Hi everyone! I’m a Junior in high school in New York state looking to double major in Economics (or Business depending on what’s offered by the college) and English. I am also looking into pursuing a J.D. after that. The big question for me is if I can go to a liberal arts college and still have the skills and undergrad name to get into good law schools. I really want to go to a liberal arts college because I think the environment there is best for my learning. When suggesting colleges please keep in mind my STATS-
Gender- Female
Grade Level- Junior (11th)
I live in a Rural Village (abt. 6,000 people total)
Class Size- 75 ish
Class Rank- 12th (in the top 20%)
APs- Global History (4), United States History (current), Calc AB (current), Literature and Comp (future)
Extracurriculars- Soup Kitchen, Chorus, NYSSMA Solo (Voice), Piano, Orchestra, Band, Marching Band, NYS Envirothon, Editor of Yearbook, and Secretary of my class
ACT- 30 (Composite), 31 (English), 27 (Math), 35 (Reading), 25 (Science), 8/12 in every writing category
SAT- Taking it this month
GPA- abt 96%
Working my way through an associates degree at the local community college while in high school (almost done!! )
Of course you would. For example, let’s look at the entering class at Yale Law last year. Among liberal arts colleges, you have Amherst (14 students), Wesleyan (10), Swarthmore (6), Williams (10), and Middlebury (5). Compare those numbers to those of far larger universities, such as NYU (7), Cornell (8), Alabama (1), and Michigan (4).
Liberal arts colleges differ from universities in four main ways:
[ul][]They are usually fairly small (500-3000 undergrads).
[]They focus on the liberal arts disciplines (math, sciences, social sciences, humanities, arts) rather than professional fields (engineering, nursing, business, education, etc.), although some do have the latter.
[]The vast majority of the best liberal arts colleges are private colleges.
[]For the most part, they lack graduate programs.[/ul]
None of the above factors have anything in the slightest to do with law school admissions, which is usually based almost entirely on one’s GPA and LSAT score. Graduates of top LACs do very well on the LSAT. (One could argue that it’s because they’re inherently intelligent rather than because of anything the college did, but that’s neither here nor there.)
Some liberal arts colleges are strong across the board; others have a mix of strong and weak programs. The same goes for universities. Some liberal arts colleges have extensive distribution requirements that require courses in different academic areas; some have no distribution requirements whatsoever (open curriculum). The same goes for universities.
My D is at a LAC now and has friends who have graduated and are attending some of the top law schools (ex. Stanford, Columbia etc.) in the country. It is no issue whatsoever.
Any source for the above (1) figures? Most recently, Yale Law School did not report a student as having originated at Swarthmore, for example.
In any event, Yale reports students from these liberal arts colleges as members of its recently matriculated class of 200 students: Amherst, Barnard, Bowdoin, Claremont McKenna, Holy Cross, Davidson, Hamilton, Haverford, Hillsdale, Kenyon, Middlebury, Oberlin, Pomona, Reed, Sarah Lawrence, Vassar, Wesleyan, Williams.
14 Amherst
10 Wesleyan / Williams
6 Swarthmore
5 Barnard / Middlebury
4 Pomona
3 Vassar / Washington & Lee
2 Bryn Mawr / CMC / Davidson / Hamilton / Kenyon / Macalester / Morehouse / St. John’s (NM)
1 Carleton / Conn College / Dickinson / Furman / Hastings / Holy Cross / Mount Holyoke / Presby / Reed / Sewanee / Trinity (CT) / Union / U Richmond / Whitworth
The following LACs are represented in the 1L class at Harvard Law:
Amherst
Barnard
Beloit
Carleton
CMC
Conn College
Denison
DePauw
Dickinson
Gettysburg
Hendrix
Hillsdale
Holy Cross
Middlebury
Morehouse
Mount Holyoke
Ohio Wesleyan
Patrick Henry
Pomona
Saint Anselm
St. Olaf
Sarah Lawrence
Scripps
Spelman
Swarthmore
Transylvania
Trinity (CT)
Warren Wilson
Wesleyan
Wheaton (IL and MA)
Williams
@TurnerT, there is a gender imbalance, but it isn’t that bad. My unhooked white daughters got into Swarthmore, Carleton, Macalester, Kenyon, Lawrence, Bates, and Dickinson in recent years. Just because there is some affirmative action going on for males at most LACs doesn’t mean that plenty of women aren’t also getting admitted. ;). The OP also has the option of women’s college LACs like Wellesley or Mount Holyoke.
