<p>I would suspect that uchicagoalum's observation is essentially true, but a difference between the national average of 60% (admitted somewhere) versus 90% is perhaps something to consider.</p>
<p>Newmassdad: When I went to law school, there were a few engineering majors there, but the only hard scientists were people who were changing careers in their 30s. I don't know that one could really tell how hard science majors do. The best students among them get swept away into PhD or MD (or both) programs, and elite law schools aren't interested in non-best students straight out of college. Years ago, my best friend got into UVa law school as a geology major, but I'm sure his sixth-semester switch from history to geology didn't fool anyone that he was really a hard-science guy. (He had a conversion experience taking Rocks for Jocks as a junior. The department let him substitute that for the required intro course.) Math majors are not unknown, and are very popular. Most lawyers, even law professors, are awed by people who can do real math.</p>
<p>Law schools looooove it when actual working scientists apply (provided they have good LSATs).</p>
<p>I agree with uchicagoalum's interpretation of the very limited data provided, absent some of the snark. Yes, it's likely that the people who didn't get admitted anywhere were being picky, not that they couldn't get picked. I am a tad-and-a-half suspicious of the article that idad posted, however. For one, it's off by 150% on the size of a UChicago Law School entering class. And I am pretty certain that 168/3.5 hasn't meant automatic admission in a long, long time. (For one, both figures are below the law school's 25th percentile line for LSAT and GPA of enrolled students.) Also, the article just frankly contradicts what the law school says about its admissions.</p>
<p>I cannot vouch for the article, just found it interesting. I found the GW table to be more of interest and informative.</p>
<p>Years ago, I saw an internal report for Michigan State U, where (and when) I was an undergrad, that compared GPA from various majors. I well recall that at MSU at that time, that engineers had the lowest average GPA (around 2.8!), science majors a bit higher, social science next, and humanities the highest average GPA, around 3.2 if I recall correctly. Mind you, this was at a public U, pre-grade inflation. </p>
<p>I've often wondered if the same differential holds true today and if this kind of differential exists within elite private universities that are less subject to external political pressures (more subject to donor and alumni pressures in compensation?). I have no idea, and have never seen any data one way or another, but I am suspicious of anecdotal claims and "urban legend" type data. After all, if we believe that humanities and social science majors are a bit more outspoken than science/engineering/math majors, not a bold assumption, then it would be no surprise that we hear more about the difficulty of science and math classes than about humanities classes. I dare say that literature, language and the like are no easier for many hard core physics majors than are physics classes for hard core humanities types. </p>
<p>The relevance for law school? Not sure, but I wonder if the law school path is just as logical for a social science/humanities (SS/H) major as grad school is for a science major? The parallel, IMHO, is that neither a BS in a science nor a BA/BS in SS/H prepares you for much of a career. I hope the differences are obvious, too, such as the fact that a PhD in SS/H does not provide much of an edge (hence law school) whereas a PhD in science does.</p>
<p>Here's the break down at Brown:</p>
<p>Three-quarters</a> of letter grades in humanities are A's - Campus News</p>
<p>It seems that humanities seems to be the softest academic area at Brown. Do any others have data from other colleges?</p>
<p>In any case, I thought the Brown figures alone were revealing.</p>