Top Law Schools

I'm a Junior Political Science major -- my department offers a number of courses that are related to the law, and most have "law" in the course title. Most are taught by my favorite professor who also happens to be the head of my department's pre-law advising program and her own research/expertise deals predominantly with legal history.

I know people are strongly discouraged from enrolling in "legal studies" or "pre-law" majors as they pale in comparison to actual legal scholarship and also tend to pale in comparison to the sort of critical reading and writing skills one attains in a more conventional social science or humanities field -- I've read time and time again that law school admissions officers frown upon "pre-law" majors and I completely understand the rationale.

However, I'm not interested in these classes because I'm somehow convinced that they're going to prepare me in any meaningful way for the substance of law school courses -- I take them because the professor is fantastic, the course material itself is very interesting, and I just generally like the Constitution/the Supreme Court/legal history as areas of study within the field of Political Science. Nevertheless, I'm hesitant to take more classes because of the fear that my transcript is going to indicate that I tried to make my Political Science major a sort of quasi-legal studies major even though that was never my intention, or, worse, that I intentionally did that under the notion that I thought it would impress law schools...

Should I try to diversify my course selections? My major is very liberal in terms of requirements -- students are allowed to take a pretty decent number of electives so students tend to concentrate in one field. (IR, Political Economy, Public Policy, Comparative, etc.) If it matters, I'm going to be working on an honors thesis that is entirely unrelated to law.

Detriment to what?

Law school admissions - like in the way that law schools look down on "legal studies" as a course of study in undergrad.

If you're dead set on law school, literally the only things that matter, in this order, are: maximizing GPA and taking classes that interest you.

Law schools don't give a shit what your major is or what's on your transcript. They care about GPA and LSAT.

No, there is not a detriment in the least for law school admissions. That being said, I would still consider trying to take some quantitative business/econ/stat classes (if they won't negatively impact your GPA). In my experience, this is by far the biggest blind spot for law students. It's also a lot more significant, even for lit, than people believe it is when they are in law school.

Do what you want in undergrad. You'll have plenty of time to take classes you hate when you get to law school.

I've taken Calculus I and II (just because I needed a math class and I really like Calculus.) I'm going to have a very light load my senior year so it's likely that I'll try to take a Statistics course. My University has "Statistics for Social Science majors" and then just standard Statistics; I'll probably just take the standard version.

Take whatever classes allow you to maximize your GPA.

It really doesn't matter. Take whatever you want, as long as you get a good GPA.

I double majored in both Political Science and History and took 4 classes or so that were law related. from what I know they won't hurt your admissions at all. LSAT and high GPA is all you need to worry about. If you like this professor I would take the classes and do well so you have a good shot at an outstanding letter of rec!

Classes you're interested in also tend to be easier to get an A in as well.

Real wouldn't worry about it. As others have said here, law schools generally frown on "legal studies" and "pre-law" - you're better off studying something you enjoy in undergrad. As far as specific classes, I tried to. I took a class called "Law and Society", and so far as I know it won't help me one lick in law school. I took Con Law, which from what I heard won't significantly affect admissions, but it's the only undergrad class I've heard to be helpful. I did a few case briefs daily in that, and others who took it said that it was marginally helpful in law school.

The only other course that I've heard was really helpful in undergrad was formal logic. From what I was told, that is mainly helpful for prepping for the LSAT. Logic games don't come easy to people, and formal logic can help you grapple the LSAT. From what I've been told, that is the main reason why philosophy majors consistently have the highest average score on the LSAT. That one philosophy course.

3-4 people I know took logic and said it helped them on the LSAT. I took logic and I don't think it helped for the LSAT, and I know a few people who share that opinion. So, different opinions out there on this, but I guess it couldn't hurt to try it out and then drop it before the add/drop period is over if you don't like it...

FWIW, I took Symbolic Logic, and while I enjoyed it, I don't think it actually helped me all that much on the LSAT. My weakest section was definitely LG, but I just cruised through my Logic course without ever really being challenged. I don't think it taught me anything new that I actually applied to my approach to the LSAT. Maybe I'm wrong about that, but I just caution you to not conflate taking Logic with automatically doing well on LG or any other part of the test. That said, it's a fun course, and if you're already a logical thinker, it's an easy A!

I think that taking courses with dense philosophical texts is actually far more valuable in terms of building your RC skills. That said, you can definitely find courses with similarly dense, logic-based arguments in political science. At the end of the day, though, you should take courses that you find interesting, and that will maximize your GPA. Anything else should be a secondary concern.

somethingElse wrote:Detriment to what?

Read the OP instead of just the title?

JazzOne wrote:

somethingElse wrote:Detriment to what?

Read the OP instead of just the title?

Lol, I did, bro. Didn't want to jump to any conclusions as it's not 100% clear what detriment the OP was referring to.

This is silly. Take the classes and enjoy.