of several anomalies at each school each year demonstrates that there is room for soft criteria such as major.</p>

<h1>2: Incentives</h1>

<p>Law schools have lots of incentives, of course – and yes, they’re ranked by LSAT and GPA. But they’re also ranked by graduation rate, and by employment outcomes, and by peer faculty, and by judge perceptions. If admitting certain types of majors in large numbers would harm those metrics, then law schools could easily discriminate against them.</p>

<p>Yes, schools want high statistics, but if they notice systematically that some students come in underprepared, they’ll take that into consideration as well.</p>

<h1>3: Other incentives</h1>

<p>Finally, the question is why admissions officers would lie about this. Of course admissions officers dodge questions and hide information routinely; that’s part of their job. But it’s almost always the other way: to make themselves seem more inclusive and less rigid about requirements. Openly making statements like “we discriminate against _____” tends to get them in trouble.</p>

<p>And yet they’re willing to do it anyway in this case. A compelling non-disadvantage story has to explain why admissions officers are willing to break their exception of vagueness here in order to lie about disadvantaging certain majors. It seems to be that by far the best explanation is because it’s such an obvious phenomenon that there would be no point to denying it.</p>

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<p>I suppose you do have to look at the information you provided in a careful way. For one, I am NOT a pre-law major. The pre-law and criminology major are two different things. Pre-law is solely focused on law school. My major is focused on various aspects of law: law enforcement, victim advocacy, and law school. </p>

<p>I also feel that the reason it is hard to find someone with my major at an ivy league is because of a few different reasons. For one, most ivy league schools don’t offer my major. So there is no representation in the highest of schools, so there isn’t as much great academic performance for my major. Also, my major isn’t geared toward law school. A lot of us don’t take the LSAT, and many of us that do aren’t prepared for it because we don’t have a major directed at what is on the exam. We also are a major with a lot of students not geared toward hard upperlevel schooling, but instead at policing. Many of us just don’t have the resources or desire to study for the LSAT or to be prepped for it in advance to studying. </p>

<p>And, sure, my major is for a lot of people who don’t like working hard, but a high LSAT score and GPA would show otherwise. I can and do work very hard, and if I ace my LSAT, it will show that. If I enter a masters program and do well it in, it will show that. My well-written admissions essay will show it, and my letters of rec will show that. I am, as far as I know, the only 4.0 in my major at this university, and most of my professors really like me, so I’m sure they will emphasize my work ethic. </p>

<p>So while admissions may see my major and immediately think I’m an underachieving statistic, I trust that they’ll look at the whole package if I can get their attention with a high LSAT. </p>

<p>Thank you both for your insight. It is good to know that my LSAT is my chance at getting in. I know I can do well on it, and it is good to know that if I ace it, I have a chance. I just wanted to know this goal was realistic before I began the process of committing my free time to this exam. But now that I know it is possible, I will be investing in doing well on this test. I believe in myself, and I know I can do this.</p>

<p>Thank you :)</p>

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<p>Don’t get sucked into this as theoretically there is no such thing as a pre-law major. </p>

<p>In addition, unless you are going to a fully funded masters program (highly unlikely as a sociology/anthropology or other humanities based major), save your money/loans to use to pay for law school (because you will have a lot of loans even at HYS).</p>

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<p>Slightly old, but LSAT scores by major: [TaxProf</a> Blog: Physics/Math, Economics Majors Ace the LSAT; Criminal Justice, Prelaw Majors Bomb the Test](<a href=“TaxProf Blog”>TaxProf Blog)</p>

<p>Majors help, or hurt, on the margins. Criminal Justice may keep you out of some schools, but it will probably not make that much of difference. The big problem is that the average criminal justice major scores 14 points lower on the LSAT that does the average math major.</p>

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<p>I know my major typically scores lower, but there’s a bunch of reasons that could be. It isn’t just that CJ majors automatically score low. Its that they don’t prepare well all the time, aren’t ready for the test, aren’t trained to think the way that is necessary, and may not know what to expect. I may be a CJ major, but I can work and try to score above average. While I may not do as well as I hope to, all I can do is try.</p>

<p>As for the masters situation, no matter what I choose to do, I do have to wait a year before law school. I’m going to be married by that point and my fiance will be in undergrad for one more year, and I’m not going to go off to law school without my family. I figure I may as well use that one year to take some grad level classes, and my university has graduate assistanships to pay for half your credits while you’re doing a program here. Plus I can complete half the program in my senior year of undergrad for no extra cost because of my GPA, so I figure I might as well.</p>