<p>On the “Average LSAT by Major” table that’s often cited on CC, the majors that utilize the most quantitative skills and reasoning are clustered at the top (physics/math, economics, philosophy). It’s said that the reason these majors tend to score better on the LSAT is because 1. they’re subjects that are quantitative and 2. smarter students major in these subjects. Computer science meets these two criteria, yet it shows up in the middle of the list floating around psych and polisci, and behind humanities subjects like history and english. This has been the case for multiple years that this data has been collected. </p>
<p>Does anyone have a good explanation why CS has a poor showing compared to similarly quantitative subjects?</p>
<p>It’s a shade ahead of chemistry, and a shade behind history. But the average LSAT for the major in the fourth spot is only a point higher than the average for the eleventh, so there’s no point in obsessing over small differences.</p>
<p>The person who created the chart seems to have been quantitatively challenged in any event. “Arts” is listed in the 13th spot with 150.9, ahead of six majors with higher average LSAT scores.</p>
<p>I’m also curious as to why physics and math majors are aggregated into a single number. Perhaps one of them didn’t have sufficient numbers (400) to make the list otherwise. </p>
<p>Also baffling is the major listed as “government/service”. At most schools, the department is called “political science”; at a few, it’s the Government department. We’ve all heard of people going into government service, but I’ve never heard of anyone major in “government service,” or majoring in “service.”</p>
<p>^Lol, it’s the first time I noticed “Arts” is out of place. I don’t like the way they classified some of the majors either, but this something that is frequently posted on blogs and department websites for prelaw.</p>
<p>Well, the average for physics/math was ~5 points higher than CS in every year surveyed, with a similar sample size (the 3,000 CS majors in the 03-04 survey might’ve been a typo), which is significant. You would think CS would have had an advantage over english and history at least given that there should be a greater variance in the type of student that majors in these subjects and their sample sizes are several times bigger than that of CS as well.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t have made the assumption that CS majors would have an advantage over history and English majors on the LSAT. It’s primarily a reading comprehension test.</p>
<p>^I’m more concerned with why there’s a gap in the LSAT averages between physics/math and CS. You’re right that reading comp makes up a lot of the LSAT, but there should be more to it than that if physics and math majors do so well.</p>
<p>I would think that Finance also requires quantitative and reasoning skills, and its even lower than CS. But beware of self-selection. The numbers for LS apps for physics/math are a lot lower than hume majors. Thus, it may not be the average phsicis/math major, but one who can also write well who applies to LS. </p>
<p>This is similar to the fact the philosophy & music majors have extremely high admission rates to med school (as a % in comparison to other majors). They are just a self-selecting bunch of applicants. (Phil & Music courses doesn’t earn them higher points on the mcat.)</p>
<p>But finance isn’t offered as a major at most top universities, because at top schools they have economics instead of finance, which explains why finance isn’t placed so high. That brings up another point, like econ, CS is a major that is more popular and more likely to be offered at top schools. </p>
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<p>CS majors who apply to LS probably aren’t representative of the average CS major either, but why don’t they appear to perform as well as the physics/math majors is what I wanted to know.</p>
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<p>I posted data from 2007-08 later in the thread and it still shows a similar trend.</p>
<p>In twenty-five years of practicing law, much of it in-house for high tech firms, I can think of precisely one lawyer who majored in physics as an undergrad, and one who majored in math. </p>
<p>They’re both very smart people. That’s true of all of the other physics and math majors I’ve known. Smart people tend to chose challenging majors in college, and those who take the LSAT tend to do well on it. I’m not sure what the mystery is here.</p>
<p>I think “service” is a reference to Georgetown School of Foreign Service students. They get lumped into that category. Other colleges may have similar majors–I don’t know.</p>
<p>It’s never been the topic of this thread about why physics and math majors do well on the LSAT, it’s about why computer science isn’t up there with physics and math if it’s also a major that smart people choose and is challenging (moreso than other majors ranked similarly as CS on that list).</p>
<p>Most of the CS majors I’ve known would have found history or English to be a more challenging major than CS. Likewise, most of the English and history majors I’ve known would have found CS to be a more challenging major than English or history. (My own experience as a history major who took one CS course in college is that the CS course was easier than any of my history courses. Granted, that was before the first PC hit the market. Then again, much of the history you studied in high school probably occurred after I received my degree in history.)</p>
<p>I understand that based upon your estimation of CS majors, they should be doing better on the LSAT. In view of the actual data, you’ll either have to (a) change your estimation of the comparative abilities of CS majors is flawed, or (b) conclude there’s something wrong with the LSAT.</p>
<p>Those aren’t the only two conclusions you can draw from this data, both conclusions are far too simple and straightforward. It’s just like how in any experiment, you can’t conclude that one of the variables you measured must have caused the data to show up the way it is. There might have been some other variable affecting how CS shows up in the list. Say if “information technology” majors (IT is nowhere as rigorous or quantitative as CS, but still computer-related) were included under CS in that study it could have affected CS’s rank on that list. In making this thread I was really looking for suggestions on what kind of differences between the physics/math majors and CS majors could have caused a 5 point difference in their averages rather than “well, English majors are smart too” type of responses. </p>
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<p>Didn’t see that comment before, but CS is definitely a quantitative major. Programming code is basically like doing an applied kind of formal logic. Also, at the minimum CS majors have to take discrete math and up to Calc II.</p>
<p>Lol, apparently this comment only shows up in MZZ’s post on the bottom when I click reply but doesn’t show up in the thread itself. It was smart to edit it.</p>
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