How to get into HLS? Forum

A. Nony Mouse · Post by **A. Nony Mouse** » Thu Oct 01, 2015 1:17 am

JDJohnP21 wrote:You guys are crazy. When did I say I had ANYTHING against Jews? I was just wondering if what I was hearing on GW is true. Please don't mince my words.

Why would it matter?

JDJohnP21 · Post by **JDJohnP21** » Thu Oct 01, 2015 3:27 am

It doesn't matter. It just seemed odd to me. None of you have answered my real question. Is GW better than my other options?

Dcc617 · Post by **Dcc617** » Thu Oct 01, 2015 3:30 am

JDJohnP21 wrote:It doesn't matter. It just seemed odd to me. None of you have answered my real question. Is GW better than my other options?

Don't take this personally kid, but it seems like you're still young enough that you know everything and nobody will be able to convince you otherwise. Good luck learning some hard lessons over the next few years.

MistakenGenius · Post by **MistakenGenius** » Thu Oct 01, 2015 3:54 am

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JDJohnP21 · Post by **JDJohnP21** » Thu Oct 01, 2015 4:55 am

You guys have the wrong view of me. I don't think I know everything. You guys certainly have more experience than me, and I respect that. I will admit that the way I say some things may make me look childish. One of my biggest flaws is that I get upset very quickly. I don't mind you disagreeing with me, but discounting my political views because of my age upsets me. NO ONE else at my school cares about politics( all they talk about is sports and video games) I am very passionate about politics and theology. I just don't understand this " expand your views" stuff. What do you mean by " expand your views"? I can tell you with certainty that I will never be a Liberal. The college I attend won't change my political views. I know many Liberals, and debate them all the time. The reason I like PHC so much is because it would give me an opertunity to meet like-minded people. What's wrong with that? You guys act like I'm some wacky Evangelical neocon.
That simply isn't the case. I'm a conservative High Anglican, fiscally and socially conservative, and extremely Libertarian on foreign policy. I'm not some arrogant know it all.

Nebby · Post by **Nebby** » Thu Oct 01, 2015 9:33 am

JDJohnP21 wrote:Mack Hambleton
I post here because I am sick of the elitism. Kids on TLS run thier mouths and know nothing. I just presented you guys with FACTS about Patrick Henry. People who compare it to CC are mindless snobs.

Nebby · Post by **Nebby** » Thu Oct 01, 2015 9:33 am

JDJohnP21 wrote:Ron Howard
The great Michael Savage said "Liberalism is a mental disorder."

Nebby · Post by **Nebby** » Thu Oct 01, 2015 9:34 am

JDJohnP21 wrote:I am NOT totally blind. I have some vision in my left eye. I have a software that enlarges the computer screen so I can see it. My vision in my left eye is 20/600. Not great by any means, but I can see everything as long as it's not far away. From what I've read so far it seems like I could do what's required in Biglaw. I could do document reviews by reading the documents online, and type everything that someone would usually write. What's the issue with that? I am also a racial minority( my family is from the Middle East) I am a minority racially and physically. It would be very hypocritical of law firms if they are willing to hire LGBT people and women, but wouldn't even give me a shot.( I am just as much of a minority as those 2 groups) for those of you who don't think I'd have a shot, give me ONE thing I couldn't do in Biglaw because of my vision. I am a good writer, and that's very important in the legal profession.

Nebby · Post by **Nebby** » Thu Oct 01, 2015 9:37 am

JDJohnP21 wrote:Bearsfan23
You are an absolute fool. This is how Liberals attack anyone who doesn't agree with them. The FOUNDER of Bancroft is Asian, and there is a WOMEN partner. Give me one shread of proof that would validate your comment. The great Michael Savage has said "Liberalism is a mental disorder"

PeanutsNJam · Post by **PeanutsNJam** » Thu Oct 01, 2015 10:01 am

racially and physically a minority

How 2 be a physical minority?

I hope your SAT is at least 2300 kid for you to be mouthing off like this.

A. Nony Mouse · Post by **A. Nony Mouse** » Thu Oct 01, 2015 10:12 am

MistakenGenius wrote:But to answer your question, yes, George Washington is definitely a better school than Patrick Henry, though I'd attend a state school like UVA, William and Mary, or Virginia Tech before choosing any of those.

Agreed.

basedvulpes · Post by **basedvulpes** » Thu Oct 01, 2015 10:13 am

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Nebby · Post by **Nebby** » Thu Oct 01, 2015 10:24 am

basedvulpes wrote:Who is Michael Savage?

I am so sick and tired of everyone with their complaints about PTSD, depression. Everyone wants their hand held, and a government check.... Everyone has depression in their life. But if the whole nation is told, “boo-hoo-hoo, come and get a medication, come and get treatment, talk about mental illness.” You know what you wind up with? You wind up with Obama in the White House and liars in every phase of the government. That’s what you wind up with. It’s a weak, sick, nation. A weak, sick, broken nation. And you need men like me to save the country. You need men to stand up and say stop crying like a baby over everything.

