<p>Hey there. I'm a HS senior who was just accepted into the Pre Law Scholars program at Marquette University (henceforth MU). The 3/3 program is what it sounds like: with three years of undergrad (History, my first love) followed by three years of law school, with electives from the BA lumped into 4th year undergrad to cover first year law courses, saving a year of school and 35k. </p>
<p>I've already got nearly a full ride in MU's honors program, but I'm wondering if taking the 2.5k per year and entering the 3/3 program as well as the Honors college is worth it. MU Law is only 87th in law rankings, and even though I plan to stay around my hometown of Milwaukee to practice, I still feel I can do better, perhaps even T14, since I can probably pull a 3.75+ in MU's honors program in history and have always tested well (which will come in handy for the LSAT). </p>
<p>Any input is appreciated. If anyone wants other information I'm happy to supply it.</p>
<p>Normally the immediate response would be to tell you not to go to Marquette, but since you want to stay in Milwaukee it’s a little more involved. As you can see [for</a> yourself](<a href=“6 Keys to a Stellar Law School Resume - Professional Resume Writers”>6 Keys to a Stellar Law School Resume - Professional Resume Writers), Marquette only manages to place half its graduates in jobs. The majority who do get jobs wind up in small firms. If you have a full ride to both the undergrad and the law school, and the stipulations on any money are reasonable (you should definitely find out what they are and post them here), then going to Marquette is a maybe. </p>
<p>Your first move would be to see if you are stuck in this 3/3 program. If you decide after a year or two of undergrad that you actually don’t want to be in Milwaukee, you don’t want to be stuck going to Marquette. Your second move is probably to start figuring out what kind of law you want to practice. Milwaukee will be amenable to some practice areas more than others. You should see what kind of work is actually going on. If it isn’t what you want, you should reconsider staying in Milwaukee (or law school, depending on which is more important to you). Next you should actually talk to the firms doing the kind of work you want. Would they prefer to hire out of Marquette or would they prefer a better ranked school, especially a T14?</p>
<p>If you get a full ride and want to stay in Milwaukee and are not trapped in this program and firms have at least no preference between Marquette and any other school, then going for the 3/3 program is not a terrible move. If any of those aren’t true though, you probably shouldn’t do it. Feel free to gather more information and then come back here.</p>
<p>@Demosthenes49: I am not stuck in the 3/3 program if I commit. I can back out at any time but then I go back to being a regular honors student who must complete all four years of undergrad before law school, instead of three.</p>
<p>I haven’t decided what specialization I’m going into, but elder law is on my list, and so is tax law.</p>
<p>@Hanna: No, you do not, you can keep the 2.5k if you’ve already completed the year, but you forfeit the further years’ money. You also can’t skip senior year of undergrad if you go opt out of MU Law and go elsewhere. I would be spending one whole year taking electives in order to finish my BA.</p>
<p>@JonLaw: Speaking for myself, it’s because I am a history major and our modern world economy is structured such that the great value which a humanities degree provides (critical thinking skills, research experience, reading comprehension, and verbal communication) is overlooked in favor of people who know how to type equations into calculators, meaning that if I don’t want to make 35k per year working for the Washoga County Historical Society I must roll the dice with law school. There are really no other worthy options for those of us who have at least part of a brain yet were not endowed at birth with amazing mathematical skills.</p>
<p>I would check around the area and find practitioners who do the things that interest you. See if you can intern with them. Knowing what the day-to-day is like will help you inform your choices. Definitely check if they care about going to Marquette versus going to any other school.</p>
<p>“Speaking for myself, it’s because I am a history major and our modern world economy is structured such that the great value which a humanities degree provides (critical thinking skills, research experience, reading comprehension, and verbal communication) is overlooked in favor of people who know how to type equations into calculators, meaning that if I don’t want to make 35k per year working for the Washoga County Historical Society I must roll the dice with law school.”</p>
<p>So you are going to make 35k as a lawyer instead?</p>
So far, you’ve been competing against a pool of people that is basically the general population (just in your own age bracket). College is different: all those people who didn’t go to college or went to community college aren’t there, so it’s a stronger overall pool.</p>
<p>Graduate school ups the ante even more: all of those people who didn’t finish college, flunked out, did badly, or lack the motivation to continue their education are out of the game. My very general rule of thumb for estimating what your graduate school test percentile will be is to do 100-(SAT or ACT percentile), then multiply by two, then subtract from 100. </p>
<p>“Aries, check your math. Half of people get negative numbers, and there’s no such thing as a negative percentile.” Correct - and those half are the people who aren’t going to go to graduate school. </p>
<p>OK, then I don’t see a down side to the program, unless you’re considering some other college where you could graduate in 3 years, and that would be appealing to you.</p>
<p>“Graduate school ups the ante even more: all of those people who didn’t finish college, flunked out, did badly, or lack the motivation to continue their education are out of the game.”</p>
<p>This isn’t necessarily true. </p>
<p>There will still be people like me who started getting C’s and D’s junior/senior year who are still able to get in because of high initial college grades.</p>
<p>I had zero motivation when I started law school, so I was an automatic addition to the bottom half of the class.</p>
<p>But since the LSAT has no math component, which was what brought me down on the ACT (I got a 29 in math and a 30 in Science), I still think I’ll do well enough for at least a T50 law school.</p>
<p>with that ACT score, you should be able to do well on the LSAT. Work for a year, and then aim for Northwestern and/or Michigan. Great schools and would be perfect to get back to Mke.</p>