<p>I'm a first year criminology student and I've just finished my first semester, I ended up with 2 B's and a C because I had a family situation happen in the middle of the semester that extremely affected me and I've been so down lately cause I cannot stop thinking about if I've ruined my chances for law school? My ultimate dream to achieve would be Yale law, and I know that's almost impossible but if I got all A's for the rest of my 4 years and I kept up with my community program (restorative justice, basically helping convicted youth and facilitating meetings between them and victim) and get a killer LSAT score would I still have ruined my chances for being considered because of my first term marks?</p>
<p>Your chances are not ruined. Just perform as well as you know you can from here on out, and I’m sure you’ll end up at a wonderful law school.</p>
<p>Criminology or any other law-related major is a unwise option for anyone who plans to attend law school, and a first tier school like Yale will be particularly unimpressed with that choice. Law school is narrowing enough–it’s preferred that you enter with a broader academic background. I strongly suggest you switch to another subject in the social science area and take criminology classes as electives only. And I hate to be harsh, but if you plan to get through three years of law school, you’ll need a tough enough hide and sufficient determination to be able to get through the curriculum regardless of what “family situation” may transpire.</p>
<p>i wish you the best! everything will be okay in the end; if it’s not okay, it’s not the end</p>
<p>i’m sure you will find a way to accomplish your dreams even with the barriers that block you from thinking you can achieve them. best of luck.</p>
<p>If you want to attend law school, switch out of criminology (which prepares you for direct jobs after college in law enforcement or prisons) and into a major that law schools are interested in, such as Philosophy, history, or government.
Then, make sure you get the highest possible grades on your finals and immediately after Thanksgicing Break go see your professors in EACH class during office hours (or make an appointment) to explain something horrible happened in your family which distracted you but you"re trying to get back on track and were hoping s/he would be kind enough to tell you what you need to work on most urgently.
Try to get your GPA as close to 3.0 as you can, since it’s very hard to “come back from” a GPA lower than that.</p>
<p>Don’t get down on yourself! It sound like you have lots of time and like you’re motivated to turn your academic record around.</p>
<p>Most law school applications have places for you to upload an addendum about unusual circumstances that might explain a discrepancy in your grades like loss of a loved one, sickness, etc.</p>
<p>Many Yale law students already have graduate degrees. If you can get into a good grad school and do well there, you still have a chance.</p>
<p>Choose physics as a major or any other science background.</p>
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<p>A graduate degree is a soft factor. It helps a litte, but not much in law school admissions. Your GPA is “frozen” when you receive your first undergrad degree. </p>
<p>Looking at Yale Law’s stats can be misleading. I don’t know what the current #s are, but in a lot of entering classes, there are as many as 70-80 incoming students who have deferred admission. A lot of these students were admitted as college seniors but deferred to get a graduate degree–often as a Rhodes, Marshall, Gates, Fullbright, etc. scholar.Many of the top colleges have their own fellowships whereby graduates can attend a year or more of grad school in a foreign country, usually, though not always, England. Others had the credentials to get in in the first place, but started working towards a Ph.D. and then become disillusioned and decided to go to law school instead. </p>
<p>Getting a grad degree–no matter how well you do in it–won’t wipe out a mediocre college GPA.</p>
<p>Stop being depressed over your grades.
On Monday, go see your professors, explain a situation derailed your grades and now you want to get back on track and ask for their advice.
Meet with your adviser and say you no longer want to major in criminal justice but want to switch to either history or political science. Take a class in each next semester. Being a criminal justice major will hurt you way more than a few B’s first semester freshman year.</p>
<p>First, take a deep breath; a lot of people get into law school after having started college as you have.
Second, now is a time to assess things-why do you want to go to law school? And why Yale? You’ve picked one of the toughest school to be accepted at; if it’s Yale or nothing, then yes, unless you’ve got some kind of major hook, you’ll need to do exceptionally well the rest of the way out-and get a monster LSAT score.
But why law? You need to get a sense of what the market is-go to websites like Law Transparency to see what law school costs, and what job opportunities are-and yes, YLS is at the very top of the pyramid.
Regarding your major, criminology(as opposed to criminal justice) is a well-respected discipline within sociology, and some law schools(e.g. Georgetown) have criminology professors who teach at the law school. And it’s not very practical-but neither are history, poli sci, or any of the non-science liberal arts degrees these days. But no law school prefers poli sci over criminology(again NOT criminal justice, which is a major to be avoided).
It’s first semester break; take time to assess why you want to be a lawyer and why it has to be Yale. If it’s Yale or nothing, the reality is you will need to do exceptionally well from this point forward-which is very possible.</p>
<p>OP, are you a student in criminology (the specialized branch of sociology) or in criminal justice?</p>
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<p>You haven’t. Go take a look at some of the numbers [url=<a href=“Recently Updated J.D. Profiles | Law School Numbers”>Recently Updated J.D. Profiles | Law School Numbers]here[/url</a>]. I’ve started you with Yale’s numbers for last cycle but you should look around at other schools. Great grades are necessary but not sufficient for Yale, but Yale isn’t the only law school around. I think a better question is why a freshman has Yale Law so high in her sights?</p>
<p>As to all those posts saying “don’t do criminology!!” and then recommending other majors, ignore them. You should ignore them because the vast majority of law schools do not care what your major is. Yale might care (but only because they’re picking out of the 4.0/175+ crowd already) but it’s unlikely they care enough for it to be a factor worth worrying about (and certainly not sacrificing GPA for). </p>
<p>Where major does become a factor is in getting jobs. Knowing your interests would help answer that (as well as the “why Yale so much?” question), but you should also be aware that your interests may change. Majoring in something that provides options should you decide against law school is something you should consider. I have no idea if criminology does this, but if it does then you’re set. If not, I would look into it.</p>