Top Law Schools

Just read this in the Ivey guide, and it surprised me a bit. She says "law schools typically prefer liberal arts majors (including math and science) over pre-professional programs like Business, Accounting, or pre-law. The higher up the food chain a law school is, the stronger the bias is against preprofessional programs." Anyone have any thoughts?

lastsamurai wrote:Just read this in the Ivey guide, and it surprised me a bit. She says "law schools typically prefer liberal arts majors (including math and science) over pre-professional programs like Business, Accounting, or pre-law. The higher up the food chain a law school is, the stronger the bias is against preprofessional programs." Anyone have any thoughts?

I saw a wide, wide range of majors. If you have a high lsat and high gpa, schools won't care if you studied at USC's School of Assfuckery.

This isn't true. Schools like high GPAs. That is all. Use the search function. There have been dozens of threads on this topic.

ImNoScar wrote:This isn't true. Schools like high GPAs. That is all. Use the search function. There have been dozens of threads on this topic.

Just an FYI - I did use the search function but didn't see the harm in posting the question in my own way. My sincere apologies that my thread offended you.

lastsamurai wrote:

ImNoScar wrote:This isn't true. Schools like high GPAs. That is all. Use the search function. There have been dozens of threads on this topic.

Just an FYI - I did use the search function but didn't see the harm in posting the question in my own way. My sincere apologies that my thread offended you.

It didn't offend me. I just thought you'd fine more useful responses by searching. The law schools like liberal arts idea seems to be one of the big law school lies pre law advisors like to spread. However, in practice, schools don't actually care. A 3.8 accounting major will beat a 3.3 philosophy major every time if both have the same LSATs. If that were not the case, there would be more variance on LSN etc, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

ImNoScar wrote:

lastsamurai wrote:

ImNoScar wrote:This isn't true. Schools like high GPAs. That is all. Use the search function. There have been dozens of threads on this topic.

Just an FYI - I did use the search function but didn't see the harm in posting the question in my own way. My sincere apologies that my thread offended you.

It didn't offend me. I just thought you'd fine more useful responses by searching. The law schools like liberal arts idea seems to be one of the big law school lies pre law advisors like to spread. However, in practice, schools don't actually care. A 3.8 accounting major will beat a 3.3 philosophy major every time if both have the same LSATs. If that were not the case, there would be more variance on LSN etc, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

Thanks I appreciate the response, and that was the impression I had until Anna's book. Just needed to get some TLS confirmation

Schools do not hate business majors and only care about LSAT/GPA numbers. If anything having a business background will help with admissions. It will certainly help to get a job though.

I've heard that YS aren't very fond of vocational majors

Is that Ivey book credited? I've never seen it but I've read other posts about errors in the book.

I think it has someone to do with the people that self select into pre-professional programs and the level of intellectual engagement in most of those programs. In all the schools that im familiar with pre-professional programs were seen as less academically rigorous, some even have reputations as diploma mills in otherwise respectable universities. The kind of abstract thought and intellectual rigor generally sought by law schools is taught in lots of liberal arts majors. That isn't to say that all liberal arts majors are better prepared for professional jobs.

Think about it on these terms, compare your average offering in a business journal to your average offering in an art history journal. I think you'll find the later to require a lot more intellectual maturity and background knowledge. It's just harder to be a successful liberal arts major. Hence, they'll tend to have higher top ranking LSAT scores.

Pre-law and Criminal Justice majors tend to raise eyebrows, as they're seen as less rigorous and churning out students who think they know the law before law school (which isn't universally true). The latter is also prep for enforcement, not a JD.

Business and accounting, however, are fine majors for pre-law.

erik the viking wrote:I think it has someone to do with the people that self select into pre-professional programs and the level of intellectual engagement in most of those programs. In all the schools that im familiar with pre-professional programs were seen as less academically rigorous, some even have reputations as diploma mills in otherwise respectable universities. The kind of abstract thought and intellectual rigor generally sought by law schools is taught in lots of liberal arts majors. That isn't to say that all liberal arts majors are better prepared for professional jobs.

Think about it on these terms, compare your average offering in a business journal to your average offering in an art history journal. I think you'll find the later to require a lot more intellectual maturity and background knowledge. It's just harder to be a successful liberal arts major. Hence, they'll tend to have higher top ranking LSAT scores.

This is absolutely laughable. Why don't you come to my tax or finance class for 10 minutes, and we'll see if it stacks up to the "academic rigor" of art history.

JJ123 wrote:

erik the viking wrote:I think it has someone to do with the people that self select into pre-professional programs and the level of intellectual engagement in most of those programs. In all the schools that im familiar with pre-professional programs were seen as less academically rigorous, some even have reputations as diploma mills in otherwise respectable universities. The kind of abstract thought and intellectual rigor generally sought by law schools is taught in lots of liberal arts majors. That isn't to say that all liberal arts majors are better prepared for professional jobs.