My personal opinion is that LACs may be better preparation for law school than a large university. Small class sizes with a lot of discussion are great preparation for law school.
With your stats, here are some suggestions for match schools-
Hamilton, Holy Cross, Conn College, Colby, Vassar
For safety - Gettysburg, Saint Lawrence, Trinity
Reach - Williams, Middlebury
I agree that LACs provide terrific preparation for law school, but I’m not sure I agree that they’re necessarily better than universities, small or large.
It really depends on the colleges in question, one’s intended major, and how selective one is about choosing courses. Certainly someone majoring in, say, math or classics* is unlikely to run into large classes even at the largest universities, not to mention classes in the relatively unpopular, specialized departments that universities have (e.g. Scandinavian studies and geophysics). I can count the number of 20+ student classes I took in college on one hand (specifically, organic chemistry I/II, ecology & evolution, and genetics), with the others having 10-15 or even fewer students.
That said, economics is an extremely popular major these days, though it’s fading in popularity relative to computer science, and it’s more prone to lectures than seminars. Economics classes will be large at many colleges…it would be prudent to glance over course schedules at a college of interest to get an idea of how large classes are.
*Incidentally, classics majors fare the best on the LSAT, followed by math and philosophy majors. All three subjects involve small, highly analytical classes.
On an entirely different note, some universities allow advanced undergraduates to register for law school courses with permission (e.g. Stanford, Duke, Penn). Even where cross-registration isn’t allowed, many professors would welcome a curious undergraduate to sit in on a class. The opportunity to taste law school life (or, indeed, grad school life in general) is not an option at many LACs. I wouldn’t put too much weight on this, but it’s perhaps something to consider.
No worries @merc81 - not sure about SAT, but for ACT the mid 50 is the same at all 3. But for an unhooked female, Middlebury much harder to get accepted as they recruit more athletes than Hamilton and Vassar and about 5% of the incoming class is reserved for Posse kuds
Business Insider analyzed all colleges and universities by SAT/ACT scores and ranked the top 610. This is how the three schools compare:
Position, College
Vassar
Hamilton
Middlebury
All three colleges have a relationship with the Posse Foundation, and the smaller Hamilton may actually have a higher percentage of recruited athletes than Middlebury. However, I have no opinion as to which of these schools is actually hardest to get into.
(“The 610 Smartest Colleges,” Business Insider. Available online.)
^^^I think you are both veering way off of the OP’s question which was can go to a good law school from a LAC, not which of a couple of excellent LACs are rated better.
Three posts (materially), regarding a matter of record, do not seem to be a major derail. However, a fourth post (15), commenting on the prior posts while not contributing relevant content, does.
And how about a fifth (16), commenting on the prior post’s comment on the three-post non-derail? How about a sixth (17), commenting on the prior post’s comment on the prior post’s comment on the…
@intparent Ummm yes it is. Bowdoin gets about 1,000 more applications from women versus seats for 250 females. It may not seem like a lot but it has a big impact. Bowdoin will reject about 900 more females each year.
You act like women shouldn’t apply, though. The Bowdoin admission rate was 16.8% for men last year, and 13.5% for women. Lower rate for women? Yes. Reason for women to not apply? No, of course not. Women should be aware that men get a boost in admission just for their gender, and they will want to make sure their stats are on the higher end. But I don’t see how this is much different from taking into account other “hooked” applicants when applying. We often tell students that the lower end of the percentiles are primarily students with hooks. This just adds another category of hook (male).
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