I think I want to be a criminal lawyer, but are these majors useful if I want to score high on the lsat and make it into law school?
You can major in anything to go to law school. Just keep your grades up. If you aren’t sure about the law path then major in something where you can get a job. Law has a lot of writing so learning to write well is crucial.
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Nothing criminal justice is going to help get in to law school. poli sci, history, psychology, comparative literature, philosophy… much more useful. Reading and writing- that’s the name of the game.
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The LSAT is about logic and reasoning, not specific law-related content, so no particular major or class (except an LSAT prep class) will help you with it.
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Agree…any major you enjoy and can do well in will be fine for law school.
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I’m co-signing on the reading & writing-heavy majors. I agree with @gouf78 to thinking about what you might want to do if you end up changing your mind about law school, though it doesn’t mean you have to get a vocational-focused degree. But think about how to prepare yourself through internships, minors, electives, etc.
If you are interested in criminal justice, I would suggest a degree in criminology instead. From what I have been told, it’s the more academically-focused (and heavier on reading & writing) version of criminal justice.
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My rising college senior is prepping for the LSAT currently. She’s a Business Management major. A good friend of hers starts law school in the fall; she was Communications major.
Law schools will look at LSAT, gpa and resume-all 3 need to be high/solid.
Stick with a solid, stand alone major, in case you change your mind or law school doesn’t work out.
Echoing what others have said . . . really truly major in anything. Political science will not even be 1% more helpful in law school than most any other major. There really aren’t classes you can take in undergrad that will prepare you for law school, or make it more likely you’ll be admitted to law school.
I agree with others that the ability to write and to analyze is key to success in law school. But, legal writing is pretty drastically different than the writing you would do in most undergraduate majors so I’m not as convinced as some that choosing a “writing heavy” major in undergrad is necessarily helpful. You’ll take multiple classes specifically in legal writing when you’re in law school, and some students feel that they have to “unlearn” writing habits they picked up in high school and college to be competent legal writers.
The ability to put together grammatically correct sentences and a facility with words and language is very helpful but I don’t think that’s the focus of most college writing.
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