What top undergrad gives you the best chance for a top law school?

[sakky]

<p>

But, he freely admits that PhD was a big mistake and too much of waste of his time.</p>

<p>Just going by your example, suppose someone is indeed pursuing a PhD in humanities out of his intrinsic intellectual passion for that subject. Then, by that process, he would naturally want to extend that PhD coursework into a life-time career: doing research in his chosen field, publishing articles, lecturing, and teaching. I can’t help but think that people would be content with just calling it quits after PhD stint and come out satisfied after not getting a job in academia. Just like many unemployed law grads, I suspect they go through feelings of bitterness, anger, depression, and regret, among other emotions.

</p>

<p>Well, you want to talk about people who are really going through feelings of bitterness, anger, depression, and regret? You want to talk about what’s really a waste of time? How about all of the liberal arts college graduates today who can’t find work at all, or if they can, are relegated to menial labor jobs that they could have obtained right after high school (or heck, even if they had dropped out of high school)? I can think of plenty such people who went to top schools, earned decent grades, but are now stuck waiting tables, delivering pizzas, manning cash registers, or stocking shelves at the mall. Believe me, many of them are quite depressed and bitter, particularly because they had been told their entire lives that the reason they should study hard and attend top schools is precisely to avoid jobs like those. We specifically indoctrinated the youth of the country to be ashamed of those jobs as a threat to force them to study hard, and now many of them are sadly relegated to taking those jobs.</p>

<p>Which is why so many of them are considering PhD programs, for which I can’t fault them. After all, as one girl who I know is attending a PhD humanities program said: “It’s better than stocking shelves at the mall (which is what she had been doing)”. If nothing else, at least she can enjoy a stimulating and paid intellectual adventure, if only for a few years of her life. That’s better than never doing it at all. More importantly, she will probably be able to use the program to wait out the recession. By the time she graduates, the economy will likely be far better, thereby allowing her to find a decent job that can actually use her humanities skills. And she can fill her resume with a reasonable explanation - that she had spent years pursuing a PhD - rather than having to say that she spent all that time stocking shelves at the mall. Let’s face it - that sort of experience is not going to impress anybody. </p>

<p>Granted, perhaps you could argue that she shouldn’t have majored in humanities at all. Perhaps that was her root mistake. Fair enough. But what’s done is done. Like it or not, she did major in humanities, she didn’t develop marketable skills in college, and so the only relevant question for her is what should she do now? </p>

<p>

Also, in this country, there are so many no-name state schools that as long as someone does decent at a community college, that person can reasonably transfer into a decent state school program. Then, that person would have saved a large sum of tuition money to go along with it. It is true that a good school such as Berkeley, UCLA, or UVA - top state schools - are much easier to get in via community college route compared to freshmen admissions. Then, imagine how easy it would be to get into just a regular state university.

</p>

<p>But none of that is relevant to the discussion here, for, lets face it, attending a ‘regular’ state university is probably not going to open the doors to the elite, high-paying consulting or finance firms so coveted by most college graduates. For example, UCRiverside is surely no worse than a ‘regular’ state university. Indeed, its status as a UC indicates that it is a member of arguably the most selective public university system in the nation, which would indicate that UCR is far better than just a ‘regular’ state university. But honestly, you’re probably not going to get an offer from Goldman or McKinsey coming out of UCR, regardless of how strong your performance may be. Heck, you won’t even get an interview. Yet the fact remains that UCR graduates thousands of people every year, many from low-paying humanities majors. What are all these people supposed to do? </p>

<p>For those who achieved high grades (and can also attain a high LSAT), the next logical step is indeed to attend law school. After all, that’s better than waiting tables or stocking shelves at the mall, which is indeed what many of them will be otherwise consigned to do. </p>

<p>

Also, I am not sure if your example with baseball players is appropriate here. Baseball players can still play baseball in their leisure, with their friends, or play for some amateur leagues - something they love doing - even if they don’t make Major League. Academics on the other hand - the opportunities for teaching, publishing, or researching within their academic fields - are not possibilities unless you actually get a job in academia.

