What Should I Major In
Posted : admin On 30.09.2019The best major or specialized course of study for you is the one in which you are most interested. In addition, achieving good grades is incredibly important for admission to law school. With that in mind, you will likely do best in a field that you enjoy.
- However, pre-med students wishing to become pediatricians usually choose to major in an area of science, which allows them to get the proper prerequisite education needed for medical school. Schools offering Health Science degrees can also be found in these popular choices.
- What should you major in at college? Take our quiz and find out! College search advice from www.beabilliken.com and Saint Louis University. Skip to main content. College Majors Quiz. In this section. Want to know which academic majors may be a good fit for your interests?
In this post, we discuss the best majors for law school applicants. If you are still in undergrad and you are considering law school, this article will give you a better understanding of which undergraduate majors are the most beneficial for, and how your choice of major might affect your law school application.Quick Note from Joshua Craven: Remember, these numbers represent averages, and regardless of your major you can dominate the LSAT. I was a finance major and (23 points higher than the average for my major).But First The Worst Majors for Law SchoolI want to state an important warning right up front: IF YOUR SCHOOL HAS A PRE-LAW OR CRIMINAL JUSTICE MAJOR, DON’T DO IT. The hard evidence out there is that pre-law and criminal justice majors do worse on the LSAT and have worse outcomes when applying to law school.According to LSAC, who tracks these things, only 52% of criminal justice majors and 61% pre-law majors were accepted to law school. Compare that with philosophy, economics, and journalism majors, who were admitted to law school at rates of 82, 79, and 76 percent respectively.Now I agree with other commentators this is likely explained by self-selection. The theory is that poor test takers tend to choose these majors in abundance and this same group would score low on the LSAT even if they chose a different major. Under that theory, it’s not the major itself that’s causing the poor performance, but, no matter the explanation, they are clearly under-performing.Let’s take a look at a study of LSAT scores by major.
We can help you create a killer Personal Statement.Of those measured, the two majors supposedly tailored towards preparing students for law school have the worst performance on the exam that gets you in law school!There is no way to say this nicely, but don’t get lumped in with this group if you can help it. I realize there are great students at great schools pursuing these majors (, for example, has a “legal studies” major), but it’s my firm belief that these majors don’t do anything to prepare you for law school that history, English, or political science doesn’t do better.We also can’t fully discount the possibility that these majors really are worse at preparing you for the LSAT specifically. A known strategy for is doing a lot of dense reading (think The Economist or The Wall Street Journal). English, philosophy and history majors have you reading and thinking critically about dense material all the time. People also theorize that hard sciences will prepare you well for the LSAT, a topic discussed later in this post.Further, Criminal Justice and pre-law majors typically carry rampant grade inflation, so a law school admissions department might be inclined to discount a good GPA you receive in such a program slightly. Although, a former admissions dean and an expert in these matters, states that these majors wouldn’t cause any bias against you, she does state that you had better not get a in these majors.
This indicates a belief that these are considered easy majors, such that doing great in them won’t be any real credit to you, and doing poorly is a big strike. UPDATE: Ann just got quoted in saying, “Law schools don’t consider the criminal justice majoracademically rigorous,” so I guess the gloves are off at least with respect to criminal justice.Grade inflation (and the attendant possibility that your GPA gets discounted slightly) is a problem for most humanities majors, but I would hazard a guess that it is worse for pre-law and criminal studies majors. While any discounting effect is likely to be very small, (law schools care more about your GPA number than where it came from and how you got it) it might affect you on the margins, especially at the very best law schools. Incidentally, I knew no criminal justice or pre-law majors at the. The admissions game is all about maximizing your chances wherever possible, and pre-law and criminal studies majors appear to hurt rather than help.Just so there isn’t confusion, I am not suggesting that anyone avoid classes that deal with legal subjects. If that interests you, go ahead. Just don’t make the mistake of thinking that it will prepare you at all for 1L year.
