Pursue a masters? Forum

[danielwebster]

Hi everyone,

I have a question that I'm going to cross-post in the Admissions and Chances forums. I have a 3.35 (ouch) from a non-HYP Ivy undergrad with an major in economics and a 177 on my LSAT. I also have pretty good GRE/GMAT scores. I graduated in 2010 and have been working as a strategy consultant at a prestigious boutique (doesn't have the name recognition of McK, Bain, BCG). I have pretty good recommendations from my professors and bosses.

I know that ultimately I want to do a JD/MBA, with a goal of using it to go into legal practice or back into consulting. However, it has been a longtime academic passion and desire of mine to continue my education with a masters in economics or potentially political science at one of the 1-year programs at Oxford, LSE, or Cambridge. So my question is twofold:

First, what are my chances with my stats right now? Where should I apply? Where should I ED?

Second, can someone please help me think about the decision to do the masters? I'm lucky enough to have some money laying around in an educational fund, but it's only about enough to cover 1 year of law school, tuition + room/board. Will the MSc from one of the above schools help me at all? It doesn't have to be huge since I have other personal reasons for wanting to do it. I just don't want to spend a year and all the money doing it for pretty much nothing.

Sorry about the open-ended question. I really appreciate any advice and I'd be happy to clarify details, either in the thread or by PM.

Thanks

[cinephile]

Will the MSc from one of the above schools help me at all? It doesn't have to be huge since I have other personal reasons for wanting to do it. I just don't want to spend a year and all the money doing it for pretty much nothing.

Doubtful that it would help. Maybe if it came down to you and another candidate straight out of undergrad with the exact same numbers, then you'd have an edge.

If you really want to do it for personal reasons (and it looks like you can finance it), then go for. Just don't expect it to boost your admissions chances.

ETA: I meant law school admissions. I have no idea if this would help for MBA admissions. Someone else might be better qualified to talk about that.

[danielwebster]

So is there really no workaround for a low UG GPA? While that doesn't surprise me or seem unfair, it is a bit disappointing for people like me who experienced a limited academic slump in college.

[cinephile]

You have an amazing LSAT score, so just target splitter friendly schools.

[TTH]

You have an amazing LSAT score, so just target splitter friendly schools.

This.

Hit the whole T14 and ED the T6 at your choice. I'm guessing you'll probably miss HYS. Also, the Masters won't really help. It's a soft factor and most soft factors don't matter for much. If you have intrinsic reasons for wanting to pursue it, go nuts. Yeah, you might have more debt than you'd like coming out of law school, but you can adjust for that by applying to lower-ranked schools and pulling a scholly (should be able to get a nice scholly from a lower T14).