<p>Could anyone offer opinions and advice on which of these schools is better regarding;</p>
<li><p>Pre-Law advising, prep, and how students fare generally in law school admissions. </p></li>
<li><p>Difficulty of the academic program there - in terms of amount of work for GPA, or in comparison to each other. </p></li>
<li><p>The type of people met at the university and environment at the university, both relating to a person who wants to be extremely involved in extracurriculars, student government, the community, and politics overall. I could not go to a school where academics is the sole focus. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>Note; all the schools happened to give roughly the same financial aid making them all relatively affordable and the same cost.</p>
<p>Major: International Affairs and Economics </p>
<p>Schools:</p>
<p>George Washington University - Honors College, Elliot School
Johns Hopkins University - Arts and Sciences
Duke University - Arts and Sciences
NYU Stern - BPE Program
Cornell University - ILR School </p>
<p>I would lean towards either Hopkins or Duke, with a probable preference for the latter. I’m not a big fan of NYU for undergrad, and while GWU is a great school (especially for international affairs), I think your other options are at least as good. Cornell is obviously also a great school, but the cold/bleak winter weather would easily eliminate it for me. :)</p>
<p>The Hopkins Pre-Law group is pretty small, but it is one of the most successful in the entire country. 95-96% of Pre-Law students at Hopkins get into law school upon application, one of the highest numbers in the country. I know of people from Hopkins undergrad that get into harvard, yale, stanford, penn, columbia, etc Law schools and they had a blast because Hopkins offers much smaller courses in the humanities and probably affords you less competition than pre-law at Duke.</p>
<p>Pre-Law at Hopkins is fantastic, and though I know I may be biased in saying this, I think Hopkins is a fantastic option.</p>
<p>You say “I could not go to a school where academics is the sole focus,” so I would actually eliminate Johns Hopkins. The environment there is very intense and the location of the school is not optimal. You say you’re interesting in becoming involved with “politics overall.”
I’d pick either GWU or Cornell, depending on whether you like a city or pastoral environment.</p>
<p>If you are a New York State resident, then Cornell ILR would be the best choice by far (unless money makes no difference at all). Cornell ILR has a great International Labor program.</p>
<p>NYU Stern - Prestigious program. great undergrad preparation for law profession especially if you want to practice corporate law. known for grade inflation. excellent career opportunities even if you decide not to pursue law later on. It’s located in the heart of New York City. Rich and very talented student body.</p>
<p>Don’t listen to the WSJ rankings for Cornell, it takes into account the large population of Cornellians in the Agriculture and Life Sciences, Human Ecology, Hotel, and Engineering who do not necessarily want to go to grad school. Cornell ILR is known for its law school placement</p>
OP what did you eventually choose? I have the same interests and am deciding between Hopkins and Stern BPE, so it’d be great to hear about your experience and your ultimate rationale for choosing the school that you did. Thanks!