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Hello, I plan on moving to new york city next fall
and I've read alot about the CUNY. However nothing about their polotical science majors/ Does anyone know what college has the best/most connected/reputable polotical science major. I know john jay is good for cops, hunter has a bad reputatoin for adminstration and seems medicore overall and queens seems really good. But I'm not sure, so you tell me.
first, undergraduate schools are not ranked by their majors, except for engineering and sometimes (didn't used to be this way but becoming more so now little-by-little) business. graduate schools are ranked by major. in contrast, the entire undergraduate college is ranked as a whole. second, except for baruch for business, i don't think that any CUNY is appreciably better or worse than another. third, there is no such thing as 'pre-law.' any course of study can lead to law school admission. law schools are impressed by four things: one, a high LSAT score. two, a prestigious undergraduate university. three, an intellectually challenging major. four, a high UGPA. in that order. if you intend to apply to law school here, you need to be aware of the challenges you will face. nyc has 7 law schools, 6 are top tier, and 2 are among the best in the world. like business, nyc is the premier place for lawyers in the u.s. the competition to get into law school here is more fierce than anywhere in the u.s. your best bet for getting into an nyc law school is to (1) score > 160 on your LSAT, (2) attend the highest ranked undergraduate school you can get into. i don't care what anyone says about the validity of the rankings, how people are viewing them with increasing skepticism, etc. law schools care about the ranking of your undergraduate college. (3) major in a hard science, math, or economics. those are the only majors left that have retained an honest gauge of academic rigor. at most undergraduate schools, the median grade for a hard science, math, or economics course is still 'C' or 'C+.' majoring in poli-sci, history, english, etc. impresses no one. the word is long out that a monkey with a pulse can get a B+ or even an A- in most humanities or soft sciences at most universities. (4) study hard and do as well as you can. if you are interested in humanities or soft sciences, take them. use their diminished expectations and inflated grades to pad the comparatively worse ones from your major.
good luck. it's a long road. i know; i travelled it.
i knew that pre-law isn't a major, but an indication of what kind of major or concentration in classes you're likely to have. But thanks for the advice about what to major in, I'm going to talk to my law professor about that. However, he did tell me that it really doesn't matter what undergrad school you go to and that people make a much bigger deal out of than it really is. He is a attorney and law professor after all. Another thing, I've also heard of CUNY students going to NYU and other ivy league schools. Of course going to a top-ranked undergrad school helps, but its not impossible otherwise to get into top-tier law schools.
Focus on the LSAT the most. Everything else is secondary in my opinion. Most law schools out there are LSAT wh*res and will accept you even if you came from a mediocre university with decent grades, so long as you did really well on the LSAT. If you get a 160+ LSAT a lot of schools will overlook a so-so undergrad GPA. Plus a good LSAT score can help you to receive some funding, so your tuition will be lower.
Also if you have some scam affirmative action thing you'll be golden. Like if you're black, gay, one-legged or something like that then law schools will give you extra points.
Just keep on practing for the LSAT though, it is difficult and tedious to do, but it will pay off in the long run for you.
i knew that pre-law isn't a major, but an indication of what kind of major or concentration in classes you're likely to have. But thanks for the advice about what to major in, I'm going to talk to my law professor about that. However, he did tell me that it really doesn't matter what undergrad school you go to and that people make a much bigger deal out of than it really is. He is a attorney and law professor after all. Another thing, I've also heard of CUNY students going to NYU and other ivy league schools. Of course going to a top-ranked undergrad school helps, but its not impossible otherwise to get into top-tier law schools.
So you're an attorney yourself in nyc?
City College has a Pre-law program and also a Urban Legal Studies program that lie within its PoliSci department but what you major in undergrad really will not matter to law school adcomm's unless you plan on doing IP law which you need to major in a hard science or tax law in which you'd need to be well versed in accounting. John Jay College also has a Legal Studies program and NYCTech has a Paralegal program.
That is absolutely false that law school adcomm's put much weight into your undergrad's reputation. Unless your GPA was low and you went to a school like Swarthmore which is infamous for its difficult grading policy. LSAT score, UGPA and class rank, LOR's and personal statement/diversity statement(if minority) will be more of a factor and you should gear up now to do volunteer work and join social groups which are great soft factors. And NYC really only has 3 top tiered law schools NYU, Columbia and Fordham with the former 2 being "national degrees" that are in the T14.
I've held offices in 3 clubs, been elected to the SGA and my local government. Plus a quite a bit of volunteering.
I'll have my associates degree when i move next fall, so any advice on transferring my classes and all that rubbish would be nice.
I've held offices in 3 clubs, been elected to the SGA and my local government. Plus a quite a bit of volunteering.
I'll have my associates degree when i move next fall, so any advice on transferring my classes and all that rubbish would be nice.
What school are you coming from?What major did you take up in JUCO?Great soft factors you have keep it up.What is your GPA now?
Both SS and Mead make good points nowadays you will need a solid major(no humanities, no business or social science except economics) and a great LSAT, if you are looking at a top 14 law school you will need 168+. PoliSci majors are the abundance of law school apps. so you will not stand out. Impressive majors will be physics, chem, engineering, computer science, statistics and math. Those majors also help on LSAT logic games, most hard science students breeze through that portion. So if you can transfer easily w/o losing credits into one of the above programs or make sure you pad some of those courses in with the PoliSci major instead of English or Lit. then you should be alright.
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