I want to go to a t-14 law school, and I know the two most important factors are undergraduate gpa and LSAT scores, so I was wondering if Emory is more difficult in comparison to state colleges. I want to major in English and get the highest gpa possible, while having access to good professors and internship opportunities.
Two lawyer friends of mine got their bachelor’s degrees at Emory. I don’t know what grades they got, but they apparently were good enough for them to get into law school. I think one of them did get into a top law school, and the other one got into a law school lower down the rankings list.
@beaniebarbie : You actually don’t need that to get into top law schools anymore (many students at Emory are getting into T14s and T20s with 3.6 range grades and maybe a little lower), but it would help. I would say that at all rigorous schools, doing a non-STEM major makes that range more doable and plenty of people do well in English. Political Science is one of the majors that catches students off-guard (especially some of the introductory courses) at Emory. “Getting the highest GPA possible” rests in your hand and usually is not going to be easy if you also want “good professors”. Be prepared to invest a good amount of time into your writing and reading if you want professors that really care about you and will write the best rec. letters for internships or even research opportunities. But in college, usually the best professors are not the ones that make it easy for students to make high GPAs. They are the ones who set a high bar and then do their best to mentor and provide resources necessary to help the students do the bet they can.
I’m sure that this girl does well, but the faculty at Emory are so used to “grade first” folks that they tend to celebrate and give more attention to students like this: https://news.emory.edu/features/2018/12/poet-christell-roach/index.html
and: http://news.emory.edu/stories/2017/05/er_commencement_sudler_prize/campus.html
https://emorywheel.com/student-spotlight-lucy-waingersophomore-reads-at-decatur-book-festival/
and yes I recognize that they may be extraordinarily gifted, but the point is the departments like really intellectually engaged students. Do the best you can performance wise and enjoy the intellectual atmosphere. English at Emory has one of the best academic and intellectual environments for undergraduates on campus for sure, and with grades this really is one where you get out what you put in. No rigorous professor is setting the bar high primarily with the purposes of weeding out like STEM and some social sciences. It’s just Emory, and it’s a well-known and effective program. The bar may be higher than many other places because Emory attracts a lot of already stellar as well soon to be stellar writers to its program, but the faculty and everyone is there to help you develop and ultimately do well.
*I only say all this, because English at Emory is a special animal versus the expectations many may have going into an English major because of it being well-branded lately and being able to attract very serious undergraduates. At many schools, it is often sort of the “fun” or “easy” major. At Emory, you’ll find a good bit of rigor and very critical peers and faculty members. I’ve seen people go in and get their ego’s hurt or bruised even if not their GPAs because they flippantly chose it. Depending on your attitude, apparently some of the smaller discussion, more writing intensive and workshop based courses can be brutal.