How much is the starting salary after you get out b-school without experience. I know I-banking pays a ton, but long hours too. I, as a former career changer, contemplated taking the GMAT and going to the best b-school I can. But I decided not to, because I don't see there was an advantage for me with a science background in doing that. Now, if one thinks law is not right for it as a career, that's a different story. I am just arguing if there is a option between LS and b-school for a science person, which one makes more sense. In my case, I chose law.
100% agreement. I had a wrong impression I was able to get in a better school just because I had science background and a little bit work experience, even with one or two point lower LSAT score than the bottom 25% admitted students. I think at least one will have to be in the bottom 25% LSAT+GPA index to have a shot at the school, unless you are URM(sadly, Chinese doesn't count). Admission people always tell you U.S News ranking means nothing, and yet they will do everything they can to improve the school's score on the ranking.
It really sucks to work 70-80 hours a week and keep promising your wife and kids you will be free at least on Sunday. When I was an engineer, life was different. It was relaxing, work several hours a day, go home, watch the game, so on. The problem with that was it was going nowhere except that my age was going up. Now the pay is good, but my time is deprived and I miss being an engineer at times. Sounds like you will go to law school and work a year or two after that, and then be a professor. Not bad choice at all.
I don't think that GPA think is that fair for engineering. I mean I don't have a 3.9 gpa because I didn't take English lit or Asian studies. I wish they would actually account for the difficulty of the major. I hope 3.5+ in engineering counts for something.
They take that into account. They take into account what you studied and where you went to undergrad. Some schools, (most schools probably) will just have a formula for gpa lsat and if you are above a certain level then you are in, if below you are out. Even Harvard basically does this. But for people on the borderline and for the smaller, more elite schools, they'll take an indepth look at the context of your numbers.
The average salary for my class was right at 100K. To put that in perspective, consulting pays 125k + 40k signing. Corporate finance pays 100k - 110k, and marketing pays around 90-100k. I-bankers typically make between 95-100k base, with about a 75% bonus annually. Personally, b-school was a great fit for me since most MBAs aren't really sure what they want to do when they graduate. The MBA experience is largely different from law school in that aside from the first semester, the rest of the time is spent on recruiting and partying. It's two years of fun, plus hooking up with female classmates is fairly easy as alcohol is involved in every activity.
Haha. We got some cute female classmates in our school too. Personally I wouldn't put partying and hooking up as a reason to chose what I will be doing for the rest of my life, but that's just me. Seriously, I wouldn't call any schooling fun if you are serious about it. But if you had, hey, more power to you.
There goes my U.S news ranking conspiracy. Admissions don't actually care where you go to school for undergrad(they don't give a damn about master's GPA BTW, because the ranking don't take that into account). When deciding between two applicants with equal LSAT, similar background, I think, admission goes after the applicant with higher GPA even if it goes to a lesser school. However I don't think the big three(Yale/Harvard/Standford) do that, but outside those, it's an adopted practice.
For me, English lit was harder than advanced Calc. I aced games on LSAT, but sucked at reading(by my standards).
Man, I'd never go to law school if my goal was to become a law professor. You're talking about an insanely competitive field. Say you go to a Top 5 school, make law review, graduate summa c*m laude, and get a circuit clerkship. No problem, right? You just have to be one of the smartest law students in the country to accomplish all that. Then, unless you somehow miraculously get a clerkship for the Supreme Court, you're probably going to have to get a job at either a big firm or the DOJ for a few years and publish half a dozen articles if you want to get a job at a Top 100 school. And even THEN you'll be competing with hundreds of applicants for those jobs.
Do they even give grades for Master's degrees? A lot of law schools will have an admissions formula that they use in ranking applicants. It's my understanding that for those who are not slam-dunk in or out, then they'll take the context of the GPA into account. A 3.5 in History from MIT, Harvard or Princeton (even with grade inflation) is given more credibility than a 3.5 from UH-Victoria.
How hard is it to even be a law professor without a JD? I think just about every one of my law professors had a JD. Most had a PHD or another advanced degree as well. I think the process for law professors had changed a lot in the last decade or two. There is now a much higher demand for publishing.
The key to getting into a top law school if you're just a typical non-interesting white guy is to have the right LSAT score AND make friends somehow with someone on the admissions committee. (go to law school forums, etc) If they know your name and your face they're gonna have a much harder time rejecting you for some random name on a piece of paper.
Well, let me explain myself and then you can tell me if you still think my plan is off base. This isn't me trying to disprove you. I'm going to lay out my thinking and I'd actually really, truly, appreciate it if you could tell me if it sounds imprudent. First, I think that your estimation of the competitiveness of the field is a little off. If you look at the numbers of applicants and the number of available jobs, English PhDs fight a much tougher battle than JDs in the teaching market. And a JD gives you a lot more options in the private world than a English PhD (no disrespect to English, it was my major as an undergrad). Most of my claims about legal academia are drawn from UT Law Professor Brian Leiter's essay on the subject: http://www.utexas.edu/law/faculty/bleiter/GUIDE.HTM The path that you identify is what Leiter calls "the classical path." Maybe I'll get there, and maybe I won't. I don't think I can convince you through an internet forum that I'm a smart guy. And if I try to, it will probably come off as obnoxious. Leiter also identifies pursuing an LLM, or an interdisciplinary degree to supplement your candidacy. So, if you don't make law review and land a supreme court clerkship, all is not lost. What I really want to focus on is what I think is the most inaccurate claim your reasoning relies on: Actually, if you publish a half dozen articles, you'd receive tenure at most law schools. See the following discussion: Leiter Blog I'm glad that you mention publishing though, because I think it explains why my decision to pursue a master's before law school was a good one. Leiter points out that the most important factor law schools consider when reviewing candidates is potential for future scholarship, i.e. publishing: I'm currently finishing my first book, and by the time I'm done with my masters will be the single author of two books on the law (both on cultural issues in law), a book chapter on law in different societies, single author of two journal articles dealing with rhetoric of the law (in non-law journals), as well as co-author of a book on technology and communication. Assuming that I can scrape together something that can be published in a law journal by the time I'm finished with law school, I'll have a publishing record that would meet most law schools' requirements for tenure. Once again, I'm not laying this all out to brag, but because I'd genuinely like to know if you think the reasoning is sound.
I think when Leitner is discussing the number of articles required to be published to get tenure, he's presuming that the articles will be published in a Law Review or Journal of note. As with all things involving law school, prestige matters. For law professors, only three types of publications matter: legal textbooks, legal treatises, and law review and journal articles. The reason it only takes on average six publications for tenure is because it usually takes a year to write an article, since your average article is 80-200 pages in length and 300-500 footnotes. Once written, it takes about a year to get it published, from finding a journal to going through the student editing process. Since most professors only write one thing at a time, you're looking at a minimum of 8 years of work there. Perhaps my claim for a half dozen publications was an exaggeration, but the rest of my claims were certainly not. Unlike most grad programs, grades in law school are not inflated, and classes are crazy competitive. Getting on the faculty of a good law school without going the traditional path is a bit like hoping to make the NBA at the height of 5'9". It could happen, but there's going to be a lot of competition and you'd better have a backup plan. Going to law school without the intention to practice law is a dangerous and often miserable experience.
