<p>Unless you think that majors are somehow causing these LSAT scores, the most reasonable interpretation of your post #18 is that business majors will harm you directly in the admissions process. That is, that majoring in business will harm you even if your LSAT is the same as another candidate’s.</p>
<p>While true, that effect is much smaller than the effect of a criminal justice major.</p>
<p>I’ll concede that business is a more impressive major than criminal justice in the application process, but really, as you said, that will only come into play if two applicants have almost identical stats and one is a business major and the other a criminal justice major. It has been my experience that business and criminal justice produce law students who are equally ill-prepared for the intellectual rigors of law school. Neither major requires the writing, critical thinking, or analysis necessary for a legal education. </p>
<p>Granted, finance majors are usually decent because they tend to have a strong background in math (thus aiding their methodological reasoning) and they’ve typically been trained on a case method that requires them to tackle problems critically and analytically.</p>
<p>All,</p>
<p>I have heard about business major being looked down upon by law schools. However, I also heard about accounting major could be considered as a bonus for a tax lawyer just like the biology major could be a real asset for a lawyer working in a lawsuit for a drug company. I would think that a lawyer with strong finance background would be an excellent candidate working for SEC.</p>
<p>Are we considering accounting and finance as “horrible” majors for law schools?</p>
<p>Personally, I respect accounting and finance as adequate majors. My bigest issue is with management, marketing, international business, etc.</p>
<p>What about economics?</p>
<p>Economics is social science - not business. Econ emphasizes important skills a lot more than any business degree will, and econ majos have an impressive LSAT average of 157.4, second only to math and physics majors.</p>
<p>Econ averages third, after math/physics and philosophy. Unless something changed and econ now averages second.</p>
<p>As for the major/LSAT correlation, correlation does not imply causation.</p>
<p>How much does undergrad major influence job prospects? My undergrad is mechanical engineering. Would an engineering firm, for example, be more likely to hire me as a lawyer? I don’t really know how this works.</p>
<p>Most majors are fine for law school with the sole exceptions of performance types of majors such as art, design, music and theater. Even these majors would, however, be acceptable.</p>
<p>Obviously, any major that requires intensive writing and critical reading would be a good choice. This includes english, philosophy, history, economics, classics etc.
However, some majors, which are not that common such as accounting, engineering are also in demand primarily because of their rarity. This is particularly true if the law school has a concentration related to the major. For example, a strong tax law program would obviously want accountants applying. A program that is strong in intellectual property would be more receptive to science and engineering applicants.</p>
<p>Outside of patent prosecution, where you’re required to have a science degree to sit for the bar, I doubt your undergrad major matters. Obviously if you want to do something like tax law, they will probably expect you to have a basic, working knowledge and familiarity with financial statements and basic financial accounting (and you should), but I doubt even that’s essential.</p>
<p>BTW, inhouse jobs are as rare as hen’s teeth, so you’ll most likely end up in private practice of some sort when you finish law school (whether this is at Skadden, a middle market firm, or a solo shop with 3 associates still remains a mystery).</p>
<p>so what is the best major? i would think that if you take the time out and study your score will be good no matter what your major is. </p>
<p>so what is the best pre-law school major? philosophy? English? i always thought that Criminal Justice was a good one</p>
<p>Yes, anyone from any major can study hard for the LSAT. However, certain majors prepare you better for your studying. For example, math majors have a clear advantage with logical reasoning because of the nature of their coursework. Overall, there is no “best” pre-law major. Many majors offer courses that hone skills necessary for law school. If your major is writing intensive, forces critical reading, and requires you to use analytical skills then you’ll be fine. The popular majors for these skills include history, political science, English, philosophy, and economics. The problem with criminal justice is that most programs just teach “facts” about the law - this is useless. There is very little independent thinking, and most criminal justice majors, beyond being horribly ill-prepared for law school, tend to go in thinking they know everything about law. This is very, very incorrect - law school isn’t about facts, it’s about learning the skills of legal thinking and reasoning.</p>
<p>All,</p>
