Law school and then Peace Corps?

[lars9]

...good luck joining the Peace Corps without an engineering or environmental science degree.

Unless daddy's got a fat check book. I used to date a guy who paid his way to a kick ass internship in the Peace Corps. Hillary loves those contributions.

?, the vast majority of applicants are accepted. The major limiting factor is peoples' wiliness to live in a hell-hole for 3 years, not difficulty getting into the program.

The vast majority of applicants are most definitely not accepted. An excel document used to exist which provided the exact numbers for 2008/9/or 10. Roughly, it goes something like this: 70-80% of initial applicants are offered an interview, 70-80% of those interviewed are given a nomination, 80% of those nominated make it through medical, 90% pass the background check, 70%-80% of the applicants who make it through medical & backgrounds are extended an official invitation ("accepted"). Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that leaves us with 20-30% of the original applicants, depending on the 70-80%s. It has become more competitive this past year, resulting in fewer applicants making it through each step.

Blah, blah, blah. What does this mean? It means that applying to the Peace Corps is like fighting a war of attrition, just stay in the fight and you might end up with a V. The application process is where the trouble starts with the Peace Corps.
It's not a thorough investigation into the quality of the individual, which results in many knuckleheads slipping through the cracks (I saw plenty during my time in PC). But, the "vast majority" don't make it to the end. Just throwing that out there.

[Borhas]

However, I have an intense desire to give back to other areas and hence was trying to maybe make the Peace Corps work somehow. It's not that I'm unsure at my career path in life - - I know what I want to do. It's just that I have a secondary desire that criminal law can not fulfill. I'm an adopted child and have had a rough life and realize how much worse it could have been without my adoption. Since being a young child, I've always wanted to volunteer in an orphanage/work with children in that situation. I don't think this varied interest takes away from my interest or commitment in law as a career. Both have different time commitments and the desire to help orphanages may have to take a backseat until I'm at a more secure time economically when I could take an alternative avenue to accomplish what I'd like to do (outside of the legal realm).

Do you really think the Peace Corp gives back? What sort of work do they do in their host countries? This is 2011, the World has rapidly progressed, and even some of the least developed countries have enough english speakers and functionaries to get by. The poster that mentioned engineering or environmental science is right, those sorts of projects require technical skills that American Universities can provide. But if you don't have technical skills, what good could you possibly do there? It's entirely possible that I am just unimaginative and cynical.