Stanford JD/MA or JD/PhD Dilemma

Graduate School
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<p>You may have seen me appear many times on this forum, it's because I'm a teacher and I help my students research about the courses they're targeting at and/or interested in. If you want some more information about my academic credentials, I'll be happy to tell you that I've done my undergrad in Economics at UCB, and PhD in Economics at Stanford University, but these happened long time ago and admission processes have more or less been changed to fit the more competitive applicant pool.. thus I doubt if my advice/experience will be of any relevance in this context. </p>

<p>Anyway, I want to ask about the Stanford University Joint Degree Programs, and would definitely be grateful if any graduates of these courses are willing to shed some light on the questions I have. I've been on the website, and I quote </p>

<p>"To enter a joint degree program, you must be admitted separately to both Stanford Law and a participating Stanford school or department as well as to the particular joint degree program. You can opt to apply at virtually any time: concurrently with your initial application for admission to Stanford Law or after your first or second year in law school or in another Stanford department or school." -<a href="http://www.law.stanford.edu/degrees/joint/admissions"&gt;http://www.law.stanford.edu/degrees/joint/admissions&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<li><p>To my knowledge, Stanford no longer offers a terminal Master's Degree in Economics. How does one go about applying to the JD/MA in Economics (for example), is there an option in the application to the Economics department that pertains to JD/MA applicants? </p></li>
<li><p>Secondly, I have heard very depressing admission statistics with regards to Stanford's PhD programs, is it more reasonable to opt for the JD/MA first, and apply to the PhD upon completion of the Joint Degree? Which brings me to my main question, comparing the two programs (JD/MA and JD/PhD), which one has a more depressing admission rate? </p></li>
<li><p>Back in the days, I chose Stanford because the enticing fellowship programs. Stanford offers the most affordable graduate programs in the nation, by far, which is why so many people are flooding over to Stanford. Back to my point, I understand well that PhD candidates receive a lot of funding from fellowships, tuition and stipends, some even with subsidies, it makes sense since otherwise no one would be paying for a PhD. Do JD/MA candidates receive the same amount of fellowship opportunities? Law school can be quite taxing on students, especially when parents are paying for the full amount. I heard JD students receive fellowships as well, but I'm unclear of the details. </p></li>
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<p>Thanks for reading this whole chunk of words, and I would really appreciate it if you would leave me a helpful advice or information.</p>

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<li><p>From Stanford’s econ department website: “The department does not admit students who plan to terminate their graduate study with the MA degree. A master’s option is only available to currently enrolled Econ PhD candidates, or PhD candidates from other departments at Stanford.” The “PhD candidates” language probably also includes enrolled law students. It’s possible that the JD/MA is something Stanford Law students need to apply for once they are already at Stanford in their 1L year (this is not uncommon for dual degree programs). A student interested in this program should probably contact the economics department directly to see how to proceed.</p></li>
<li><p>Not necessarily. A JD/MA doesn’t necessarily make a student more competitive for a PhD program; in fact, some professors may wonder why on earth someone who already has a JD and an MA would want a PhD as well. What would make a student competitive for a JD/PhD program is all the things that already made them admissible to the two programs separately, plus a really, really good state of purpose that explains clearly and fully why the student believes that they need both the JD and the PhD to accomplish what they want to accomplish. Honestly the only good reason I can think of off the top of my head to get a JD and a PhD is someone wants to teach law - you can do that with a JD alone, but apparently academic law is so competitive that a PhD can help sometimes. I think far more students WANT a JD/PhD than actually need one.</p></li>
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<p>I would guess that the JD/PhD is far more competitive than the JD/MA. That’s because PhDs on average have lower admit rates than MA programs, AND because PhD programs look for a highly specific set of skills and experiences that are largely divergent from the set of skills and experiences that JD programs want. So basically, you have to separately seek entrance to two extremely competitive programs at one of the top universities in the world. Moreover, many MAs are complementary to a JD program and the admissions requirements/minimums for most MA programs are likely quite a bit below that of Stanford Law. Since MAs are largely unfunded, it’s not so much of a big deal for Stanford to admit an already admitted Stanford Law student (who has already proven themselves worthy) to their MA program for a dual degree. More money for them! The same is NOT true of a PhD program - which is usually funded, and quite long, and requires a level of involvement and engagement with the department that an MA simply does not - as you yourself know with a PhD.</p>

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<li>Yes and no. Check this out: <a href=“Welcome to SLS - Stanford Law School”>Welcome to SLS - Stanford Law School. Financial aid and tuition in dual degree programs (at Stanford and most other places) are usually handled separately. For the time that the student is in the JD program, they will pay tuition to, and receive financial aid from, the Law School. For the time that they are in the MA program, they will pay tuition to the MA program’s school. Academic terminal MA programs are usually not funded, so any student should expect to finance the majority of that year through loans.</li>
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<p>Now of course this is departmentally dependent. The science MS programs (bioengineering, computer science, and electrical engineering) are more likely to fund their MS students. But those are limited - the CS department says only a few MS students get assistantships and shouldn’t rely on those; most of the funding listed on the bioengineering page seems to be for PhD students. But I don’t think a dual degree Stanford hopeful should expect to get their MA in education or history funded. And the professional programs are very likely to be unfunded.</p>

