my son graduated from American School of Public Affairs. I was very impressed with his counselors and he had interesting classes with some professors you can probably only get because of the location in DC. I found the school to be well run as well and always got answers when we emailed about various things.
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On #4, it’s interesting she’d find Eugene (non stops from CA) and a mid size city with really everything to do, and the inland empire the middle of nowhere. Her choice though.
@tamagotchi yes, personal preference is most important - no matter anyone’s comment on any thread. I took the position I did because of the joint interest in large schools, journalism and politics. That the student isn’t interested is all that matters. But I simply noted this because it was listed in the first post and within budget and strong in all three areas.
Best of luck to OP.
That’s a fair observation. And I would not typically feel obligated to respond to people who merely point out we lack the data to be sure whether, when, and how much choice of college could affect law school admissions for a given individual and given law school. I more feel obligated to respond just when someone claims we actually know it never matters for any individual and any law school and any college choice.
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I did also put the words from Michigan to show this above. Bottom line, there are students attending top law schools (and how many actually go to top law schools) from hundreds of colleges. Gtown is another - 222 colleges for 672 kids.
Of course, higher ranked colleges will have a higher % of students:
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kids at higher ranked colleges are slanted more toward graduate schools anyway
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they are better students overall to begin with
That’s, I believe, why you see data like you do. But like an MBA, work experience is becoming more and more important.
At HLS, 84% had one year and 69% two years work experience. At UVA, 79% have post grad experience. Yale, 89% at least one year out and 50% three years out.
OP likely isn’t going to a top law school - few do.
And it’s irrelevant here - OP simply said they had law on their mind and while no one knows what they’ll decide four years out, the reality is all these schools will get them there.
Thanks
agree fwiw with the view that while any school “can” you get there, that (a) the journey counts (b) and some schools clearly do have better outcomes than others, and you can’t know from sitting on a forum whether that is due to example more students who planned it in the first place or better advising and internship opportunities, etc.
but the back and forth on law school aside - I’m coming back to the subjects OP’s daughter wants to study where there (to my mind anyway) is a clear front runner but one that doesn’t tick the locality box.
Where are you flying from? Factoring in the extra time you need to be at the airport for UBC, I’m not really seeing why an extra 1-2 hours (depending NorCal or SoCal) overall is a dealbreaker for AU vs UBC?
There are in fact many possible explanations. Again, I think it is fine to stop at this point and just say we are not sure what is happening. But that is NOT the same thing as claiming we know for sure it doesn’t matter.
If we are going to try to go further, well, let’s take Washington with 0.30% placement at “top” law schools and American with 0.89%. One thing we can do is assess whether it is plausible this is all an LSAT effect. In this case, I would suggest that is not a very plausible hypothesis.
That’s because we can go back to, say, the 2019-2020 CDS, when Washington was still test required, and American was test optional but 53% submitted an SAT. Washington’s reported 75th percentile SAT was 1440, American’s was 1380 (note if anything, being test optional should skew this higher as it would presumably reduce the frequency of what would otherwise be lower percentile scores).
This is confirming something we probably already knew, really. An excellent public flagship like Washington is going to attract some very good test takers, and all around strong students, for various reasons.
So, it is not particularly plausible that Washington students are capable of getting high LSAT scores at only 1/3rd the frequency of American students. If anything, one would think it was a somewhat higher percentage at Washington.
That leaves self-selection as the other possibility you mentioned. And sure, maybe, but let’s also now consider Scripps for a second. Scripps was test required back in 2019-20, reported 75th SAT of 1470, so a little higher than Washington, but not as much higher as Washington compared to American. The 3.63% all law schools versus 2.36% might plausibly be mostly self-selection, and that is a ratio of 1.54. But then the 1.06% compared to 0.30% is a 3.53 ratio.
OK, so back to American and Washington. If at least 3 times as many students were going to any law school from American as compared to Washington, we’d be starting to get in the range where maybe self selection could be explaining most of the difference in “top” law schools too. Maybe a bit more than 3X though to make up for the fact Washington is ahead in SAT 75th, as happened with Scripps versus Washington.
But it isn’t more than 3X. It isn’t even 3X. It is only 2.39X. It is not looking promising that the difference in the “top” law school percentage is explainable by a combination of LSAT scores and self-selection.
OK, so this is an example of what I mean by the data not really looking consistent with this hypothesis it never matters. We’re still a long way from a fully controlled study, and again if people want to just leave it at that observation, that’s fine. But when we dig in a bit, pretty quickly we run into these issues. What we are observing doesn’t really seem to neatly fit the hypothesis it is all LSATs + self-selection.
