In my quest for a college I have come accross University of California: Riverside. I am wondering if anyone knows how the Pre Law program there ranks with others/how good it is
Anyone know of another somewhat selective school that has a good pre law program. (VERY Selective like Stanford not a possibility :D)
Hi Opal!
Any other tips for someone going into college soon on a law course? (Currently a senior in HS right now)
Many thanks if someone can answer some or all of these questions. Dont have anyone else to bug about these kinds of questions so I turn to the largest message board of smart people
Are you from California? Do you want to go to school there or would anywhere else be acceptable? How good are your scores? Is money a problem? Do you want a big college or a small one or does it matter?
I am from California. Although California is preferred because of the lower cost in the public colleges I will keep my options open for other schools at this point.
Unfortunatly I kinda screwed around freshman and soph year and those grades aren’t good
Junior year I did great though. Ending with a 3.8 for the last quarter of the year. SAT score is a 1080. And money probably wouldn’t be a problem with student aid and the fact that my parents are well off and able to help with college.
And the size doesn’t matter to me too much :)(Although I am leaning towards Mid-size to larger ones right now) As long as the atmosphere of the campus is a good one and it has a good program I would probably be happy.
Well, I don’t think a lot of schools actually have a set pre-law program. I plan on going to law school, and while I have taken a few law oriented courses, I am not in any pre-law program. I know several people who have gone to very good law schools like Duke and the University of Texas and they simply had degrees like Economics or Engineering. As far as I can tell, law schools look at your GPA, LSAT score, extra curriculars, and the interview in determining your admission.
> Junior year I did great though. Ending with a 3.8 for the
> last quarter of the year. SAT score is a 1080.
1080 is no better than fair as a SAT score. Remember that the SAT is normed to make 500 be the average score on both the verbal and the math section, so you have only done a little better than average on the test. You won’t even be able to get into some of the state universities in California with that score, even if you can manage perfect grades in your senior year in high school. Several of the state universities, I’m told, are quite selective even for in-state students.
Get into the best state university you can and study your head off. It really doesn’t matter what your major is as long as it’s a serious academic subject. It’s actually not very common for people going to law school to do a pre-law major. Choose a major in which you can get good grades (as long as it’s something that would look like a solid academic field to a law school admission committee).
I agree with the advice so far, pick an undergraduate area that is serious and interests you and work hard. Focus on the fundamentals of learning like writing, research and exam skills.
You will be getting three years of law and I assure you that is more than enough. You are better off rounding out your knowledge while the opportunity exists.
Worry about getting into law school, not what happens once you are there. The paper chase thing about one of three not making it is outdated. The trick now is to get in in the first place. If you have made it past into law school you have the skills to make it through.
One exception I would make is to suggest a few philosophy courses. Formal logic is a great help in writing the LSAT and an introductory level jurisprudence course provides a nice context in which to integrate the first year case law.
I just finished my first year at the University of Chicago Law School. (Feel free to e-mail me with questions if you like: akashj@@@@uchicago.edu [delete the extra @ symbols].) Some info about me:
I went to a certain nameless Ivy League school and double-majored in English Lit. and Medieval Studies. I took only a single “pre-law” course, a stupid poli-sci course about the American legal system. Nearly everyone around me in law school is a history/econ/poli-sci major, so I guess I’m “diversity.”
The two most important factors on getting you into a law school are your GPA/transcript and your LSAT score. A high GPA is important, naturally, but so are the courses you take. There’s no particular formula, but take a well-rounded selection of courses–both in terms of difficulty and subject matter–and do well in them. In fact, beware of taking too many courses that “sound good” to law schools. The admissions dean from NYU law school told us in a presentation: “We know what the touchy-feely law courses are, and we’re not impressed by them. You know what they are: ‘The Law and You.’ ‘You and the Law.’ And so forth…”
Your school’s difficulty is also taken into account: I graduated with a 3.28 GPA, but it was from a tough school and I had a bad freshman year. If I’d gone to a state college and applied with that GPA, my law school prospects would’ve been much worse. But if you’ve got a 3.8 now, you should be able to keep that up.
2a) I also got a ridiculously high score on the LSAT, which is the only reason I got into UChicago. Study like hell for it your junior year (take a Kaplan course) and take a class in logic. It’s not that hard if you practice a lot and read a lot of stuff in college.
