Law School?

Question

What is the best undergraduate degree to get for getting into law school. Pol sci, History??

Answer 1

Any. Truly, the best degree is one you will do well in as your grades WILL matter. If you are good in English, do that. If Poli-sci, there you go.

Answer 2

Gone are the days when a political science degree or similarly related government degree is an advantage when applying to law schools. Now law school admissions offices value a diverse student body, so they want students with a variety of degrees.

Today, law schools seek diverse backgrounds. Students with technical or engineering degrees are great candidates for Intellectual Property law. In fact, only students with science degrees can take the Patient Bar Exam, which is required to prosecute (write up) patients. Likewise, students with medical degrees will have strong potential for health law. Students with education degrees will have a complimentary background for education law. Whether the degree is in music, business, or some other area, there is probably a related area of law for that industry.

The point is that law schools now recognize the need for diverse degrees, so any degree from a regionally accredited university will be good. However, note that the grades you receive while earning the degree will be about one-third of the weight considered at most law schools when you apply (the other two-thirds is your LSAT score). Also, the grades are indexed to the difficulty of the school, which means if you get a 4.0 grade point average (GPA) at the University of Chicago, it is worth much more than a 4.0 GPA at some small college nobody has heard much about. My advice is to choose a degree that interests you, which increases the chances you will do well and get high grades.

As a side note, some degrees will be better preparation for once you are in law school. A degree related to government, law, or philosophy may help while in law school. But so would working for a law firm as a paralegal.

Answer 3

It depends on what way you look at the question.

First, if you are talking about the actual admission process, it is best to separate yourself somehow from other applicants. As a second year law student at NY law school, my undergraduate majors were poli sci and history (double majoring is a way to set yourself apart). If you are doing only one major, however, poli sci is so common now that it is simply a dime a dozen in terms of the applicant pool. Majoring in things such as biology, math, and economics look really great to an admissions board.

However, in terms of which degree will serve you the best, I would stick with poli sci (although math students also statistically do very well in law school). As a poli sci and history double major, I have already been exposed to some of the concepts that are covered in such classes as contracts or constitutional law. There is a downside when it comes to writing, however, in that legal writing is incredibly different from academic/undergraduate writing. So, you'll end up having to un-learn your undergraduate writing process.

Really though, you should major in what interests you and what can serve you somehow even if you don't go to law school. That's the best option.

Good luck and best wishes!

Answer 4

Whichever one gets you the best grades.

People only mention poly sci because it's easy. It doesn't teach you anything useful for law school unless you intend on doing gov't policy or something like that after law school.

The admissions people at the law school I went to actually said Poly Sci and the like hurts you if you're up against someone who has the same GPA but got it majoring in something like Biology or Engineering. That's because they all know Poly Sci is an easy major.

They also don't like it too much if someone has lots of undergrad "law" classes b/c they feel they're going to have to untrain these people instead of simply molding them from scratch.

Answer 5

Depends on what kind of law you like. If you like criminal law, then criminology or criminal justice would be good, political science is real good too. Business would not be bad, history. Personal, I was a criminology major, and that gave me a huge advantage when it came to criminal procedure, criminal practice, etc. Some schools offer a Pre-Law major, which gives you a little of every thing. Best general major would be Political science. You can't go wrong with that.

Answer 6

Criminal Justice is the easiest. But you might wanna have like a spycology or something to do with mental oriented degrees. That way you will be able to separate the law from the people mind set. I believe Spycology is the best you could go for.

Answer 7

Most likely political science! Getting information about the history of how our laws innitiated is probably necessary to all lawyers.