So claiming we KNOW it is all LSATs + self-selection, that we KNOW it NEVER matters what college you choose? Again, not a well-grounded claim given the data I am aware of.
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When College Transitions was commenting on their own study, they noted in general a lot of LACs seemed to be doing quite well, and as I was just sort of noting in another post, this observation seems to hold up when comparing LACs to research universities with otherwise comparable SAT stats and such.
I’m actually not too surprised by this, for a fairly simple reason.
Law school is a bit funny in that the required specific knowledge is really quite low by graduate or professional school standards. Like, they don’t care about your college major or curriculum the way a PhD program or med school or so on would typically care.
However, selective law schools (and actually a lot of legal careers) are basically an exercise in difficult close reading and then strong analytic writing. And developing those skills is something most LACs are rightly well-known for–not that other universities entirely ignore reading and writing development, but LACs tend to make it a consistent emphasis across their program.
And this is one of the things the LSAT only tests up to a certain level. It can help maybe weed out applicants with truly uncompetitive reading development (by a given law school’s normal standards), but that format can’t really distinguish the strongest readers and writers coming out of college.
So to me, it makes perfect sense that “top” law schools might go a bit deeper into the classes at selective LACs, deeper than LSATs alone can plausibly explain, on the theory, and possibly the actual experience, that those applicants could still be the very strong readers and writers they are looking for.
I understand that some people are likely to push back that every university can produce SOME strong readers and writers. Which of course is true. But from a selective law school’s perspective, this rationally becomes a question of percentages, not just whether it is possible at all.
So to me, it makes sense that selective law schools might go a little deeper into LAC classes.
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OP- ask around to get a POV from friends and neighbors with older kids.
One of my kids was a one hour train ride away and freshman year came home at Thanksgiving, Winter Break, Spring break, and summertime. And the ONLY reason kid came home for Spring break was to interview/knock on doors for a summer job.
Sophomore year it was just Thanksgiving, Winter break. Had a job on campus for the summer all sewed up by January so no need to come home for spring break- dorm was closed, but had a friend who was in an off-campus apartment and gave over the keys.
You get my drift. We showed up for parents weekend freshman year and then realized it was crowded and expensive so picked a different weekend to go. Your kid is not going to come home as often as you think!!!
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It is definitely a good question. My personal guess is yes, it still MIGHT matter, if only for the theory I was just mentioning–that your undergrad choice might remain a factor when law schools are assessing your reading and writing development.
But that MIGHT also depend on what you are doing between college and law school. If, say, you are doing a reading-and-writing intensive grad program or job, then maybe less so? But if you are doing something interesting but that is less reading-and-writing intensive than law school, well, that may be independently helpful, but they may still be looking at your undergrad when considering your reading-and-writing development specifically.
I should be clear we REALLY do not have the data to be very confident about any of this. But if I was advising someone, I would suggest the safest bet is go to an undergrad known for strong reading and writing development, do a curriculum where you can get your reasonable best in grades but ideally that is also reading-and-writing intensive, and then feel free to do anything interesting after college before law school.
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Yes, to the extent any of this is helpful to the OP, I would suggest it might just be clarifying the tradeoffs.
An LAC like Scripps could be great both academically and locationally, but that is a massive cost difference.
American is way more affordable than Scripps and also is a great fit academically, and again I actually think DC is a great choice for students looking for proximity to urban amenities, and in fact easy transportation. But still, it is definitely not physically close to California.
And if cost and distance end up dealbreakers respectively, OK! But that’s at least a pretty clean decision to make in those cases.
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The kids who are law school bound who go to DC colleges (Georgetown, American, Catholic, George Mason, GW) typically work on the Hill for a year or two after college and before law school. There is some variation- and some form of journalism is included in that– but there is no mystery coming out of American as to what the path looks like. Your D will have older friends and an advisor who will make this a very simple exercise.
Roles on “The Hill” aren’t always on Capitol Hill. They include all the lobbying/communications firms in DC, the 50 offices maintained by the governor of every state to monitor legislation that impacts their voters, jobs supporting agencies (think of every federal agency from Veterans affairs to USDA– all of them hire new grads), corporations which maintain large DC offices, etc. Some require security clearance and some don’t. But the advisors at American are experts in helping kids navigate this AND navigate law school admissions. Which at least for now is a very transparent process!