The main thing that prepares you for law school, in my opinion, is taking a heavy workload in a challenging subject. It’s the nature of the work, and not the particular subject matter, which is most important. That brings us to our discussion of the best majors for law school The Best Majors for Law SchoolThe matter of picking a good major for law school is pretty simple. You want a serious subject that interests you and where you think you can obtain a.Now, what do I mean by a serious subject? I mean one that is challenging and is well-regarded as an area of academic inquiry. This could be anything from English (Evan’s major) to Finance (Josh’s major) to Engineering to Philosophy.
Generally, if it is a major where you tend to see serious students flock, you are in good stead.This is important for two reasons: First, more difficult subjects are well-regarded by admissions staff. Though it may surprise some, the hard science majors are particularly in demand at law schools. I think this is partly because they are in short supply and add variety to the class, but more so because these students tend to excel in the law school environment and also are very in demand for employment after receiving a law school education (often for intellectual property law).Second, dense subjects just prepare you better for. I noticed that students who did hard majors at rigorous schools had a slight edge in law school because they were used to dealing with a very heavy workload.On the other hand, students from the humanities such as English, philosophy, or history, had plenty of opportunity in undergrad to develop the critical thinking skills and communication skills that served them well in your first-year legal writing class, on law school exams, and especially later in the practice of law.
Admissions staff know that these majors are valuable training and admit them to in large numbers. Just as an aside: take a logic course in your school’s philosophy department, as it gives you a priceless head start on your.Looking back up at our chart, we see that science majors are crowding the top 15 spots. Noblet paris tenor sax. There as well are humanities majors studying serious traditional areas of academic inquiry. Law school admissions staff are likely to slightly favor students from all these majors over other areas which we see towards the bottom of the list. What’s more, these majors amply prepare you for the rigors of law school.Don’t forget though, maintaining is still key in the admissions game. If you don’t think you are capable of maintaining around a 3.75 in chemistry, perhaps try something else if you think you may.That said, when you have strong preferences, you should stick with what interests you.
Admissions staff look for people that are passionate about what they do and picking a major that you really enjoy will make you a more complete person. If Chemistry is the one thing that gets you most excited to go to school, then do that and forget about whether it helps you with law school or not!Please remember to comment if you have any questions and we will answer them on the double. Hi,I’m currently an undergrad student majoring in Business Law. It’s my third year and I find the classes very challenging because it’s all business and math based but, not law (reading/ writing skills.
I’m scared this will affect my GPA as well being math is not one of my strengths. I spoke to a Political Science advisor about my situation and he said he gets students changing there major every semester from business law to political science. I have two more years to go I’m not sure if I should switch or stay, will politic science give me an advantage or business law? Great post Evan. One thing students might want to consider in choosing a major to prepare for law school is that the grading in hard sciences and engineering tends to be more objective than in the humanities.
In order to get an A in a hard science, you simply have to get the answers right. In order to get an A in English, the professor has to like the paper you wrote.
I know several English professors who only give one A per year. From what I can tell, this difference in objective/subjective grading means it’s easier to get a B+ in the humanities but harder to get an A.
It’s something to consider, depending on what kind of student you are. I’m going to write a longer post on this topic soon, so I’ll certainly add a link to that here when I am done. In the meantime, console yourself knowing that a 3.6 is still a pretty high GPA.It’s hard to say exactly what kind of boost you get from having gone to a difficult program at a top school, but a lot of people estimate something like a.1 boost, so you might expect to have outcomes similar to the average person with a 3.7 GPA.Also looking on the bright side, this year and next should be the easiest years to get into a T5 in at least the last 20 years or so. Jacob,Great job on the LSAT. That’s a killer score. Whether to ED or not in your situation is a bit of a tough call. I think you are likely going to get in at those schools even without the ED, and foregoing ED preserves your chances of getting a scholarship.
