<p>I am a junior who is taking 3 AP and 4 Honors classes and I maintain a GPA of 3.8 UW. My class schedule for my senior year will be AP Calculus BC, AP Lit, AP Gov, AP Physics, Spanish IV Honors, Pro-Start 2 (3rd year of Culinary class), Speech III Honors. My PSAT scores were low 70's across the board.</p>
<p>In the extra curricular department I am the President of our schools Gay Straight Alliance, I will be the Captain of the Speech team by my senior year, I am captain of one of the competitive Culinary Arts teams at our school, and I will be co-captain of the chess team (who took 3rd at Nationals last year), and I am in National Honors Society. I have been in all these clubs since I was a freshman, except for National Honors Society which I joined as a sophomore.</p>
<p>In the community/volunteer department, I have gone to and spoken at several anti-drug, anti-violence, and other types of marches. I volunteer at the animal shelter in the summer and have amassed about 150 hours of volunteer service. I have volunteered at the local soup kitchen as well for the past couple of years, especially during the holidays. I have helped to restore the clubhouse out by the golf course near where I live as well. Lastly I have been going to elementary school classrooms and teaching kids chess since the 9th grade.</p>
<p>I live in New Mexico. I intend to go into law. As for cost constraints, if it is at all possible to get a good pre-law education cheaply I would prefer to do so.</p>
<p>There are no specific course or major requirements for pre-law students; law schools are primarily concerned about LSAT and GPA as far as your college academic record goes. (However, note that more selective schools do have more [grade</a> inflation](<a href=“http://www.gradeinflation.com%5Dgrade”>http://www.gradeinflation.com).)</p>
<p>A good pre-law education probably includes a well rounded selection of liberal arts that includes both qualitative / humanistic thinking (most humanities and social studies) and quantitative / logical thinking (subjects like math, philosophy (logic), statistics, physics, economics), in addition to a major that you enjoy and are good at. There may be specific majors or subjects useful for specific areas of law (e.g. science or engineering for patent law).</p>
<p>Some of the most selective schools are generous with need-based financial aid (e.g. Harvard, MIT, Stanford), but are still low probability of acceptance for those with near-maximum high school stats (near-4.0 GPA in the most rigorous possible courses, 700+ on each SAT section). Therefore, you need safeties which you will definitely get into and can definitely afford.</p>
<p>Safety school candidates probably include your in-state public universities as well as out of state or private schools known for generous merit scholarships (e.g. Southern California, Alabama, Alabama-Birmingham, Arizona State) or meeting financial need (e.g. Virginia, North Carolina – most public universities do not give much financial aid to out of state students). Community college followed by transfer to a four year school is used as a safety by some students.</p>
<p>Thanks for the info! Seeing as you mentioned liberal arts colleges, St.John’s (which my dad went to) and Deep Springs (my dad knows the President of the college very well) immediately pop into my mind. Would either of those be good options for what you discussed above?</p>
<p>Those would both be good selections but decide if you like what their education entails. Deep Springs has a very involved work ethic and St Johns (if it’s the one I’m thinking of) has a dedication to great books.</p>
<p>Staying with the LAC tangent, if you’re considering both St. John’s College and Deep Springs, you might also want to consider [Shimer</a> College in Chicago](<a href=“http://shimer.edu%5DShimer”>http://shimer.edu). At ~125 students, Shimer is about halfway in size between St. John’s and Deep Springs; it has a Great Books curriculum like St. John’s (with which it shares common roots in the old U of C Hutchins program), and a participatory governance model like Deep Springs. </p>
<p>As it happens, David Neidorf, president of Deep Springs, is a former faculty member at Shimer and spoke at Shimer’s commencement last spring. (Further completing the circle, Chris Nelson, president of St. John’s, is on the Shimer Board of Trustees, which he chaired until recently.) </p>
<p>On the cost front, at last check Shimer’s tuition is about 1/2 of the tuition at St. John’s, and the annual [Montaigne</a> scholarship](<a href=“http://shimer.edu/montaigne]Montaigne”>http://shimer.edu/montaigne) also gives applicants an opportunity to earn a full or half scholarship based on writing and discussion skills. On the legal front, Shimer is probably the only school of its size to offer a 6-year [BA-to-JD program](<a href=“http://www.shimer.edu/academicprograms/ba-to-jd-program.cfm”>http://www.shimer.edu/academicprograms/ba-to-jd-program.cfm</a>), in cooperation with Chicago-Kent. And whether they take advantage of that particular option or not, many Shimer graduates – insofar as “many” is a word that can apply to Shimer graduates – do in fact go on to successful careers in law.</p>
<p>(Why yes, I’m a Shimer alum. How did you guess?)</p>
<p>I happen to have a daughter currently attending Shimer College. I can reiterate what visviva wrote above. The education is rigorous, classes very small, the community extremely close knit. Among Shimer graduates, 20-25% go on to receive doctoral degrees (a significantly higher percentage than Harvard, Stanford, Yale, etc.), and of these, the most common doctorate is a J. D. I would also note that my daughter started Shimer after her third year of high school, skipping her senior year (you don’t need a high school diploma to be admitted to Shimer if you have strong academics and can succeed in a college environment; she was only 16 when she started), which she considered a waste of time. She had a 4.0+ GPA and, like you, extensive volunteer experience, as well as having participated in summer “gifted” programs at Stanford and Johns Hopkins. Of course, Deep Springs and St. Johns are both great schools, also. My older two kids graduated from Reed College (in Portland OR) and Stanford University respectively. From what I have seen, Shimer is better than either of them–and far less expensive. Good luck!</p>
<p>Actually, I mentioned liberal arts, not liberal arts colleges. You can study liberal arts at either a big university or a liberal arts college. The main selling point of liberal arts colleges is not the subjects (which actually tend to be more limited than at big universities), but the undergraduate focus and the smaller classes (especially at the freshman and sophomore level).</p>
<p>Both Deep Springs and St. John’s have unusual curricula which you may really like or dislike. Deep Springs is also a two year school; you will have to transfer to some other school to complete a bachelor’s degree (but Deep Springs offers everyone a full ride scholarship).</p>