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Yes, and I would suggest that while this is not strictly necessary, if you are potentially interested in a legal career that involves the federal government or associated entities, it is certainly not a BAD idea to go to a DC orbit undergrad. It just makes it easy to network and do internships and such, and then do something related after college and before law school.
And I always like to mention that can then become an offramp. Like, you may get started after college and realize you don’t actually need a JD to advance your career. Maybe some other grad or professional degree will help more, or maybe none at all is necessary. Or maybe still a JD, but now you have some focus on which JD programs actually are worth paying for in what amount.
Point being when you are going to college in the DC orbit, it is relatively easy to explore alternative paths and then pick the next steps that really make sense for you. Again, though, this is all assuming you are actually potentially interested in the sorts of things that are very prevalent in DC.
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Also going to point out that political connections can be very useful in law even if you don’t end up in a specifically government-related legal career (thinking of someone specific I know here, who went to a DC area law school.)
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It’s prevalent in DC but it’s in the AIR at American! I know kids who were premed who did internships on the Hill in Health related committees. I know kids who were history majors who got part-time jobs at the Smithsonian, kids who wanted a career in finance who spent a summer (and then part-time senior year) at the SEC. Those American kids really hustle and take advantage of what’s there!
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Absolutely. There is also a whole large group of lawyers who cycle between law firms and government positions depending on who wins elections. And so on. Networking among the people who are at least sometimes in or involved with government can be very helpful to many legal careers.
That said–if you knew you wanted to practice law in some other city/state, it could ALSO make sense to try to at least go to law school there. Same deal, networking is often important.
Again, absolutely. And I think you are right to emphasize this aspect of lots of peers doing this stuff. Obviously they can be part of your future networks, but even immediately, kids you meet who are only a year or two or three ahead of you can still be valuable mentors and such.
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Fyi person I’m thinking of practices in Boston. VERY successfully.
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Yes, I didn’t mean to suggest being connected in DC only matters to DC careers. Actually, I leveraged my time in the DOJ during my subsequent private practice career in Western PA. But my first time in DC wasn’t until I had graduated from law school.
My point was more just to be inclusive. There are lots of different paths that might work for various ends. If going to DC for college does not work for this kid right now, that’s fine, there are other paths. Maybe they go through DC at some later point. Maybe they network somewhere else. I do think sometimes kids at this juncture think too much about generic US News-style rankings, not enough about on the ground networking opportunities in the fields and locations that might be of interest to them. But it is still a marathon and not a sprint.
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Disagree.
Universities often have pre-professional majors (nursing, business,engineering, architecture, etc.) which rarely go on to earn a law degree while LACs are typically humanities focused students who tend to apply to law schools at a much higher percentage than do pre-professional degree majors.
P.S. FWIW American University is located in one of the safest & most attractive areas of DC. Very liberal school and the courses are taught with a strong liberal bias which may be a positive or a negative depending upon the individual.
One doesn’t need to be in DC to have a DC life. Many schools offer a DC semester (some on their own like mine did and some via AU for a semester). Paid internships from afar were plentiful (my daughter had 7 offers for her semester, 5 in DC and two just outside).
I think it’s a great place to be if it’s a great place to be for the student. If the student is more comfortable closer to home, that doesn’t preclude them from a government job/internship in DC, Sacramento or even a County seat. There’s lots of government jobs - and again Gtwons law school first year class has students from well over 200 colleges. So this is not the only path, that one must go to school in DC. Frankly, it’s far from it.
The student is not hamstrung by not going to school in DC. If you watched the Trump investigation last year, major players were from Christopher Newport (a few hours away in VA) and Kent State - a world away in Ohio.
If the student’s comfort is to stay in CA, they will not be at a detriment. If the student chooses Riverside or gets off the WL for another campus, UC can get them to DC for a shorter time.
UC Washington Center (UCDC) | Center for Undergraduate Research and Engaged Learning
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Like others on this thread, I think American offers a great mix of academics, location and value/price. They also have great study abroad opportunities (I remember a yearlong program in Japan from my research with S26, who studied Japanese for years, but many others.)
Kids also change their minds a lot. Which means your D should want to be at her school even if she decides she doesn’t want to study IR. Does American offer other programs and benefits she will find attractive even if she changes her mind about what to study?
And I agree with the sentiment that your D will not becoming home more than 3-4 times a year, max. She will want to go on spring break with her friends, Thanksgiving is too short a break and she’ll be invited home with a friend’s more local family, summer internships will be all over (or in DC for an IR major). So, unless she is someone who really needs to be close to home, I’d encourage her to explore a different environment.
I hope the visits give her some clarity! She has many great options.
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