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[quote]
"...is there a serious possibility that you plan to go on to law school...? If so... go with classes and majors that maximize GPA, period. No other priority in any class that has a grade. If that means Sustainable Development in Latin America, go for it; if it means anthropology as human rights activism, go for it; if it means Global Justice, go for it. The professional schools won’t care; all that matters is the GPA....</p>
<p>...the immensely damaging effect of grade inflation on risk-taking among our supposedly brightest elites... When falling below, in effect, an A– at worst average easily drives you out of the top ten law schools? Or out of the top 20? And when you know, and your parents know, that in addition to the 50k a year you’ve paid to study some liberal arts subject that only has a return on investment if you double down the bet on law school or b-school — at another 50k a year? And further, when you know that outside of the top 25 or so law schools at this very moment, the job opportunities are sufficiently iffy that you are not so much making an investment as placing a bet on employment ... well, you are going to not just rationally, but desperately, seek every way of ensuring that your GPA is as close to 4.0 as humanly possible...
<p>I totally agree with this, as a Harvard Law alum. I’ve always thought that part of why I got in was my relatively high GPA, which I ensured by taking a lot of anthro classes. Sad advice. </p>
<p>If this shocks you, then you should maybe think about whether law school is right for you. Have you read</p>
<p>You can’t blame the GPA requirement entirely, but law school is full of (and cultivates) risk-averse people. It’s where you get to go if you’ve kept your nose clean all these years. Unlike undergrad institutions, law schools don’t try to admit a certain of “alternative” students. They want people who they know can perform. The schools take no risks. And so neither do the students. </p>
<p>The principle suggested above applies only if you consider an undergraduate education to be nothing but a means to an end (law school). Anyone who denies such a belief can reasonably reject your principle.</p>
<p>Just wondering, if every student currently enrolled at every college or university graduated with a STEM degree do you think there would be a shortage of STEM related jobs? What would we be telling them to do next?</p>
<p>@parentofpeople: I still think they’d have more marketable skills than your typical LA graduate.</p>
<p>Capable STEM people would produce a boom in economy, imho. The reason everyone doesn’t do it is because not everyone is suited for the job. We need baristas and waiters too. Especially in Seattle.</p>
<p>I am a chemical engineering Junior who just last semester started buckling down and making all A’s in my classes. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize my own potential the first two years, and as a result I am successfully bringing up my 2.8 GPA to a 3.4 by the time I graduate because I started making straight A’s in classes ten times as hard as the ones I made B’s and C’s in as a Freshman and Sophomore.</p>
<p>Anyway, I know with my new work ethic no lie, it is primarily because of my passion to become a successful patent attorney with the help of getting into a good law school I will do great on my LSAT; but my 3.4 GPA will not stop nagging me about how much better it could be with this new work ethic. Here is my plan of attack:</p>
<p>Because I am a good writer and have already taken several advanced composition courses out of interest and made As in them even back when my work ethic was terrible I am debating getting a dual Bachelors Degree in Chemical Engineering and English. The idea here is the if I plan it to where I get both degrees at the same time by pushing back engineering courses and focusing on English courses, then I will have both degree GPAs counted toward my law school considerations. Is this true? (I have heard it is true on College Confidential forums.) Thus, with most likely a 4.0 in 2 years or so worth of English courses with my 3.4 in Chemical Engineering, I think my overall GPA and my degrees will make this plan degree significantly worth it. But wait, theres more </p>
<p>As an added bonus, I believe the English Bachelors will really develop my ability to write and to write well. With so much extra stress on not only getting into a good law school but getting onto the Law Review at that school, I think that this extra English Bachelors will come back to assist me in more ways than one. </p>
<p>So, as you can see, this is becoming an extremely tempting option for me, and I am completely willing to work with the law school system and make up for past mistakes by getting this English degree.</p>
<p>an upward trend is not worth much; law schools only care about your composite gpa.</p>
<p>Do the math. XX courses @ 3.4 gpa + ~10 English courses @ 4.0 gpa. What will that raise your cum to?</p>
<p>By my math (and guessing), 120 units of engineering at 3.4 + 30 units of English at 4.0 only raises your gpa to a 3.5+. Higher is always better, but will it be worth it? Check out some of the law blogs for admissions numbers, changing the gpa from a 3.4 to a 3.5, with the same lsat.</p>
<p>LawusA, upward trends in grades are almost meaningless unless you are very close. Understand the process: When you submit your transcripts and LSAT score to the LSAC, they are sent to the law school and given an overall score based on how heavily the school weighs the LSAT and overall GPA. It is all done mathematically and mechanically . If you have some special factors, such as underrespesented minorites, you might get some more points. Basically the top 25% of the scores get accepted and the bottom 25% get rejected. For everyone else, they might weight several factors such as grade upswings, special extra curricular stuff such as being awarded a Bronze Star in the Military etc. Normally, however, grade upswings are either completely ignored or given very little weight.</p>
<p>Polo08816: I don’t know of any federal agency that pays for law school courses. I was with the IRS Chief Counsel’s office. They wouldn’t even pay for me to take tax courses at a law school masters program.</p>
Me neither. But then again, I don’t know all the federal organization/entities so I said the following…
I know commissioned officers in the NJ Army National Guard that went to a public law school (and ABA accredited) for free (no tuition due to State Tuition Waiver law) and were able to draw Post 9/11 GI Bill benefits while attending law school. They were net positive $30,000 for each year of law school and carried zero debt.