Now, the illness du jour is autism. You know what autism is? I'll tell you what autism is. In 99 percent of the cases, it's a brat who hasn't been told to cut the act out. That's what autism is. What do you mean they scream and they're silent? They don't have a father around to tell them, "Don't act like a moron. You'll get nowhere in life. Stop acting like a putz. Straighten up. Act like a man. Don't sit there crying and screaming, idiot."

Barack Obama is elected for another four-year term, he’ll be president for life. He’ll be the new Hugo Chavez. He’ll do away with the two-term limit and win the 2016 election with 90 percent of the vote. We have less than six months to make sure this doesn’t happen.

The employment figures released by federal government agencies are fraudulent. Real unemployment in the United States is not under 7 percent; it’s closer to 37 percent, despite what the White House, the Fed, and the U.S. Treasury try to tell you.

MistakenGenius · Post by **MistakenGenius** » Thu Oct 01, 2015 11:57 am

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totesTheGoat · Post by **totesTheGoat** » Thu Oct 01, 2015 12:34 pm

MistakenGenius wrote: OP, as for you, no one's asking you to become a liberal. But if you're conservative, go to a conservative college, then a conservative law school, and then a conservative firm, you're really missing out on half of life. Some beliefs can be powerful tools for you, while others will constantly hold you back from your full potential. At those schools, you'll never find anyone to challenge your beliefs. Challenging your beliefs is by no means easy. Holding onto them can make you feel safe and stable in a difficult time. It can be difficult recognizing that the ideas you trust could be false; but, if you think about it clearly and objectively, you’ll realize that a true belief will always stand up to even the strictest scrutiny. Expanding your horizons can actually strengthen your preexisting notions, but if you fail to do so, those beliefs are no better than fairy tales to you. If you go to a public school like one of the three I mentioned, then you're not only saving valuable money, you're constantly coming in contact with others (faculty and students) with a wide variety of beliefs and backgrounds, causing you to constantly reevaluate your own, making you a better person.

I'm skeptical of the "mind expanding" advice when it comes to college. My experience was that the only "mind expanding" that my professors were interested in was expanding to become lockstep to their politics. Dissent was not treated kindly.

I don't recall any single class that I've taken where people's beliefs were challenged from a conservative side. I've learned foreign policy from a self-avowed Communist. I've learned statistics and public polling from a second wave feminist. I've learned different law classes from various stripes of liberal and Progressive. However, I don't really recall any outspoken conservative professors. There was one engineering prof that mentioned that his generation listened to talk radio (and implied that it was conservative talk radio), and that we were too young to know what that means, but that was really it. It's not like I'm going to liberal schools either. I went to a midwest Ag school for UG and go to a law school in the Bible belt.

The point being that challenging your beliefs is good, but I can't really fault a conservative high school student for being skeptical about being thrown into a situation where their daily primary influence is going to be biased left on the whole. It just so happens that law is about the worst profession to go into if you can't handle that bias.

I also don't buy that conservative schools don't offer intellectual diversity, but that's a discussion for a different day. Overall, I think that choosing a school based on your politics is an enormous mistake, but that's just my opinion. If you go to a decent school, you're going to be able to surround yourself with like-minded people, no matter the faculty's leanings.

A. Nony Mouse · Post by **A. Nony Mouse** » Thu Oct 01, 2015 1:23 pm

It's all relative, people. I find law schools more conservative than some settings. Law is by far NOT the worst profession for conservatives - I'm surrounded by plenty of them.

Also, 1) professors aren't the only people expanding your mind in college, and 2) profs don't care about dissent if it's actually based in research/logic/the course material, but often it's not. (I also don't get how a statistical analysis changes based on whether a liberal or conservative teaches it.)

totesTheGoat · Post by **totesTheGoat** » Thu Oct 01, 2015 2:17 pm

A. Nony Mouse wrote:It's all relative, people. I find law schools more conservative than some settings. Law is by far NOT the worst profession for conservatives - I'm surrounded by plenty of them.

Conservatives certainly aren't an extinct species in law, but my experience (albeit a limited experience) is that law school is about on par with humanities schools when it comes to intellectual and political bias.

Also, 1) professors aren't the only people expanding your mind in college,

True, and if the professors are the only people expanding your mind, you're doing college wrong.

2) profs don't care about dissent if it's actually based in research/logic/the course material, but often it's not.

That's not my experience, especially in law school.

(I also don't get how a statistical analysis changes based on whether a liberal or conservative teaches it.)

When feminism and politics just happen to be brought up in class with a tenuous if not non-existent connection to class material, it certainly makes those who don't agree with the politics of the prof uncomfortable. In the professor's defense, she never used politics as a weapon to determine grades, but I was still quite taken aback with how preachy the class on how to use SPSS became.