<p>Many posters on this board are knowledgeable about career paths other than law. Would you please share your views on the following?</p>
<p>My youngest son in HS likes both subjects. I understand that Economics is probably better than Finance as a major for law school. However, I tend to believe that he may not need to pursue a law degree if he really enjoys working in finance related fields. In this case, finance could be a back-up plan for him. On the other hand, what would his career path be with an Economics major? Can he expect to use his Economics degree to pursue a back-up career if he decides not to pursue the law degree?</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>Investment banks and the like tend to pay more attention to school name than to major – they’ll recruit a History major or anything if it’s from Harvard. For that matter, most of the top schools don’t offer Finance majors anyway.</p>
<p>BDM and All,</p>
<p>What is the recruiting depth for IB at Harvard History? Would they take someone in the bottom 1/3? I could not find the job placement of students from Harvard. I would certainly understand that a student in the top 30% of their class at Harvard would beat a student in the top 3% at a decent state college. Nonetheless, I think that it is risky if a student ends up in the bottom 1/3 even at an elite college. If the same student, also from a middle class family, can’t make it into a rewarding career path, how is he/she going to pay off the debt? So, in general, should most students pursue a practical UG major in case their pursuit of IB, medical school, or T14 does not pan out? </p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>No, they probably wouldn’t step that low. I’d think they’d be looking for 3.6+, but I don’t know much about that. The point is that school name and secondarily grades matter – major is not nearly as important for Wall St. work.</p>
<p>In general, Ivy grads don’t face major employment issues. Another major source of jobs, of course, is management/strategic consulting, but government jobs are also quite plentiful at upper-crust programs.</p>
<p>Again, Ivies don’t offer finance or other “practical” (by which I assume you mean vocational) majors. (Princeton’s finance is the major exception.) Even Penn’s Wharton school tags their degrees as “Economics.”</p>
<p>And if you’re at a lower-tier school, then IB and Consulting are pretty much closed to you anyway.</p>
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<p>I’m responding to a post from a while ago, but wouldn’t this mean that majors like bio wouldn’t look good either? I know that bio majors do fine in law school admissions, but as someone who once planned to major in bio I can say it is a lot of memorization, doing problems repeatedly, and grunt work instead of critical thinking. The real critical thinking takes place in doing science research, but not every bio major is required to do that.</p>
<p>^ True, but don’t most bio majors have to take classes such as physics and chemistry? I personally liked physics and chemistry compared to biology because of the added element of critical thinking, and I think that through related classes bio majors can pick up at least small portions of this element (whereas I don’t see a Communication major picking that up). </p>
<p>Also, I think that bio majors do have to do a LOT of reading and at that dense reading, another critical element of law school that they are trained in advance for (again which Comm majors are not).</p>
<p>Just a few more comments to some statements in this thread: </p>
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<p>Music majors actually do quite well. (Although there might be a difference between musical performance and musical theory-- BDM, care to comment?)</p>
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<p>For IB specifically, you will need a 3.5+ at Harvard to land an interview. Although you need to be at a Target School to break into IB, you still need to do well at that school. </p>
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<p>Econ majors have many more career opportunities open to them than just law school (but then again so do many of the other majors being discussed on this board). Remember though that if your son’s other option is IB, they will not have a shot if they do not attend a target school (Ivy League, Stanford, MIT, Duke, UChi, NU + a few others).</p>
<p>Bio majors do a lot of reading, but it’s about acquiring the information and understanding concepts that matter, not necessarily how you read. I think there is more spatial skills involved in a science major, but I don’t know how that would help for law school. Most students in bio classes don’t even need to read all the recommended reading to do well. They do have to take physics and chemistry classes, but I think chemistry doesn’t necessarily have to involve a lot of critical thinking because one can easily do well by practicing on many problems (in intro courses at least, I can’t say for upper level courses). </p>
<p>Again, it would be doing research in chem or bio that involves dense reading and critical thinking. I think bio majors are on the whole likelier smarter than communications majors though.</p>