The world has changed. I've worked with attorneys for 25 years and they always want prestige but things are a little different. Now, there are undergrad Public Policy programs at state schools geared towards law school admission.
I'm giving you advice straight from an active attorney, who actively hires new attorneys, and who sits on so many Boards of legal organizations, discussing hiring, retention, subject matter expertise, etc. with so many fellow attorneys, I've lost count. Not "back then." Today. And there have always been "public policy programs." And majoring in subject matters like that is not "new" but an old school way of approaching prospective law school attendance, and I'm trying to provide you with the newer way, that law schools prefer.
We looked into the state schools and MSU has the James Madison College program where students live together, attend prep classes on legal/public policy issues each semester and intern each summer in DC or in Lansing. The early jump is now also an option at Kansas, IU and Oklahoma as well. As for 3+3, he would be going in with 36 college credits at a minimum so the 3-year part is doable at MSU so you are correct but I look at it as an opportunity to research both undergrad and MSU law now. If he doesn't want MSU law at some point while an undergrad, he'll apply elsewhere. Or maybe he won't go to law school. Who knows? The advantage is that he has options within or outside the school.
What options is he gaining? MSU isn't a very competitive law school to get into ... if he has moderately decent grades and OK LSAT scores, he'll get in. If he has 36 AP credits that MSU will take, he can graduate from an undergraduate program in 3 years. If he does this 3+3 program, they require them to take 3 years undergrad, and complete the 4th in law school ... so isn't he actually losing the benefit of those AP courses, doing it that way? Or are they going to allow him to, essentially, finish his undergrad in 2?
He's also then locked in to MSU law school, rather than giving himself options ... in order to complete his 4th undergraduate year, he has to do so at MSU's law school. I mean, I guess he could transfer out, but that seems like a complicated mess, for no good reason.
We lived thru this same scenario with Miami when my oldest was looking. She said I want to be a psychiatrist and a pediatrician to Miami and they said ok let's build your 3-year pre-med plan which they did. They then told her to apply to UC because its top 5 for peds and you'll get in-state tuition which she did. Older doctors we knew said you must go to Georgetown or Penn and don't be a pre-med program participant. Wrong. She majored in Bio and was a Pre-Med major at Miami. Now, after eschewing the prestige comments of old doctors, she has no debt and is working at arguably at one of the top 3 children's hospitals in the country at UC. She is in a resident group with people who paid more for undergrad at Cal, Georgetown and the Ivies. She has no debt. The other residents are poor and debt-ridden and some are miserable. She's delighted and getting paid and off my payroll. And she's triple boarding - imagine her job prospects with medical groups -- 3 type of patients.
Law school and med school have little in common, in terms of coursework/degree needed to gain admission, and the above recounted experience doesn't speak to any of the advice I was giving you in the earlier post. While med school doesn't require a certain major to gain admission, they do typically require certain coursework to have been completed - bio, etc. And most prospective candidates default to some "medically-related" degree and/or a specific pre-med track.
Law, is completely different. You don't need ANY specific coursework to get into law school. The "traditional" track was to pick some liberal arts degree with a very uncertain future, in and of itself (history, poli sci, English, public policy, etc.) and then head to law school, but law schools increasingly wanted diversity in learning (those pathways are still very popular, it's just that law schools have expanded their horizons to include econ, other biz majors, the sciences, engineering, etc.). Even then, as they still do, they often prefer folks to NOT have a "pre-law" background, because THEY want to teach you the law their way, and they don't want preconceived/learned notions from a pre-law background mucking that up.
What I was conveying to you is that, becoming "qualified" to have a career in some other industry is NOT a hinderance to gaining admission to, or being successful in, law school. In fact, it's an asset to have, not just in your legal studies, but in case minds are changed. That's all. Heck, my BS was in Accounting, and I ended up with a dual degree JD/MBA ... and I'm so glad I did.
My son needs two things to get to law school -- a GPA and a LSAT. It doesn't matter where you go although I much prefer state schools for the experience (this is revelatory to many older lawyers btw who still think its the 80s and the name matters to clients).
It's not true that it doesn't matter where you go. Law school admissions most definitely consider the quality of the undergraduate institution, the rigor of the particular major and even prior work experience, if any, as well as other factors.
Plus he wants civil (MSU has a long history of civil rights professors) and he'll have no debt so he doesn't have to be dullard in a firm for 5-7 years. And he can work anywhere btw. That's another thing that lawyers think is still in play. It's not. The NextGen testing will be in place over the next 4 years so that will open up law school graduates to bar admissions in 40+ states.
Huh? Not sure what point you're trying to make here. I didn't speak to this at all. Regardless, don't say "he wants civil" ... "civil" in the legal realm is a differentiating term from "criminal." Essentially, all practice areas (corporate, bankruptcy, divorce, torts, real estate, etc.) that aren't "criminal" are "civil." Do you mean he wants to practice civil rights law? That's great, if so. It's noble. Just note that law school was FILLED with folks who came in to practice some variant of public interest law. They wanted to stick up for the downtrodden, cure injustices, etc. They participated in the public interest clinics, they wrote for the public interest journal (if they weren't on Law Review). And, then, no matter how much money they were getting from the school, or how well off their mommies and daddies were, probably 80-90% of them were lured toward the "big bucks" of other practice areas. I'm not saying that's going to happen to your boy. I'm just saying it happens. A lot. And it's best to prepare for the distinct possibility. I wish him great success whichever path he chooses.
There's more than one way to skin the degree cat.
You told me on this board not to send my daughter to UMaine because it sucked. She's a marine biology major there and loving it so far. It's a top 10 marine bio school. She's in Honors, getting great advising and already planning shark research with professors. I got no complaints. And Mrs. Apex is happy -- probably the biggest priority in my life.
I did not, in any way, tell you not to send your daughter to UMaine because it sucked. I don't know why you have to act so childishly. I said it's a very mediocre institution (at the time its 25-75th percentile SAT was 1060-1280 and their acceptance rate was 96% - those are just facts), and I compared it to less mediocre institutions, to help explain why UMaine may be going the "extra mile" to attract a better qualified student. That is all. I also had looked up its Marine Bio ranking, and it was NOT top 10 in the 2 I found, despite your claims to the contrary ... I think it was Top 20 in one of them (I did a quick double check: College Advisor, powered by US News didn't have it in its Top 25; CollegeVine didn't have it in the Top 20; ColllegeFactual, whatever that is, has it as 35th ... apparently there are only 84 total schools that offer a Marine Biology degree in the US). You found some ranking I'd never heard of before that apparently stated otherwise.
I'm happy your daughter is happy. Like with all our children, as long as they can take care of themselves in life and they're happy, the big stuff is taken care of.
I have a HS Jr, as well. He's assessing his options at this point, as he isn't entirely sure what he wants to study (he's leaning toward a psychiatry track, but he's all over the map, as he's smart in a lot of things and doesn't have a specific "love," unlike his older brother), and he's still hanging onto hope that he'll play baseball in college (likely D3 if it happens). Right now, the dreams are MIT (he's gotten some notice by their coaches and has the grades, classwork rigor and standardized scores to potentially be competitive) and Johns Hopkins, with Tufts seeming like a realistic option. The other top NESCACs are in the picture, as well (Amherst and Williams ... he also likes Colby, as a buddy of his is going there ... problem there is that limits him if he wants to lean more into non-neuroscience STEM). If he drops baseball as a prereq, or if his fastball ticks up a few MPH, then some of the Ivies come into play, potentially.
