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Hello! I'm currently in my senior year, and planning to work for at least a year or two before applying to law school. For someone whose numbers are competitive or borderline for T6 schools, do you think graduating with departmental honors matters? I'm an econ major, and to graduate with honors, I would have to write a thesis this year. I'm not entirely opposed to doing that, but I'm thinking it may be a better use of my time to just focus on my classes.

Would graduating with honors in economics matter in your opinion? If it matters, I already have some softs: an IB internship, cool work with my clubs, 6 months full-time work(w some management experience) with a political organizing nonprofit. Does not writing a thesis and graduating without honors have the potential to harm my application in your view? Sorry if these are commonly covered topics - I did a quick search and couldn't really find anything matching my exact questions. Thank you so much in advance for any advice or opinions you can offer.

It can help on the margins, but it's not nearly as important as your LSAT/GPA.

Not everything is about law schools. Honors is nice, and it'll sit on your résumé for the rest of your life. It's also a great way to build a relationship with your advisor, who in turn will often be a good academic recommender.

I think if law is your ultimate goal and path you are fine to not tackle the thesis. I'd recommend it, for my UG it was kinda the capstone and neatly wrapped up my degree. Nobody has ever asked about it; my grad degree dissertation did get maybe 2 questions ever? For me it was a great experience though. I don't think it
ll help you in admissions though nearly as much as raising your gpa. If you feel it'll cause you to drop your gpa I would refrain from doing it. Best of luck.

I'd go for the GPA. I graduated with pretty much the minimal that I could do to get my undergrad degree and have never seen any negative repercussions. The only comments I've had on my college degree was based on the how great the college itself was. I have seen many people's (10+ in just my personal circle) law careers arrive DOA because they went to a college that practices GPA deflation and/or insisted upon being in more rigorous programs because they thought that it would help their law school applications.