<p>I’m a junior in high school this year, and I’m wondering what the best colleges for pre-law are. I want to study in a college in a big city, preferably near the east coast (esp NY, Massachusetts).</p>
<p>Without knowing what level you are looking at, here are the top schools in each of the big east coast cities (may be missing one or two, but only including pre-law schools that are actually IN the city, as opposed to Par72s likely posting of HC in this thread):</p>
<p>Boston
Harvard, Boston College, Northeastern, BU</p>
<p>New York
Columbia, Fordham, NYU</p>
<p>DC
Georgetown, GWU, American</p>
<p>Philly
UPenn, Temple, Villanova</p>
<p>There isn’t any such thing as “best for pre-law.” This is not a major or course of study at most good colleges. Don’t worry about law school at this point in your career.</p>
<p>Exactly what Hanna said - colleges don’t tend to have pre-law programs. Could you post your stats?</p>
<p>Pre-law programs generally consist of a pre-law adviser who will tell you to study hard, keep up your GPA, do some prep for the LSAT, and get plenty of sleep and bring lots of sharp #2 pencils and a good eraser for that test. As far as law schools are concerned, you can study whatever you want as an undergrad, so it’s best to study something that truly interests you as that will probably help you get better grades.</p>
<p>Top schools in/near Philadelphia:
Penn, Swarthmore, Haverford, Bryn Mawr</p>
<p>Top schools in/near Boston:
Harvard, MIT, Wellesley, Tufts, Boston College, Brandeis</p>
<p>Top schools in/near New York:
Columbia, Vassar, Barnard, Cooper Union, NYU</p>
<p>Cooper Union is a “top school”, but is not a top “pre-law” school.</p>
<p>^ On the theory that any undergraduate discipline is suitable preparation for law school, any top school is a top pre-law school. Besides, Cooper Union is very strong in engineering. Most patent lawyers have engineering (or other hard science/technology) backgrounds, and it’s not an uncommon career choice for engineers to go on to law school and become patent lawyers.</p>
<p>In addition to not having any of the majors that most typically lead to law school, and probably very few courses of that ilk, Cooper Union grades very severely, from what I hear.</p>
<p>My bet is very few people attend Cooper Union with the notion that it is an optimal platform for law school, or admission to same.</p>
<p>It’s true that grading at Cooper is pretty rough. Most adcoms know this, so you do see a number of Cooper alumni going on to top-tier business and engineering grad schools like HBS, Columbia, MIT, Stanford, etc. I’m not sure if law schools are as understanding. My classmates that eventually went on to become patent lawyers studied at law schools like Brooklyn Law and Cardozo. I don’t have any stats to back this up though, so take take this anecdotal evidence as just another tiny data point.</p>
<p>GPA 3.91, Top 10% of her class, SAT, 2100 on practice tests, from another thread. </p>
<p>At this point if you are planning on going to Law School, try to avoid debt for undergrad.</p>
<p>^ I completely agree with Slumom. You’ll want to keep undergraduate debt at a minimum, preferably non-existant. Law school is very expensive, and contrary to undergrad, you will probably want to go to the best school you get into rather than take a scholarship. This is given way the legal system works as far as employment. Check out abovethelaw.com to see how prestige focused the legal world is. No one usually cares too much about your undergrad when looking for jobs out of law school, but everyone will care about your law school. Keep your UG debt down so you can afford a great law school.</p>
<p>I’m a student at a top 5 Law school (usually ranked top 3). Any school that has “pre-law” as a major I would run away from 100 miles an hour. I don’t know any “pre-law” majors. Major in whatever you want and get a good GPA. </p>
<p>Given your stats and what you are looking for it seems like Georgetown might be a great place for you, but its on on the reach side. Other reach schools that might fit are Tufts, Emory, Vanderbilt. A good Match might be BC and GWU, while BU is a low match.</p>
<p>As was said, in reality there is no such animal as a “Pre-law School.” That being said, make sure to check out the record of your preferred college’s placement office. For example, if your undergraduate school sends 10 alumni to Columbia, Yale, Harvard, NYU, Duke, Michigan, Wisconsin, or Stanford Law every year, then I would say that’s a great placement office and a great college.</p>
<p>As an interesting example from elsewhere on this site, here’s a list of colleges with the highest placement ratios at Harvard Law School in 2006:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/662310-ranking-undergrad-highest-acceptance-rates-law-school.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/662310-ranking-undergrad-highest-acceptance-rates-law-school.html</a></p>
<p>You also need to account for the level of interest in law school among a given student’s population. </p>
<p>Some schools will have a higher level of interest in law such as Harvard, Boston College, or Amherst. </p>
<p>Other students tend to have much lower levels of interest in law school such as my LAC where most students in my observation tend to gravitate towards academia and lower paying “social justice” type careers such as K-12 teaching, NGOs, social work, etc. </p>
<p>Even so, the few classmates I know of who did apply to law school all got into T-14 schools with GPAs that some would find surprisingly low. I even know of one who ended up at a bottom T-14 school right after undergrad despite failing a few courses and barely graduating with a 3.0.</p>
<p>Unless you go to HYP, it does not matter where you go undergrad. Get a really good GPA and study for the LSAT, don’t major in engineering or a hard science unless you want to go into patent law, and start studying for the LSAT early.</p>
<p>I’ve been through law school admissions and I can tell you that where you went to school really doesn’t matter at all. Though it may be useful for some connections while in law school, if you go to a T14 that won’t matter too much.</p>
<p>Accurate comments in this thread about a law school’s reputation. Yes, competition for clerkships and jobs with the best firms is lively among “elite” and nationally well regarded law schools. But the business of law is very regional when it comes to getting hired, particularly in corporate law or commerical law. Outside of New York and the northeast, most big firms hire mostly in their home regions. So being a Cornell, Yale, Virginia or Michigan law alumni wouldn’t provide a significant advantage in the job market at the better firms in Seattle, San Franciso, Philadelphia or Atlanta, for example.</p>
<p>I disagree completely with the comment about hard science majors. It will be much easier to get into BigLaw with a good hard science degree. There is a lot of interest in the few law students that graduate with both a law degree and a hard science degree.</p>
<p>Coming from Yale Law doesn’t provide a significant advantage getting into better firms in San Francisco? I beg to differ! Yes, a lot of hiring is very regional, but it would be a colossal mistake to turn down Yale or Virginia or Michigan for Santa Clara or Hastings with the idea that they will give you a better (or even equal) shot at San Francisco firms.</p>
<p>Same goes for the other markets you mentioned. Yale gives a huge advantage at top firms when compared to the best regional schools in those markets. The students at Emory, UW, Temple, etc. live that reality every day.</p>
<p>I think any school that provides a good “Arts and Sciences” Liberal Arts education is best for those who want to go to law school. I’d also try to include a business, accounting, and econ class as well.</p>
<p>A person who is well-rounded in math, hard sciences, English, literature, history, poly sci, public speaking, sociology, and business would seem (to me) to be best prepared for law school.</p>