<p>Law school is not a “safe bet.” It hasn’t been a safe bet since the recession began in 2008-2009. The law market is glutted, with far more lawyers than it can accommodate. You have to go to a top 14 law school to be considered for those great high-paying jobs that everyone seems to think lawyers have, and getting into these law schools require very high GPAs and very high LSAT scores. Everyone thinks they’re going to get a 3.5+ when they first start college, but obviously, not everyone does.</p>
<p>Besides, there are MANY fields that need skills like forming persuasive arguments, writing well-thought out ideas, and innovating in biotechnology. For one example, biomedical/biotechnical scientists do this all the time when they write applications for grants to support scientific research and write publications presenting the results of their research. People who work in biomedical/biotechnical marketing also have to be persuasive and write well-thought out ideas. If you work in R&D in a tech firm you will probably have to do this as well. I could go on, but the vast majority of jobs in biotech will very much like someone who loves, and is good at, forming persuasive arguments and thinking up great ideas.</p>
<p>While prestige is very important in making it to a prestigious banking or consulting career - number one, you’re not even sure you want to do that, and number two, the perceived lower prestige at Wash U isn’t enough to keep you off the Street if you want to go there. Olin (at Wash U) reports that the median base salary for graduates of their BBA program was $62,500 and 98% of students had a job within 90 days of graduation. 32% of Olin BBA graduates whent into financial services and another 16% went into financial services. And Olin students were hired at places like Accenture, American Express, AT Kearney, Goldman Sachs, Novartis, Wells Fargo, Experian, Ernst & Young, Booz Allen Hamilton, Bain, Blackstone, Deloitte (both accounting and consulting), Microsoft, and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Although you may not be an Olin student if you go to Wash U, that means those firms are on campus recruiting. You’ll see a similar list on the Wash U engineering website.</p>
<p>Law has always been the safe bet - my parents have always wanted me to be a lawyer. But I genuinely love forming persuasive arguments, writing well thought out ideas, and combining that with biotechnology and invention/innovation. But if I go to Princeton, it almost seems like I’m wasting an opportunity to go into a prestigious banking/consulting career (also something I’m very interested in, but have less experience with). My family wouldn’t be able to afford law school after Princeton (though I’m sure they place significantly more sudents in t14 schools than washu does).</p>
<p>Wash U is literally in the top 15 undergraduate institutions in the entire country. Even with the yearly shuffle of positions it’s solidly in the top 20. A debt-free education there is a special privilege and I definitely don’t think you should turn it down for Princeton.</p>
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<p>No, it’s not. If those statistics even exist, it doesn’t mean that those schools cause higher acceptance rates to top law schools. Their lower-scoring students may be more likely to apply to top 14 law schools, or they may be more likely to want to be lawyers from the get-go.</p>