Think about it on these terms, compare your average offering in a business journal to your average offering in an art history journal. I think you'll find the later to require a lot more intellectual maturity and background knowledge. It's just harder to be a successful liberal arts major. Hence, they'll tend to have higher top ranking LSAT scores.

This is absolutely laughable. Why don't you come to my tax or finance class for 10 minutes, and we'll see if it stacks up to the "academic rigor" of art history.

Laughable if you you've never met someone who has seriously studied art history. Tax and finance are based on concrete principles that were devised relatively recently and mostly in English to be understood and applied by a broad professional class. It's job training. See below and note the footnotes in five languages spanning 1000 years of scholarship.

http://www.iecat.net/institucio/societa ... anol04.pdf

And if you still don't like the art history analogy, try theoretical physics, astronomy, comparitive linguistics, or osteology. Most liberal arts disciplines are very difficult to gain fluency in let alone to earn a graduate degree in.

I think most people confuse humanities work with the core curriculum that most schools offer or the majority of undergrad students at uncompetitive schools who don't achieve mastery or only aspire to teach high school. I would pick the top people in a competitive humanities grad program over the top people in a competitive professional grad program any day.

Reminds me of a cartoon:

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/impostor.png

Now we're conflating too many things. A bachelor's in art history is in no way in the same league as a degree in theoretical physics.

There are some business majors that are generally legitimate: accounting, finance, operations management, logistics. Some may be a joke, depending on the school: HR, "business administration", etc.

But overall, a business degree does not have less "rigor" than an art history degree, just because people cite things from 1000 years ago to prove a point. Also, art history is fucking useless.

NYstate wrote:Is that Ivey book credited? I've never seen it but I've read other posts about errors in the book.

A couple of people have told me that her book is dated and not reliable. I wouldn't follow her advice OP.

Being an accounting major and graduate, I really thought most of the classes were fairly difficult and did require thinking outside the textbook problems. Saying that, every attorney I talked with regarding law school and my possible interest in transactional law- they all stressed the basics of business knowledge. Many were amazed at how new associates did not know how to read a financial statement but were giving business advice.

Easiest course in college for me was Art History but it was also one of my favorites...

I think that business, accounting, and finance are great majors for students interested in corporate law and it ties into the jd/mba degree well

JJ123 wrote:Also, art history is fucking useless.

Except apparently for predicting LSAT scores:

http://www.potsdam.edu/academics/AAS/Ph ... Majors.pdf

it's not that people cite things from 1000 years ago, it's that the body of work that one must be familiar with to become an expert is must larger and requires learning to read in several languages and historical registers. And the question wasn't about Art History, it was about bias against certain majors, which is probably a product of how well those majors tend to prepare people for the LSAT and the admissions process as opposed to adcomms perceptions of them.

JJ123 wrote:Now we're conflating too many things. A bachelor's in art history is in no way in the same league as a degree in theoretical physics.

There are some business majors that are generally legitimate: accounting, finance, operations management, logistics. Some may be a joke, depending on the school: HR, "business administration", etc.

But overall, a business degree does not have less "rigor" than an art history degree, just because people cite things from 1000 years ago to prove a point. Also, art history is fucking useless.

TLS brings all the phillistines to the yard

I think one of the reasons business majors do poorly on the LSAT on average is that a lot of them have never been trained to read rigorously.

Off-point business major baiting: also it annoys the hell out of me when business majors bandy around vague, made-up terms and think it makes their writing look super-intelligent.

erik the viking wrote:

JJ123 wrote:Also, art history is fucking useless.

Except apparently for predicting LSAT scores:

http://www.potsdam.edu/academics/AAS/Ph ... Majors.pdf

it's not that people cite things from 1000 years ago, it's that the body of work that one must be familiar with to become an expert is must larger and requires learning to read in several languages and historical registers. And the question wasn't about Art History, it was about bias against certain majors, which is probably a product of how well those majors tend to prepare people for the LSAT and the admissions process as opposed to adcomms perceptions of them.

I said Art History was fucking useless. The fact that it weakly correlates to better LSATs does not redeem the fact that it is a fucking useless degree. Philosophy is also fucking useless, and slightly correlates to better LSAT scores.

Don't get me wrong, I like philosophy. I don't particularly like art, but I'm not hating on it. But it's useless as a college degree.

Depends on the uses. Conflating college with job training is prole.

And OP as far as I've seen major doesn't matter. There were more or less rigorous majors within all of my UG's schools and I doubt admissions officers would have the time or the inclination to parse the differences.

Thanks for all of your replies everyone!

Very helpful except for the argument between art history and business majors - we're all going to study the same subject now, so what does it matter? Let's all play nice

lastsamurai wrote:Thanks for all of your replies everyone!

Very helpful except for the argument between art history and business majors - we're all going to study the same subject now, so what does it matter? Let's all play nice

Law Schools care about your LSAT score and your GPA. Employers, on the other hand, may care about your undergrad, especially in certain areas (tax, patent, etc.)