<p>OP- relax. I have never met a 17 year old who even had a clue what law school, policy, or any of these things actually entailed. And as smart as you are- I’m betting you are similarly clueless. (not clueless about life, but clueless about the differences in career preparation.) There are people working in the Ed reform space who are former teachers. There are people working in the Ed policy space who have PhD’s in political science. There are people on the Hill writing legislation about school funding who are lawyers, and people who work at think tanks researching education and curriculum design in in the UK and why it’s different from that in France who have master’s degrees in history. And people who direct millions of dollars of grants from private foundations to fund innovative schools or create new programs to train principals who have MBA’s. And people who negotiate with teacher’s unions who have degrees in labor relations. And people doing important things for education policy like you can’t imagine who have degrees in modern dance or comparative literature.</p>
<p>So just relax. Figure out which school is offering you the very best academic experience/fit/affordability and go there. Grad school will still be there once you actually figure out what you’re interested in. And if I had $100 for every high school senior who told me they needed to save their money for law school (and who never ended up going to law school) I’d be pretty affluent right now. But not as affluent as if I had $100 for everyone I know (both young and old) who told me they went to law school because they thought it would be great preparation for something other than practicing law, only to discover two important things:</p>
<p>1- they hate practicing law
2- they are not prepared for these other careers (or at least not better prepared than the folks who are already doing them sans the law degree.)</p>