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Hello everyone! I'm a senior majoring in computer science at a HYPS school; I'll graduate with a 3.75 GPA. I plan to work for two years and then potentially apply to law school; I'm interested in technology policy. I'll take the LSAT during this time. I am interested in HYS. This probably sounds very snobby, but I likely wouldn't go to law school unless I was accepted to one of these - there are so many opportunities in tech already and it would be hard to justify the debt.

Extracurriculars include leading a school paper and research projects and internships in tech policy. From a lower socioeconomic background, as well, but not a URM (white female).

Obviously my GPA could be higher; that is my main weakness. It seems like law schools don't particularly care about the difficulty of major. I would work hard to get a very high score on the LSAT; would target 175-180. I tend to do well on standardized tests and I like logic puzzles and verbal questions. If it's helpful at all, I scored 170 on GRE verbal and 167 on GRE quant.

Any idea of my chances? Or should I just give up the law school idea and try to kill it in tech? Thanks so much for considering!!

If you're only willing to go to HYS, you're probably not dying to be a lawyer. There's nothing wrong with that. HYPS UG probably means you can jump into a six-figure job right out of school. In your shoes, there's just too much opportunity and actual cost for law school to be worth it financially--especially when the most likely result is making 190k in NYC. If you get a FAANG position, you'd probably start at 150k+ in the Bay area and after 3 years, you'd probably be making more than 190k after 3 years that it'd take to go to law school.

Yeah, don't be a lawyer. Tech experience is probably more valuable than a JD for your goal of working in "technology policy" anyway.

If cost is the reason you'd only go to HYS, then you could consider other T13s since there's a decent chance some would be free if you got into HYS

BrainsyK wrote:If you're only willing to go to HYS, you're probably not dying to be a lawyer. There's nothing wrong with that. HYPS UG probably means you can jump into a six-figure job right out of school. In your shoes, there's just too much opportunity and actual cost for law school to be worth it financially--especially when the most likely result is making 190k in NYC. If you get a FAANG position, you'd probably start at 150k+ in the Bay area and after 3 years, you'd probably be making more than 190k after 3 years that it'd take to go to law school.

You got it - I'm not dying to be a lawyer, haha. I am considering it because it seems that some of the interesting roles in tech policy would benefit from a law degree, or at least legal knowledge. I realize that FAANG jobs are the best for overall moneymaking + work-life balance (worked at one of those companies and had a full-time return offer), but I am particularly interested in the tech policy space. I'll be a product manager in tech for the next two years, however, and several of my coworkers are tech policy experts, so I will have time to evaluate whether a law degree is really necessary.

decentralize wrote:Hello everyone! I'm a senior majoring in computer science at a HYPS school; I'll graduate with a 3.75 GPA. I plan to work for two years and then potentially apply to law school; I'm interested in technology policy. I'll take the LSAT during this time. I am interested in HYS. This probably sounds very snobby, but I likely wouldn't go to law school unless I was accepted to one of these - there are so many opportunities in tech already and it would be hard to justify the debt.

Extracurriculars include leading a school paper and research projects and internships in tech policy. From a lower socioeconomic background, as well, but not a URM (white female).

Obviously my GPA could be higher; that is my main weakness. It seems like law schools don't particularly care about the difficulty of major. I would work hard to get a very high score on the LSAT; would target 175-180. I tend to do well on standardized tests and I like logic puzzles and verbal questions. If it's helpful at all, I scored 170 on GRE verbal and 167 on GRE quant.

Any idea of my chances? Or should I just give up the law school idea and try to kill it in tech? Thanks so much for considering!!

If nights and weekends of perfecting the LSAT seem worth a chance at these schools seems worth it, then you probably have a decent chance because of your softs. But you don't seem very interested in law to begin with. I would put this out of mind until you become more interested in the law.

decentralize wrote:

BrainsyK wrote:If you're only willing to go to HYS, you're probably not dying to be a lawyer. There's nothing wrong with that. HYPS UG probably means you can jump into a six-figure job right out of school. In your shoes, there's just too much opportunity and actual cost for law school to be worth it financially--especially when the most likely result is making 190k in NYC. If you get a FAANG position, you'd probably start at 150k+ in the Bay area and after 3 years, you'd probably be making more than 190k after 3 years that it'd take to go to law school.

You got it - I'm not dying to be a lawyer, haha. I am considering it because it seems that some of the interesting roles in tech policy would benefit from a law degree, or at least legal knowledge. I realize that FAANG jobs are the best for overall moneymaking + work-life balance (worked at one of those companies and had a full-time return offer), but I am particularly interested in the tech policy space. I'll be a product manager in tech for the next two years, however, and several of my coworkers are tech policy experts, so I will have time to evaluate whether a law degree is really necessary.

feel like you're overestimating how difficult it is to get a generic tech policy gig and you could do it out of a number of law schools across the t14 if you had a few years of tech work experience, but my sense is this is less about "tech policy" and more about "HYS."

unfortunately, as a white woman with a mid-3.7, you're a long-shot at Y/S, regardless of LSAT score. that GPA is below 25th percentile (far below 25th percentile at Yale). alums get a bump, so if that's you, that helps out a bit. but realistically you're more likely looking at Harvard + the rest of the T6, assuming a low-mid 170s LSAT score. (I don't think this job is the sort of soft that leads someone to materially outperform their numbers; like that's for combat veterans, Rhodes scholars, Olympians)

if I were you I'd do the FAANG gig for a few years and if you still have the prestige law school itch, consider applying to the H/S JD/MBA program