<p>Theoretically, couldn’t I also not major in Spanish, and instead just take a bunch of really easy low-level introductory courses in Spanish, and just not major in it? Or do law school admissions not like to see too many low-level classes?</p>
<p>Admissions officers will probably notice if you do that, although I’ve received mixed accounts of whether or not they’ll actually care. Perhaps a better strategy would be to major in Spanish but start out with intro courses, then work your way up. This will assure you good grades in the lower level courses and set the stage for you to get solid grades in upper level courses as well. Barring this, you could simply research easy courses via your university’s grapevine or ratemyprofessor.com. I know of some classes at my own college that are upper level but still easy A’s.</p>
<p>While maximizing your GPA is fine, be sure to take some challenging courses which will give you plenty of practice in reading plenty of heavy dense material, critical thinking/analysis skills, and practice in written communications. </p>
<p>All of these would not only be helpful in maximizing your LSAT score along with test prep, but more importantly…serve you well in law school and beyond according to close friends and associates who are practicing attorneys who are all T-14 graduates. </p>
<p>I’d also recommend doing an internship/work at a law firm during your undergrad/right after graduation so you don’t end up like some associates I’ve worked with who were miserable and complained endlessly because they had no idea of the realities of life as a practicing lawyer beyond what they saw in mass media and relatives/friends with no first-hand law firm experience.</p>
<p>For what it’s worth, I got admitted into two top-ten law schools and my undergraduate degree was in fine art. Had a 3.78 GPA, but that’s not hard to accomplish when your classes involve painting and printmaking. I’m still not sure how I competed against the other candidates (a good LSAT score likely helped), and I did work a few years after undergrad. Bottom line, though, I don’t think the selection of major matters all that much, as long as you do well in it.</p>
<p>As a side note, I absolutely echo cobrat’s statement on spending time in a law firm first, because I was one of those associates who found out she hated it after the fact. Yes the money’s great, but you have to love the confrontational nature that is law practice (and that goes for transactional work as well as litigation – everything is a battle with the “other side”). Pays to ensure you know what you’re getting into before you spend $100K+.</p>
<p>It’s almost a joke how much law schools don’t care about what classes you take or difficulty of major or anything like that. You may incur a frown or two along the way, but even that’s not a sure thing. Just be ruthless about your numbers. </p>
<p>I agree with the guy who said it’s probably unwise, as unintuitive as this sounds, to learn how to apply to law schools from law school admissions counselors. The romantic fluff in the book linked to earlier in this thread is greatly contradicted by much personal anecdote and compilation of data from websites of law applicants. Look at it this way, would you ask a girl how to date other girls? No, you ask successful guys.</p>
<p>I would suggest that if everything in your transactional practice is “a battle with the ‘other side,’” you’re going about it wrong.</p>
<p>Knowing what I know now, if I was a native spanish speaker, I would in all honestly take spanish as a major and start in spanish 101. If your in 2nd year you damn well know learning in university does not mean scum on the floor. No one cares what you learned in university, take the easiest courses for you and get the high gpa and do well on the lsat. Yes you will be uncompetitive to people with harder majors for the t-14 but there are still good schools you can get into and as long as you get into the t30 and some t 50s like smu or fordham and finish in the top 30% of class you can still get a decent job.</p>
<p>Even if you only get u florida you still have damn good career prospects. Hell its the best school in florida and is almost rated 50, you can’t tell me there are no lawyers in florida who are not multi millionaires, or not succesful except the ones from the t-14, in fact its the damn opposite. And you speaking spanish is a huge advantage. Work in Cali, phoenix, miami, or texas and work in immigration law or something you like and you can make way more money than t-14 counter parts 10 years down the road</p>