<p>The school I’m wanting to transfer to offers a 4+1 program where undergraduate engineering students can obtain a M.S. in only 5 years (compared to six). The prospective student simply takes more difficult courses their senior year, graduate with a bachelors, and continues as a full time student for another year and receive their Master’s.</p>
<p>I’m wanting to work as a patent attorney, so will opting for such a program make a competitive applicant to law school (contingent upon the fact that my undergraduate GPA and LSAT score is strong)?</p>
<p>It’s very doubtful that it will help you in getting into law school… however, it will be helpful in your eventual job search if you’re trying to get into patent law</p>
It’ll help when you’re a lawyer. It won’t help when you’re an applicant.</p>
<p>But what I’ve also heard is that if you’re looking to get into patent law it really doesn’t matter what law school you get into and graduate from. By virtue of the laws of supply and demand, if you have a graduate degree in a science/engineering and a JD, you’ll be fine.</p>
<p>because they don’t have the resources to assess every Masters program in the country to see where they stack up against others, how challenging they are, etc. They won’t even include your Master’s courses in the GPA calculation. plus, a master’s really doesn’t prepare someone more for LS than regular UG does. However, as I said earlier, the master’s will help you after LS when you are on the job/searching for a job, so if you want to do patent law, you should probably get the MA</p>
A Master’s degree holder should be the more competitive applicant.
In reality, it doesn’t.
I don’t really ask questions as to “why” for an admissions process, I just find out how the game is played and I try to play it better than other people.</p>
<p>So, the Master’s degree has no bearing of any kind on a law school application. We all agree that it isn’t a factor quantitatively, but not even a qualitative factor?</p>
<p>if your goal is to get an MS, there are law schools that have joint JD/MS programs. Duke has that combo with the MS in engineering/ computer science.
There are probably other similar joint programs at other law schools.<br>
I’m just throwing this info out to give you something to think about.</p>
<p>I too am from the camp that obtaining an MS is on par with one or two years work experience. In fact a job with decent responsibility may be more beneficial than the masters degree, at least in regard to law school admission.</p>
<p>Duke offers a MS in Computer Science with a JD? I thought it was only CE. So far, I’m only aware that only Stanford and Duke offer these types of joint degrees. I don’t know about any other schools.</p>
<p>if you can get the MS in only 1 year through your undergrad, you might as well get it out of the way before LS (with a joint degree program, it will still only be one year, but wouldn’t it be easier for you to just finish it while its fresh and not have to switch back and forth between LS and MS classes/years?)</p>
<p>^Well, I’m a bit stuck between choosing a route that would let me start making money asap after my bachelor’s or going for a more well-rounded approach for patent law.</p>
<p>Part of me wants to just acquire a Finance degree and start making $50K or more right out of college, while the other part of me wants to a double major of CS and Finance, work one year, and then apply to law schools offering a JD/MS in CE joint degree.</p>
<p>I think the best solution would be to acquire my BS in CS, BA in Finance (to pad my GPA), work one year (while saving some money), and then go to a top law school offering a JD/MS in CE joint degree.</p>
<p>I think having a bachelor’s in computer science and a master’s in computer engineering would make me a more well-rounded patent attorney regarding software and hardware patents, as well as a more competitive applicant for work after law school.</p>
<p>Slightly ot…but what if I’m getting my Master’s in 4 years…at the same time as my Bachelor’s degree? Since I receive both together, the classes taken toward my Master’s will still be factored into my gpa, right?
Also, since most of my senior year will be dedicated to taking grad level courses, I won’t be taking very many classes outside of my major (which has also been the case for most of my undergrad). Will not having a double major or minor be worse than having in-depth knowledge in Political Science?</p>
<p>If you got it the same time, I <em>believe</em> they count both (I think they count anything up until the time you got your undergrad degree)</p>
<p>However, if your entire undergrad career is focused on courses within only one major, it is not positively looked upon— AdComms want to see “breadth” and that you took advanced courses in something other than your major</p>
<p>I’m no expert on this process, but I’m attending a top master’s program in a social science field and I have numerous friends who applied to law school, decided to do postgraduate work for a year or two instead, then applied again and got into significantly better programs with the same LSAT score. For those who retook the LSAT after attending graduate school, their scores increased. Getting a master’s degree and adjusting to graduate-level work before starting law school, even if it doesn’t give you an edge in admissions, should further develop your analytical and reading skills and prepare you more for the experience.</p>