Perhaps I've had outlier experiences in the 6 or 7 classes that I'm thinking about. I'm certainly open to that being the case. For the OP's benefit, I'll say that I became friends with the feminist prof who was teaching the stats class. I may not agree with her politics, but she was a good mentor. I think that my UG experience would have been harmed if I had been cloistered in an echo chamber for 5 years.

A. Nony Mouse · Post by **A. Nony Mouse** » Thu Oct 01, 2015 2:46 pm

totesTheGoat wrote:Conservatives certainly aren't an extinct species in law, but my experience (albeit a limited experience) is that law school is about on par with humanities schools when it comes to intellectual and political bias.

Yeah, I just have to disagree with you on that. (I was in academia for years before going to law school.) I would also say that the legal profession, as opposed to academia, really does not skew overwhelmingly liberal. Though I'd agree that law school is probably more liberal than the profession generally.

2) profs don't care about dissent if it's actually based in research/logic/the course material, but often it's not.
That's not my experience, especially in law school.

I was mostly talking about undergrad, but I still didn't see anyone knock conservatives just for being conservative in law school, either. But I may have just had good profs (they tended to make everyone equally defend their answers).

This is going to come out sounding snotty, which I don't mean, but I don't know how else to say it: the students who complained about politics affecting their grade were usually ignoring weaknesses in their own arguments and the presumptions under their arguments that weren't based in the course material. (Liberal students do the same thing, to be clear.)

I can't say it never ever happens that politics affects a professor's evaluation of a student, but it's nowhere near as often as students think - mostly because they don't have experience actually grading people so they read stuff into the evaluation that's not there. (And profs aren't always as good at explaining an evaluation as they should be.)

And I should add I don't think conservatives should be shunned in academia, or treated only as targets for conversion, so to speak. Even when I don't agree.

totesTheGoat · Post by **totesTheGoat** » Thu Oct 01, 2015 2:56 pm

A. Nony Mouse wrote:the students who complained about politics affecting their grade were usually ignoring weaknesses in their own arguments and the presumptions under their arguments that weren't based in the course material. (Liberal students do the same thing, to be clear.)

I always took the line that the prof really shouldn't know enough about my politics for them to help or harm my grade, even if it were a deciding factor for that prof (which I agree is rather rare). The only time my politics have ever come up related to class was in a public policy class in law school where we were encouraged to bring politics into the discussion.

I'll reiterate what I said a few posts back for the benefit of OP and others who are in a similar position. Choosing your school (UG or law) based on your politics is a really bad move. I ran into many more profs who couldn't teach their way out of a paper bag than ones who left their politics dangling out.

PeanutsNJam · Post by **PeanutsNJam** » Thu Oct 01, 2015 5:03 pm

Nebby wrote:

Source for the quotes? I want to do some independent reading for science.

JDJohnP21 · Post by **JDJohnP21** » Thu Oct 01, 2015 5:06 pm

I never said I wanted to go to a conservative law school. My dream is HLS, and that's certainly not conservative. PHC sends students to Harvard and Yale Law every year. I don't see why going there for UG is such a bad idea.

Nebby · Post by **Nebby** » Thu Oct 01, 2015 5:06 pm

PeanutsNJam wrote:
Nebby wrote:
Source for the quotes? I want to do some independent reading for science.

Haha, the wikipedia on Michael Savage and I also googled "Michael Savage quotes."

legit · Post by **legit** » Thu Oct 01, 2015 5:46 pm

Just in case you change your mind or need more time to study for the LSAT, probably a good idea to compare job options for alumni

totesTheGoat · Post by **totesTheGoat** » Thu Oct 01, 2015 5:56 pm

JDJohnP21 wrote:I never said I wanted to go to a conservative law school. My dream is HLS, and that's certainly not conservative. PHC sends students to Harvard and Yale Law every year. I don't see why going there for UG is such a bad idea.

It's not necessarily a bad idea, but I've never heard of PHC, so I can't make any recommendations either way. I'd say that if you're compromising on tier of school or your ability to get the major you want just because of politics, you're probably making a massive mistake.

What happens if you decide that law school isn't for you? Will a degree from PHC get you a decent job in the major you're considering? Without knowing more about you, I can't really tell you whether you're making a good or bad choice. All I can talk about is your motivations.

EDIT: or what legit said.

gnomgnomuch · Post by **gnomgnomuch** » Thu Oct 01, 2015 6:25 pm

JDJohnP21 wrote:I never said I wanted to go to a conservative law school. My dream is HLS, and that's certainly not conservative. PHC sends students to Harvard and Yale Law every year. I don't see why going there for UG is such a bad idea.

Dude, if you're going to go to PHC then fine. But, for gods sake, stop using PHC sends students to HY every year as a reason. There are bright spots in every bad college, just as there are dark spots in every good college. You're focusing on like 5 people a year, instead of the other 98% of your class who end up doing what?