If you are seeking employment at a federal agency, this is the ideal plan. If that position requires a Top Secret clearance, there’s a good chance that by taking a debt load of $150+k at a T14 school would exclude you from getting past the hiring process of those federal entities/organizations. People that carry high debt loads are potential security risks.</p>
<p>This is straying a little off topic for the OP, but when talking about federal agencies and a TS clearance, no one factor contributes to a denial of clearance. A fresh 20-something with no criminal record (not even parking tickets), single, holds no dual-citizenship, and otherwise has great credit (never previously filed for backruptcy and has paid all other debts before law school never late etc) should still be in high standing for the TS despite currently holding the 150k debt from school. Federal agencies (and most private markets) understand that the only way for you to get rid of educational loans debt is to GET A JOB.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t say the military (to use federal ed benefits towards schooling) is the ideal plan for everyone. They would need to understand that there is a huge commitment involved. This would obviously include an enlistment (or commission) term by contract (you most likely won’t be eligible for benefits if you don’t fulill that original obligation), but you’d also need to put up with the military lifestyle and you military job for the those years you have signed for. To go through all of that JUST for the ed benefits wouldn’t keep too many motivated long enough to enjoy that sort of thing.</p>
<p>FYI, most fed agencies have now cut their tuition assistance programs for employees because of budget cuts. I know for sure the IRS has.</p>
<p>My son is a sophmore and has a low gpa now of 2.8 he did not take his first years serious enough. He is a legal studeis major and hopes to reaise his gpa to a 3.3 by the time he graduates- any hopes of aw school? even if its not in the top tier??</p>
<p>The fact that law schools prefer low-risk students makes the GPA-intensive law school admissions practices, without regard for the difficulty of those grades, all the more ironic. After all, earning a string of A’s in creampuff courses doesn’t really ensure that somebody is a top student, just like having Roger Federer defeat me in 10 straight matches doesn’t ensure that he’s a top tennis player. You are recognized as a top player only by playing and defeating other top players. Heck, somebody who makes the finals in every Grand Slam but loses has nevertheless proven himself to be a far better player than those who do nothing but beat up on low-ranked players in no-name tournaments. </p>
<p>Hence, law schools don’t really seem to be interested in the highest-performing students. Rather, they’re interested in those students who have the highest stats, which is not the same thing. Roger Federer could easily pad his stats by simply playing me every day, and that’s exactly what he should do if the tennis rankings systems were akin to law school adcoms.</p>
<p>Indeed so. However, the current structure of the labor market encourages such a mindset. Let’s face it - you can’t really do much with just a liberal arts degree from an average school, even with top grades. You graduate with a 4.0 GPA in English from Northwest Missouri State, nobody really cares. You’re not going to garner a top job offer. </p>
<p>But what you could do with that degree, if you also score highly on the LSAT, is leverage it for admission to a top law school and then compete for a ridiculously high-paying biglaw offer. Granted, such a biglaw offer is not guaranteed, but the expected payoff of attending a top law school is clearly far higher than that of the mundane jobs he could obtain right out of college.</p>
<p>When I was in undergrad I had a friend who was a biomedical engineer. He had a 4.0 GPA at the start of his senior year. He decided to finally give himself a break and take a “gut” class called “Italian Cinema” rather than his very difficult classes. Well, of course you can guess the outcome. He got his first ever B. How can that be? He is a top student. </p>
<p>I guess it just shows that people have different strengths. Some are fantastic writers, some are great at memorizing formulas and some have other strengths. Getting top grades in what you choose to study shows you are the best at that not necessarily the best at everything. Because you are the strongest at one does not mean you would be the strongest at the other, and that works both ways.</p>
<p>As much as I disagree with the generalizability of this post - as I think it is a well-established fact that engineering grades are, on average, far more grade deflated than humanities grades - I actually think the spirit of the post agrees with my sentiments. I wholeheartedly agree with the final two sentences, and specifically that: " Because you are the strongest at one does not mean you would be the strongest at the other, and that works both ways".</p>
<p>The problem is that law school adcoms refuse to see it that way. What they see is that if you have a 4.0 GPA from a 4th-tier school in a creampuff major, then that (along with a respectable LSAT score) must necessarily mean that you’re a highly qualified law student and future lawyer. That is far from accurate, for like you said, just because you’re strong in a potentially creampuff major at an easy school has little bearing on how well you will do as a law student or lawyer.</p>
<p>What I actually think should happen is that law school admissions should be predicated solely upon the LSAT only. If the problem is that the LSAT provides incomplete information about a candidate’s worthiness, then the answer is to design a better LSAT. What is not appropriate is comparing the wildly divergent grading systems of different universities and different majors. Let’s face it - some universities and some majors are simply easier than others. But law school adcoms willfully and repeatedly choose not to care about that.</p>
<p>Although this may be a bit off-topic, there are MANY government employers that are being far more selective these days.</p>
<p>Based on the latest MILPERs (MILPER 11-318) for the US Army Human Resources Command, the “Call to Active Duty” program is going to give preference to physics, engineering, math, and science majors at the CPT and MAJ level.</p>
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<p>That’s the direction they are headed in as they become far more selective of their commissioned officers in a drawdown.</p>
<p>Choosing majors that maximize GPA in a gamble to go to a top law school is a very big gamble when a large government employer like the US Army is realigning its recruiting efforts towards majors that aren’t known for maximizing your GPA.</p>
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100% agree with you here. If they are not going to standardize (or account for) the rigors of major, then there’s no point in using that measure to determine the probability of success of a particular law student.</p>