<p>Here’s Stanford Law’s page on financial aid: <a href=“Welcome to SLS - Stanford Law School”>Welcome to SLS - Stanford Law School. They say aid is provided to 80% of students, but they include loans in the definition of aid. They also say that the average fellowship they give is $25,000. I’m skeptical because averages are also susceptible to outliers, so the “average” could be such because, for example, they give out 3 highly competitive full scholarships per year and the other 200 or so students get next to nothing. Even if they did award $25,000, though, Stanford Law’s CoA is $80,000 per year and will rise. So that’s still $55,000 x 3 = $165,000, plus probably around $60,000 for the MA year = $225,000.</p>

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<p>That was very comprehensive and I thank you greatly for that. It still astonishes me that students are now required to pay so much for a law degree. Does Stanford publish any information about the admit rates of Economics PhDs? Specifically for students with undergraduate degrees and wish to take the 4-6 year PhD course. Thanks</p>

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<p>Just for additional information, how do admit rates of JD differ from PhDs in Stanford? Are JDs easier to get into?</p>

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<p>BTW there is a separate Law School Forum here I don’t know how busy it is but you might check out the info there about JD admission and funding.</p>

<p>Most students in professions programs self fund. Not so PhD in STEM areas where you usually get the funding. For non STEM, I am not as familiar but sometimes-often only the best get funding. On the Stanford Grad Econ page they tell you that funding for first years range from zero to full fellowship, so the student will want to apply for external fellowships.</p>

<p>This info is also on the page (read these websites!): The Department receives more than 700 applications per year, and approximately 50 are admitted. The entering class size usually consists of 25 students. On average, approximately 50% of our admits are international students. The Stanford Economics Department is committed to redressing the historic under-representation of women and minority groups in the economics profession.</p>

<p>So low admit rate, only half are U.S. students, and of the half that don’t matriculate, maybe those didn’t get funded.</p>

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<p>I encourage you to encourage your students to visit the websites of these programs, as most of the answers to the questions you/they ask can be found there. BrownParent already posted the data about the economics department (which is on their admissions page). The information about the JD admissions is here (<a href=“Welcome to SLS - Stanford Law School”>Welcome to SLS - Stanford Law School). Stanford law gets about 3800 applications per year and admits just about 400 of them, which is about an 11% admission rate. 50 out of 700 is about 7%, so the admission rate of the economics PhD is lower than the admissions rate of the Stanford JD program.</p>

<p>But that doesn’t mean that the chances of any individual student are higher if they apply to Stanford Law than Stanford’s econ PhD. It depends on the individual student. Econ majors with high GPAs and who are good at taking tests, but have no research experience and no advanced math classes, won’t be competitive for admission into the PhD program. Conversely, an economics major with 3 years of research experience (maybe some of that spent doing economic analysis at IMF or the World Bank) who can’t get his LSAT score above a 165 may be more competitive for the economics PhD but not realistically competitive for the law school.</p>

<p>This leads me to curiosity about how you are using this information to advise students about their paths. For example, if a student were choosing between law school and economics PhD programs, I wouldn’t tell them to apply to law school because the admissions rate is higher. I’d tell them to soul search a little - what is it that you see yourself doing in the future? Do you want to be a lawyer, or do you want to do economics research for a living? If you can’t decide, work for a few years and figure it out. Even more stringent soul-searching is necessary for why you need a JD/MA or JD/PhD. I find that a lot of students think they should do a JD/PhD, especially, because they can’t decide between the two and they think getting both will allow them “flexibility” to choose between the two, and, perhaps, switch back and forth. No, that’s not really the purpose of the program.</p>

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<p>I think of most JD students being there to graduate quickly and recover all the money they have spent to go to law school. Any additional add ons other than an MBA are adding to the cost in my opinion.</p>

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<p>^Well, there’s the rub - perhaps, perhaps not. If you go to Stanford Law your dream is to work in BigLaw billing $500 an hour, then yes, you can probably repay the $165,000 pretty easily (although that’s assuming that you got a $25,000 grant, which is the average. If you got $10,000, that’s $210,000, and if you got nothing, that’s $240,000. I think even the highest-paid brand-new corporate lawyers don’t make that much money).</p>

<p>But if you went to Stanford Law and your dream was to become a prosecuting attorney or an attorney for the ACLU or another nonprofit, you are most likely NOT making $165,000 a year, or anything approaching that. Those attorneys can probably expect to make what, $50-90K per year depending on location. (Stanford does have an program to assist these kinds of graduates in paying off their loans, though, in an effort to encourage more choice in their careers.)</p>

<p>I think it’s safe to assume that Stanford Law graduates will be on the higher-end of the payscale, but that doesn’t mean it will always be easy for them to repay their loans.</p>

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<p>It wont be easy to pay off 200k even if one makes 165k which is precisely why spending 4 more years doing PhD seems to be not all that helpful.</p>

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<p>Agreed!</p>