Legal Studies at Berkeley or Poly Sci at UCLA?

<p>i think generally, law schools don’t care what you majored in. as long as you get good grades and score high on the LSATs. focus on those two things. </p>

<p>one good thing about majoring in pre-law/legal studies is that it does show your genuine interest in the field…BUT if you get poor grades in this major, it will definitely not look good. also, legal studies might give you a good foundation of the law (again, what you’ll learn in law school anyway) but it wont necessarily train you how to do well on the LSATs. </p>

<p>major in what you think you’ll do best in, a high GPA will, by far, outweigh any major.</p>

<p>@pinoiako - this OP wasn’t asking about health careers. plus there are many excellent health professionals who went “pre-med” at berkeley.</p>

<p>If you want to be a lawyer major in Philosophy, Econ, Math, Physics or Engineering. The reason these majors do the best as they are all extremely rigorous. Philosophy majors take formal logic, which is directly on the LSAT in the form of logic games. Also, the textual analysis skills philosophy imparts with its extremely difficult texts lends itself well for the LSAT and the work of lawyers.
Poli Sci and History are traditional undergrad majors for lawyers but if you look at the statistics they do not do as well as much of those classes is memorization and not critical thinking. </p>

<p>I’m sorry but to anyone who has been to UCLA can immediately notice how attractive the people are. I have only visited UCB(Many times for football games etc), UCLA(Once), and UCSD(Once) but UCLA seemed the more attractive in regards to people. It might have to do with the weather…girls are wearing summer dresses, short shorts etc. Although, this does not explain why the weather=attractiveness does not apply to UCSD…</p>

<p>Berkeley is definitely more laid back and intellectual in the traditional coffee shop discussion sense. I find the city of Berkeley disgusting. It is extremely dirty, and lots of homeless people. The campus is amazing though and you can feel the spirits of great intellects in the air. The library looks straight out of Hogwarts from Harry Potter and there is dedicated parking spots for Nobel Laureates if that says anything to you.
UCLA is super upbeat, bright, beautiful, and for my tastes a little too fast-paced. Super nice area albeit very commercial when compared to the awesome variety of businesses around the Berkeley campus. A way to describe UCLA would be the “Disney-Channel” college.</p>

<p>Btw. law schools do not “frown” on legal studies majors especially out of Berkeley. It is the crappy state schools “legal studies majors” that they frown upon as the major reduces the study of law and hence the foundation of society to a mere trade school.( Albeit that is what it is, law schools need to face this fact.)
Diversity is what law schools want and as long as you do great on the LSAT and have a high GPA, a Music Major, Theater or Fashion Major still has a great chance for great law schools.</p>

<p>@ zenskeptical</p>

<p>hmm, the way you described the whole LSAT process is interesting because for the Legal Studies Major I had to take 2 econ classes, a philosophy class and a western world history class. So what your saying essentially is that LS is better but UCLA’s atmosphere is better as far as having a fun time?</p>

<p>UCLA and Cal have its strengths in certain areas. </p>

<p>For most pure science majors like bio, physics, math, engineering,psychology as a social science, political science, majors that do well on the LSAT, business- Cal is stronger. </p>

<p>For pre-med/health, any discipline in the health sciences, psychology as a medical discipline (psychobiology), neuropsychology, theater, film, performing arts, music- UCLA is stronger</p>

<p>Our family friend told me this. In fact, he works at UC Berkeley.</p>

<p>Berkeley is slightly more prestigious but you can not go wrong with these two great schools.</p>

<p>If you are aiming for a top 5 law school (Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, UChicago), then Berk is probably better. Can’t say exactly why, but more people generally go from berk to a top 5 than from UCLA</p>

<p>[Yale</a> Law School undergraduate representation](<a href=“Yale Law School undergraduate representation Forum - Top Law Schools”>Yale Law School undergraduate representation Forum - Top Law Schools)</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/duke-university/326689-law-school-harvard-yale-uva-undergrad-representation.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/duke-university/326689-law-school-harvard-yale-uva-undergrad-representation.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Might be better support networks. Might be that the given schools have better students. I doubt that it’s the student make-up though since I feel that UCLA and UCB attract students of comparable caliber, which makes it difficult to explain having twice as many people go from UCB to Yale. Impossible to know for sure, can only look at the numbers. It’s still advisable to get out of legal studies if you go to Berk though.</p>

<p>If you are aiming any lower, probably UCLA. After you get out of the top 5, UG starts mattering less. LSAT and GPA are basically sole determinants. You’d already be in PoliSci if you went to UCLA, a subject it sounds you can maintain a high GPA in.</p>

<p>darksaber91- The prestige between LA and Berkeley isnt that significant. I agree that berkeley is a bit more prestigious but it depends on what you want to major in.</p>

<p>Yah its getting real tough now to decide, UCLA is definitely closing the gap. My financial aid said i got 21,000 dollars in scholarship from UCLA so i only have to pay 9000 for the year. Poly Sci would be easier but would a certificate from Berkeley mean more when it comes to a top 15-20 law program? I know am not gonna be able to get into an ivy league schools law program</p>

<p>@ Pinoiako
I agree that there isn’t much difference in prestige between UCB and LA and I doubt that prestige alone is the factor that causes the discrepancy between UCB and UCLA in admission to top 5’s. I don’t know exactly what causes it; all I know is that more people go from UCB to top 5’s than from UCLA and, from what i’ve heard, many of those that do go from UCLA tend to be URM’s (which makes quite a difference).</p>

<p>@jg2290
Don’t rule yourself out of the top 5. If you can maintain or even raise your GPA and get a great LSAT score, you will be very competitive for Columbia (#4) and UChicago (#5) law</p>

<p>[Columbia</a> Law School : Entering Class Profile](<a href=“http://www.law.columbia.edu/jd_applicants/admissions/classprofile]Columbia”>http://www.law.columbia.edu/jd_applicants/admissions/classprofile)</p>

<p>Even Yale/Harvard/Stanford may not be out of reach if you raise your GPA a little and absolutely dominate the LSAT.</p>

<p>To answer your question though, the difference between UCB and UCLA becomes less pronounced after the top 5. If you honestly believe that is where you want/will end up then UCB vs. UCLA probably won’t make much difference. Go wherever you will get the highest GPA.</p>

<p>I was excited to find another transfer applicant to Berkeley’s Legal Studies Program on here! Congrats on UCLA and best of luck Friday.</p>

<p>darksaber - how do you know so much!? i feel like i should know these things too T_T</p>

<p>@redoplease</p>

<p>lol, after I got rejected from UCB, UCLA, and UCSD out of HS I determined that I was going to study the f * uck out of CCC and eventually get into the best law school possible. So i’ve basically been researching the topic non-stop since then.</p>

<p>@darksaber: I got rejected from UCB, UCLA and UCSD too, when I applied as a freshman in 2009. I also found it gave me great motivation to excel in CC in order to get into those top UCs.</p>