If money is an issue, I would not apply ED.It’s probably not necessary to bolster your resume in your position. You are a fairly top-shelf candidate as is. If you do wish to go right away, I would apply now, and only exercise other options if you don’t like your results this cycle. On the other hand, I’m always a fan of taking time off before law school. If you think you’d really enjoy studying with a Fulbright or doing PC, I say go for it.
Law school will still be around. I’ve got a degree in music performance from a top 3 undergraduate music school. Unfortunately for me, grading at the school I was at was intensely competitive and tight — professors were supposed to give out more C’s than any other grade, and A’s were supposed to be exceptional.I graduated with a 3.49 GPA (for reference, grades were difficult enough that 3.5 was cum laude). My cold diagnostic (june ’06) was 162, and I’ve been scoring between 168-174 so far, studying for the Feb lsat, with an eye towards applying for entry to law school in 2015.Any ideas if my undergrad might help or hurt me in any way, or specific strategies for min/maxing any effects?Thanks! Alex,I would expect you’ll fare somewhat better than a typical 3.49. How much is difficult to say. Hit the high end of that LSAT range and the question is a little academic, because you’ll have great admissions prospects/scholarship drawing-power even at top schools with numbers in that range.My thinking is that they’ll be biased towards liking you from the beginning, since you already excelled in a tough competitive environment.
Add a really great personal statement that brings you across as likeable it will be a winning combination. Thank you for the reply and suggestion! I was hoping it was a bit academic despite my splitter status. Unfortunately I did some PSEO (similar to AP, but actually taking college classes for both college and HS credit) that will bring my LSEC GPA down a bit, I’m finding out. Hopefully I do well enough for that not to matter.One more question, if I may: I’ve gotten my tests to a regular 173-176 in prep for the Feb test, but I’ve been struggling to consistently raise them any higher. I usually nail the LG portion, getting maybe one wrong, and split up 2 wrong in each of the LR and RC sections, without any consistent pattern other than what must be a momentary lapse in concentration.I usually finish each LR and RC section with 8-14+ minutes to spare; including time to review difficult questions and transfer my answers. Any suggestions for using that excess time productively?
What Should I Major In For College
I’ve tried reviewing every single question, both weighted towards my already marked answers, and unweighted, and I really haven’t noticed much improvement in catching those last couple questions I answered incorrectly. Damn Alex, that’s some fast LSATing. I think I usually had max 5 minutes to spare.
Maybe you can gain some insight from my strategy as on LR at least I was consistently getting 1 or none wrong through the last month of my prep. That said, I’m kind of loathe to suggest tweaks, since things are already going pretty well for you.If you do want to play around with your strategy, you could try slowing things down on the first pass just a little bit.
What Should I Major In In College Quiz
In addition to choosing the answer you think is best, make sure you are able to articulate internally why it is superior to the other candidate answers.If doing so is difficult, definitely mark that question down for a second look. Doing this thoroughly, I would typically only have 2-3 questions that I wanted to take a second look at after finishing my first pass.Also, you should really try hard to look for any pattern in the ones you are getting wrong. It may be that you just need to focus a bit more on certain question types to avoid mistakes. First off, thanks so much for the advice. I’ve been recommending this blog to anyone who may be interested, and I’ve been following your, as well as purchasing any / through your links to hopefully give you a kickback!Second, I’ll try your recommendations, the internal articulation sounds like it could be really helpful. I also just started tracking my on the free 7sage tracker, and it looks like I may have been consistently mis-identifying a few key types of problems, soback to the books!Thanks again for all the help! Your adviser’s information is outdated and you should send her my article so he/she doesn’t lead others astray.
Don’t take prelaw unless you are REALLY REALLY interested in it. International relations is okay as long as you show a strong interest in the subject. Consider getting involved with public interest groups at your school that deal with international issues. I think if you are just taking that major “because you found it interesting” it wouldn’t look as good as a more traditional major.Do take a logic course at some point as preparation for the LSAT. Other than that, the most important thing is keeping your grades as high as possible.