A final disclaimer and word of caution: make SURE you want to go to law school. I did reasonably well in college, but decided to go to law school because my family talked me out of becoming an ESL teacher. Now I am in the bottom 25% of my law school class, I hate the people I go to school with, I don’t really want to be a lawyer, and I’m so miserable that my health has greatly worsened. But I can’t quit now because I have too much invested in this. Make sure you **want ** the 3 years of suffering that is law school, and the tough work that is being an attorney. If that’s what you want, and you’re willing to fight and suffer for it, then you will find law school rewarding–good for you! If you’re thinking law because it’s easy money, or because there’s nothing else you can think of to do, then take a pass. I wish I had.
P.S. One final note about “pre-law” programs at some schools: if you do the program and then decide not to do law school, then you’ll find that you wasted a whole bunch of time and money on poli-sci courses that won’t get you a job. Major in something useful or fascinating to you that will make you happy and/or employable in the long-term.
I’ve heard a lot of good advice. I’m currently at UCLA (self plug!) and I’m a Math/Econ major planning to go to law school I’m a junior and I’ve been to some of the Pre-Law program meetings and it’s really not very impressive, I also work for a law firm and I’m told that grades and especially the LSAT score are highly the most important things in determining your acceptance. I am sorry to say that I agree with Wendell, I graduated high school in 1999 and I had a 3.65 gpa and 1310 on my SAT and I didn’t get into any of the UC schools I applied to (UCLA, UCSD, UCI) I had to go to a Junior college. which might be a good choice if you don’t get in, it saved me a lot of money and many of my professors were outstanding,(they teach because they want to teach, not because they have to in order to further their research, like some of the professors at 4 year universities) plus I transferred to UCLA after 4 semester, which was my goal the whole time.
But I digress, focus on getting into a reputable school, either from high school or as a transfer. Then when there get good grades in a major that interests you. Take some logic and technical writing courses in order to excell on the LSAT, then pick your law school from all the acceptance letters you will receive.
To expand on what AkashJ had to say, my advice is definitely NOT to go straight from undergrad to law school. A couple years of real life does wonders for your perspective when you reach law school. Choose a major that will allow you to do something you’re interested in anyway for a few years, then decide whether law is still something you want to do. Also, if you’re certain you’re interested in a particular area of law (intellectual property, corporate, securities, whatever), you will likely want to major or minor in something that gives you a non-law background in the area of your legal interest.
It also makes you much more employable. [AkashJ is unemployed, despite 1 year out-of-undergrad teaching experience. Other people I know with more experience had better luck on the job front.]
To emphasize something else Minty Green said–if you’re at all interested in patent law, you should get a science degree. No science degree, no patent bar; you can still do intellectual property law, but you’ll be a less attractive job applicant. Tax law? Study accounting. And so forth. [Also speaking from experience in this department: everybody thinks the fact that I taught English in India is really cool, but nobody gave me a job. The IRS said that they wanted to hire me, but I had no accounting background. Hmph. What the hell was I thinking when I decided to go into law?]
Almost identical thing happened to me . . went to U.C. Davis and doubled in Poli.Sci and Soc. . . enrolled at Hastings Law School immediately after graduating without taking any time off from school to really decide if that was the correct path. I was miserable and also hated the people I went to school with . . AkashJ had more strength than I did because I left after two years . .
but if you are convinced that Law School is for you, remember that Law Schools like to have students from diverse educational backgrounds . . I had been warned that competition would be even greater for those majoring in Poli.Sci, pre-law, and similar majors. So don’t focus on majoring in “Pre-Law”, but instead major in something you will find interesting . . Good Luck!
> (US News College Rankings) seems to indicate that at
> least for the school I am interested in right now a 1080
> would be about right.
That’s not how I would interpret the data given there. It looks like the average verbal SAT score is about 505 and the average SAT math score is about 550, so the overall average for a student at Riverside is 1055. Your SAT score puts you barely better than average. You can’t get into law school with just average college grades. I say this not to discourage you but to warn you. You really need to work hard to get good grades in college (and in your senior year of high school also).
Thanks for all the advice everyone. I will also be very sure about law school before I apply. I also might end up going with an English\Pol Sci\or Business Major because that is also what I find intersting.
Its also a good thing I asked around here and found out to stay away from the “pre law” programs some schools have
