Top Law Schools

emptybee wrote:I've been admitted to HLS and am interested in pursuing a JD/MBA. However, for personal and professional reasons I think it would be ideal if I could do the MBA at Stanford.

I've found plenty of info on HLS/HBS, but can someone actually pursue the degrees at different schools? Will they hold my HLS status against me in admissions?

Thanks in advance!

Lisa B. Schwartz ’03 has managed to achieve what most students consider impossible.

Over her four years at Harvard, Schwartz did not receive a single grade lower than an A—not even an A-minus, giving her a perfect 15.0 grade point average on Harvard’s 15 point scale.

Schwartz, also a Crimson editor, will receive the Sophia Fruend prize today, an honor awarded each year to the highest ranked summa cum laude graduate in the College.

But unlike most recipients of the award, Schwartz has a perfect academic record. The last person to earn this distinction was Lisa’s older brother Kevin S. Schwartz ’01, who was the first undergraduate in nearly 20 years to achieve such perfection.

Schwartz said that while she was proud of her brother when he won the award, she never felt pressure to repeat his success.

“I knew it was most important that I make the most of my own experiences at Harvard, so I never made it a goal to set any records,” Schwartz said.

Schwartz, who is graduating with a bachelor’s degree in government, said she took a wide variety of classes and tried to challenge herself academically.

“I’ve loved my time at Harvard,” Schwartz said. “ feel that I’ve learned something from all aspects of my experience here, so it’s definitely is a nice honor.”

Fellow students, advisors and professors were not surprised to hear of Schwartz’s perfect record.

Loeb Professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures Maria M. Tatar predicted such a feat was within Schwartz’s reach during her freshman year when she took Tatar’s core class “Fairy Tales, Children’s Literature and the Culture of Childhood.”

“Lisa is a natural in the academic world, achieving the impossible with power, control, rigor and real style,” Tatar said.

In addition to winning the Fruend Prize, Schwartz is also a Truman Scholar and is a member of the USA Today College Academic First Team.

“Lisa is such a self-starter and so motivated,” said Andrea L. Campbell ’88, an assistant professor of government and Schwartz’s thesis advisor.

Schwartz wrote her senior thesis on the little-known U.S. Judicial Conference, which makes policy for the federal justice system. The Conference is composed of the Supreme Court’s chief justice and other top federal judges.

Campbell said that Schwartz’s thesis, which she called “extraordinary,” dealt with a topic that few have studied. “It could easily be published as a book,” Campbell said.

The thesis, entitled “Judging Policy: The U.S. Judicial Conference and the Politics of Judicial Involvement in Congressional Policy Making,” also won the James Gordon Bennett Prize for the outstanding Government thesis on a subject of American domestic or foreign policy—one of the top prizes awarded in the department.

Campbell predicted a bright future for Schwartz in public service.

“Well, she already worked in the House, the Senate, the United Nations and the Supreme Court,” Campbell said. “She’ll most likely be a major figure and have a prominent future in public policy in some way.”

Ronald C. Chen, a law tutor in Eliot House who worked closely with her on business and law school applications, praised Schwartz’s commitment to excellence in both her academic and extracurricular involvement.

“Writing recommendations for Lisa was always a perilous task,” Chen said. “One is not certain to succeed in conveying all that she has accomplished in her life thus far.”

Schwartz, who has worked in the office of Supreme Court Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, has been president of the Harvard Mock Trial Team, on the Institute of Politics’ Student Advisory Committee and on the executive board of the Small Claims Advisory Service.

Schwartz will attend Harvard Business School in the fall, pursuing a JD-MBA degree with Yale Law School.

I guess the real answer is, I just don't know. There have been students that have done this, but these students are nothing short of prodigious. I don't know if you're just a work horse with the numbers to get anywhere or a true prodigy. MBA admissions are tricky and based on a lot of factors you've given no information about. So I don't see how anyone here can help you. Go to an MBA forum and volunteer more info maybe?

PS: No matter how small your penis is, you will never be able to make it bigger by doing a JD/MBA between Harvard/Stanford.

dissonance1848 wrote:WTF? Havard MBA is worth more than Stanford MBA. Do Harvard JD/Harvard MBA. Hell, bail on the Havard JD, and only take the Harvard MBA.

GeePee wrote: This makes absolutely no sense. Pick a school.

bdubs wrote:If you understood at all how JD/MBAs work you would know that this is infeasible. In order to get both degrees in less than 5 years you need to cross-credit classes between the law school and the business school. Because you would not be attending the same institution for both degrees you cannot cross-credit classes.

This makes absolutely no sense.

I would assume since they are on different coasts it will be near impossible to do a dual degree between the schools, so it will most likely take 5 years to complete.

Shaggier1 wrote:

I would assume since they are on different coasts it will be near impossible to do a dual degree between the schools, so it will most likely take 5 years to complete.

I don't see why this would be the case. The students to which I referred above are doing dual degrees on different coasts in four years. 2.5 years at Boalt and 1.5 years at East Coast school.

That doesn't sound like a dual degreee, but instead like accelerating law graduation in order to pursue a degree from another school. That may be possible, but it's not really a dual degree unless there is some credit given for law classes in order to graduate from the other school.

Shaggier1 wrote:

I would assume since they are on different coasts it will be near impossible to do a dual degree between the schools, so it will most likely take 5 years to complete.

I don't see why this would be the case. The students to which I referred above are doing dual degrees on different coasts in four years. 2.5 years at Boalt and 1.5 years at East Coast school.

emptybee wrote:Hi guys, first off, thanks a bunch for your replies.

Background on myself: I got into HLS out of undergrad on numbers, and deferred HLS to join a very early-stage tech start up as one of the first employees. I intend to work here for about ~3 years. I'm not sure (but hoping) that this substantive work experience + HLS admission will help swing me into an MBA.

For the industry that I want to go into, a JD/MBA is a true value-added rather than blatant degree-whorism. I've spoken with several people in this and similar career paths, and they've confirmed this.

In terms of why Stanford over Harvard: I'm of course not necessarily opposed to HBS (and am not a snob), but I feel that I'd benefit from the different networks (Stanford being in the Bay Area, and Harvard being east coast and more international, or so I hear).

At the end of the day, the minor inconveniences of doing the degrees at 2 different schools are outweighed by the benefits.

emptybee wrote:Hi guys, first off, thanks a bunch for your replies.

Background on myself: I got into HLS out of undergrad on numbers, and deferred HLS to join a very early-stage tech start up as one of the first employees. I intend to work here for about ~3 years. I'm not sure (but hoping) that this substantive work experience + HLS admission will help swing me into an MBA.

For the industry that I want to go into, a JD/MBA is a true value-added rather than blatant degree-whorism. I've spoken with several people in this and similar career paths, and they've confirmed this.

In terms of why Stanford over Harvard: I'm of course not necessarily opposed to HBS (and am not a snob), but I feel that I'd benefit from the different networks (Stanford being in the Bay Area, and Harvard being east coast and more international, or so I hear).

At the end of the day, the minor inconveniences of doing the degrees at 2 different schools are outweighed by the benefits.

wreakingofswagger wrote:I apologize for bumping an old thread, but I just wanted to say Starting5 is correct. I know someone who recently completed
a four-year joint JD/MBA with YLS and Stanford GSB, so it's definitely possible, although he/she's one of the most accomplished and ambitious individuals I have ever known. I say if you're sure that's what you really want to do, go for it.