Top Law Schools

H.

DSD2013 wrote:

1.) I attended Catholic schools in the past, and I always felt "at home" because I always had the luxury of praying at the local church whenever I felt the need to. I was also able to attend mass on a regular basis. The religious atmosphere, for me at least, was one that I truly grew to appreciate because it always encouraged myself to work harder. While this would be a great plus in a future law school that I would like to attend, it does not have to be an absolutely 100% necessary quality. If, however, anyone could advise me on this it would be greatly appreciated.

2.) The university I currently go to has a disproportionate amount of students to teachers. Each class would have approximately 200 students to 1 teacher, and this really limited my ability to ask my teachers questions even in office hours. A university with a smaller number of law students would be one that I definitely prefer more, but of course, I am not limiting anything. If I were fortunate enough to be accepted into a highly respected law school with a large number of students, I wouldn't hesitate to go there.

3.) Of course, I would like to focus my attention on the law schools that have high employment rates for graduates.

First, you aren't even a senior in college... go do a cool internship this summer, hit the beach, make dat $ and focus on your college experience you don't need to worry about law school yet. Just keep your grades up next year and try to break 3.8 by the time you graduate; that will give you a solid shot at HYS.

Unfortunately, #1 and #3 conflict since BC and ND, the two nominally catholic law schools of any relevance, aren't employing their grads the way they should these days. With 3.75+, aim for 170+ on LSAT and you can go to a T14 with $$ or maybe even harvard. So you might not want to make qualification #1 a sticking point or you will be limiting your opportunities at gainful legal employment.

For #2 there are several solid options that offer better student:faculty ratios. If you keep your GPA up (3.8+), Stanford offers the smallest class size AND (arguably) best IP program in the nation. I'm not sure how "spiritual" it is as a campus though. Alternatively, Duke, Northwestern, UChicago, Cornell, (and of course Yale) all have very small class sizes and good ratios. I'm not sure which school has the most catholics though.

For the next two years mainly worry about keeping up that GPA. Not sure I would even take the LSAT yet but I would DEFINITELY NOT take the LSAT at the expense of studying for classes and getting straight A's.
Once you finish UG and have an LSAT score, come back and talk about what school to get into. Suffice it to say, a 3.7 gpa can get into any school, LSAT willing.

What is "intellectual law"

If you mean IP, specifically patent lit

Better switch your major to EE or CS

Biology is not in demand

DSD2013 wrote:I decided to study for the LSAT this summer (have already begun) and am planning to take the LSAT in October.

I missed this in my first read.

You will be a junior in college right? DO NOT do this. It is COMPLETELY unnecessary, I promise you. Focus on your classes, getting good connections to profs, and your GPA, because:

Micdiddy wrote: Suffice it to say, a 3.7 gpa can get into any school, LSAT willing.

is only very loosely true in a theoretical sense as lim(score) -> 180, and even then YS hardly ever look at non-URM, 3.7 GPA's.

You will have plenty of time to study for the LSAT as a senior. No point doing it now -- there is seriously NO rush, don't feel at peer pressure to do this, and if your friends in college are studying to take their LSAT fall of junior year, you can tell them they are fucking stupid.

rad lulz wrote: Better switch your major to EE or CS
Biology is not in demand

unless you can do biomedical engineering or biological sciences with some quantitative emphasis, since FWIW biomedical industry patents ARE in high demand

edit: as a final aside, why graduate a year early? if you are serious about competitive law school admissions, then do not do this. If you had a 3.9-4.0, I would say go ahead and graduate in 3 yrs but these are valuable credit hours you can use to raise your GPA. Take easy sociology classes or whatever, but don't graduate early until you've maxed out your GPA. I don't care how much you hate your UG -- things change, you're only halfway through, I hated mine freshmen year but came to love it my last two years.

Do what you can to up your GPA more before you graduate. If you can take another year before being granted the bachelors and take easy classes - do it. Hell, random community college classes will count too. If you can get upper 3.8's or 3.9+ then ur solid. Get a masters in BME, then u can jump into some decent work in the field for a couple years for some good work experience. really wish i'd done that (fyi, I'm a bio major and graduated with 3.78 and got a couple years research exp, but could have started off better with a masters)

Make your thread title something to do with the thread.

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DSD2013 wrote: Things I like a law school to have:

1.) I attended Catholic schools in the past, and I always felt "at home" because I always had the luxury of praying at the local church whenever I felt the need to. I was also able to attend mass on a regular basis. The religious atmosphere, for me at least, was one that I truly grew to appreciate because it always encouraged myself to work harder. While this would be a great plus in a future law school that I would like to attend, it does not have to be an absolutely 100% necessary quality. If, however, anyone could advise me on this it would be greatly appreciated.

A man of your interests surely should make Notre Dame their top choice. I have experience there and I can't imagine how a place could be any more Catholic.

Why are you guys forgetting Georgetown? It is the most highly ranked Law Center in the country and Jesuit.

Also Fordham ain't bad for certain people.

Everything I read in your post screams "TAKE A YEAR OFF." Get a job in PI, or working for a patent attorney. Backpack across Zambia. Do SOMETHING besides run as fast as possible to law school at age 21. Yikes.

RAWR wrote:Everything I read in your post screams "TAKE A YEAR OFF." Get a job in PI, or working for a patent attorney. Backpack across Zambia. Do SOMETHING besides run as fast as possible to law school at age 21. Yikes.

+1

I'm happy to see this point of view I suggested garnering support

RAWR wrote:Everything I read in your post screams "TAKE A YEAR OFF." Get a job in PI, or working for a patent attorney. Backpack across Zambia. Do SOMETHING besides run as fast as possible to law school at age 21. Yikes.

Would you say that if OP wasn't religious? Sounds like discrimination.

Tom Joad wrote:

RAWR wrote:Everything I read in your post screams "TAKE A YEAR OFF." Get a job in PI, or working for a patent attorney. Backpack across Zambia. Do SOMETHING besides run as fast as possible to law school at age 21. Yikes.

Would you say that if OP wasn't religious? Sounds like discrimination.

wtf does that have to do with anything? religious people don't have life experiences? religious people should make bad law school admissions decisions? I hope you were being sarcastic.