Actually. mine was a behavioral psychology school, so my experiences were neurosurgery and Skinnerian research. Thank you for displaying your ignorance so plainly.
And, what qualifications do you have for advising anyone as to what law schools are looking for?
Any mention of Skinner and Freud will go a long way at any dinner party. One needs only to look at most college syllabi to opine as to the rigor of a novel discipline that’s been around for less than a century. Find a major that requires critical thinking, psych does not.
Not interested in a flame war, so let us not go there, but I would be very interested in your qualifications for commenting about the relationship between various majors and law school. I understand that you do not like or approve of psychology. You obviously have a closed mind on the subject. What exactly are your qualifications for commenting about college majors and law schools? Are you a lawyer? Have you ever hired a lawyer? Do you actually have anything useful to add to the post – which has probably become useless as as result of this interchange, and I apologize for contributing to that.
@AboutTheSame: His qualifications are irrelevant. Law school either cares about major or doesn’t, regardless of his status. That said, law schools do not care about undergrad major, so he is wrong. Employers might care, I suppose, though I don’t know of any bias against Psychology majors. No one seems to care about the plethora of useless Political Science degrees floating around.
@Demosthenes49 : I have to disagree with you. If Seattle TW is going to offer the opinion that psychology is a lousy major if OP wants to go to law school, I think that s/he should back that up with some reason to accept his/her opinion. I offered my credentials. I think it’s relevant to ask for the background of someone taking an opposing view. That’s actually part of what law school is about. Anyone can spout off about an issue – especially at a site like this. I think I’m being reasonable in asking a person who disagrees with me to identify his/her basis for doing so. Regards.
@Demosthenes49 : An additional thought. I hire a couple of law clerks every two years. I do pay attention to undergraduate major, and I expect that law schools do as well. Neither of us is in law school admissions, I expect, so we are both just guessing, but I would think that law schools would want a mix – not a whole first year class of “useless” (your words) poly sci grads.
@AboutTheSame: Presumably if there were some data showing that Psychology majors do more poorly on admission or at OCI then it would be in the thread already. I also doubt it would be the first I had heard of it, since I pay attention to that sort of thing. We are talking about broad trends among thousands of people per year. No one person’s experience is ever going to come close to being statistically significant, so inquiring into it is pointless.
Law schools don’t care about major because they can’t afford to. They are ranked based on GPA/LSAT and there simply aren’t enough good applicants to go around to reject a few for having the “wrong” major.
@Demosthenes49 : I wholeheartedly agree that someone would have offered such data if it existed. I also agree that a single person’s experience is not going to be statistically significant. But, I think is incumbent upon those of us who take this site seriously to point out when a post appears to be nothing but a blowhard and misleading opinion, and I think questioning whether the poster has any basis for such an opinion (except some sort of irrational prejudice) is reasonable. Regards.
@AboutTheSame: I agree that SeattleTW is wrong about major mattering for purposes of law school admissions. I disagreed that his personal credentials were relevant to that question.
@Demosthenes49 : We shall just have to agree to disagree on that point. Cheers.
I would submit that many college majors do not require much, if any, critical thinking*, so it can’t matter in LS admissions. (Otherwise, the top schools would never be able to make their medians.)
btw:: one of the things that law school purports to teach is 'how to think like a lawyer (aka critical thinking skills). And, the reason many 1L’s struggle is that it takes them some time to learn to think - and write – critically. If true, and I believe it is, that indicates that many law students are devoid of critical thinking skills upon application.