<p>just curious, why does MIT have such a strong political science program, but a weak law program? Don't political science come hand in hand with law?</p>
<p>Well, MIT actually has political science faculty, but no law school, if that’s what you mean. It’s certainly easier to be strong in an area in which you actually have an established academic program. And in general, MIT tends to be academic rather than pre-professional.</p>
<p>MIT students who want to go to law school are prepared extremely well, although there aren’t many of them. For the last year for which the Careers Office posts data, 100% of the seniors who applied to law school got into at least one school (data [here](<a href=“http://web.mit.edu/career/www/infostats/preprof.html#law]here[/url]”>http://web.mit.edu/career/www/infostats/preprof.html#law)</a>).</p>
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<p>Which is why it’s amazing 
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<p>I’ve noticed, I explicitly don’t get along with many pre-professional folk, except for the ones who’re extremely detached from their school work.</p>
<p>Colleges and universities designate particular programs as “pre-law”. Such programs can exist in many fields. But consider this: the majors with the highest scores on the LSAT are physics and math majors. Michael Nieswiadomy’s 1998 study of the LSAT scores of college majors lists the highest scoring majors (source: Journal of Economic Education, Volume 29, Number 4 (Fall 1998), pp.377-379, table 1). He did not include physics and math data in this list, because as he notes in his study, very few students from those fields take the LSAT. I’ve included partial data from his table below (between Engineering and Political Science are such fields as Journalism, Finance, Psychology, and Accounting). Of all the majors listed, Political Science majors represent the largest number of undergraduates that take the LSAT.</p>
<p>Average LSAT Scores by Undergraduate Major Field of Study, 1994-95
Score/Number of students
Economics 155.3/ 2,916 students
History 154.0/ 5,819
English 153.7/ 6,324
Engineering 152.7/ 2,656
Political Science 151.6/ 15,388</p>
<p>P.S. In case I didn’t make this clear, there’s no such thing as an undergraduate law program.</p>
<p>“For the last year for which the Careers Office posts data, 100% of the seniors who applied to law school got into at least one school”</p>
<p>Law school is extremely easy to get into… this stat means nothing.</p>
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<p>This reminds me of a scene in Animal House where Otter about to defend his fraternity before the disciplinary committee. When he gets up, Otter says to his frat brother, “Relax, I’m pre-law.” </p>
<p>“I thought you were pre-med.” the frat brother replies.</p>
<p>Otter: “What’s the difference?”</p>
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I freely admit that I know absolutely nothing about getting into law school. Anyway, you can also see which law schools people got into [url=<a href=“http://web.mit.edu/career/www/preprof/top15law.pdf]here[/url”>http://web.mit.edu/career/www/preprof/top15law.pdf]here[/url</a>].</p>