</p>

<p>Hey, I’m sure that many of those former players were disappointed and bitter that they never made it to MLB. But they got over it. Similarly, somebody with a PhD who can’t find an academic job can get over it. </p>

<p>Besides, where is it written that you can teach/publish/research only within academia? You can always teach something, perhaps at some low-level night school, or even on a volunteer basis. And you can always conduct humanities research and publish in your spare time. Granted, maybe you won’t have an academic infrastructure to support you, but that should hardly stop you from conducting research anyway. True, perhaps you’ll need to self-publish, or only publish in open-access Internet forums such as SSRN or arXiv. But, hey, that’s still publishing. You’re still disseminating your ideas to the world. </p>

<p>You can even still publish in academic journals on a part-time basis. As a case in point, consider Reginald Smith. Holding an MBA from the MIT Sloan School, he has a full-time job as a supply chain/operations manager. But he also publishes research in his spare time about an eclectic range of topics, including publications in academic journals. For example, he has an official journal publication on plasma physics, one on quantitative biology, two on Internet networking, one on the social network of rappers (he finds that 2Pac and Wu-Tang Clan occupy central positions in the rapping community), and not one but two papers on the linguistics of the Meriotic language (the ancient language of Kush). </p>

<p>[Hobbies</a> & Research - reggiesmithsci](<a href=“http://sites.google.com/site/reggiesmithsci/home/hobbies--research]Hobbies”>http://sites.google.com/site/reggiesmithsci/home/hobbies--research)</p>

<p>Now surely if Reginald Smith - who doesn’t hold a PhD in at all, let alone one in the humanities - can nevertheless in his spare time publish 2 linguistics papers in academic journals, then surely somebody with a PhD in humanities can continue to pursue research in his spare time. </p>

<p>

Well, USC’s master’s of accounting program’s admit rate is around 35-40% - not too bad of odds. Also, their accepted students’ average GMAT score last year was 650, and average GPA was 3.5, which don’t exactly appear to be most selective. Yet - USC is one of the most selective accounting programs to get into. The good news is that there are dozens of other less selective accounting schools than USC, and unlike law, accounting firms don’t really care too much about what school you go to. (prestige matters very little)

</p>

<p>So let’s talk about that. According to the website, 80% of the students in the program majored in accouting or highly related topics (business, finance, economics). Only a tiny minority majored in other social sciences or humanities. Furthermore, and far more importantly, the program also directly stipulates that all applicants must have already completed or be taking at the time of application a total of seven accounting courses, none of which seems trivial. Furthermore, the program specifically states that such coursework should not be completed at a community college </p>

<p>

As a fall applicant, the following courses must be completed or in progress at the time of application submission:</p>

<pre><code>Micro or Macroeconomics
Intermediate Accounting I
Intermediate Accounting II
Cost or Managerial Accounting
Auditing
Advanced Accounting
U.S. Federal or Corporate Taxation
</code></pre>

<p>We do not recommend community college or online program accounting courses as fulfillment of our upper-division prerequisites. These must be taken at an accredited 4-year college or university, or a university extension program in a live classroom setting.

</p>

<p>[MAcc</a> Admissions | Master of Accounting | USC Marshall School of Business](<a href=“Home - USC Marshall”>Home - USC Marshall)
[Class</a> Profile | Master of Accounting | USC Marshall School of Business](<a href=“Home - USC Marshall”>Home - USC Marshall)</p>

<p>Now, let’s be frank. The vast majority of humanities graduates, even those with top grades, will not meet those course requirements. At least, not by the time that they graduate. And I would argue that that if they could have completed all 7 of those courses, they probably should have completed a full accounting bachelor’s. </p>

<p>Granted, you could return to your point that all these people should not have majored in the humanities at all. I agree, and in fact, I would double-down and argue that many of them should never have gone to college at all, but instead should have learned a trade skill such as plumbing or auto repair. But that’s neither here nor there. The problem is that we now have thousands of un/under-employed humanities graduates, and the relevant question is what should they do?</p>