online degree law school reddit

For the other 35,000 or so, the decision wasn't, 'do I go to one of the very best schools in the land' but 'which school do I go to, and why?'. If you're planning on using your wife's GI Bill, do not use it until you hit law school so you can get the most bang for your buck. When I was there Law Review Editors were having sex with each other in succession. Any and all advice will be greatly appreciated. If you can’t plan it out and make it as a family through three years of actual school, then it’s not in the cards for you. I'm just saying. I have no delusions of high earning partnerships or raking in piles of money. And if you're not out of the bottom quartile of a school's applicants, your odds are pretty low. Obviously, some schools need to be removed. It's a lopsided battle. And these schools know it, and prey upon that. Most replies have attempted to “set you straight” and provide useful, easy to find, and verifiable information about why the path you’ve proposed is a bad idea. Anyway, these appear to be the requirements to be admitted to and take the bar in Pennsylvania: Being admitted to the bar in a state and practicing fulltime for five out of seven years either in said state or in JAG, or teaching fulltime at an ABA law school, or a combination of the 3 options totalling 5 years in a seven uear period. The result is a pool of people who are all convinced that they have been held back by their true potential in some way, regardless of what the numbers say. Help with law school personal statements, application requirements, and admissions chances. I'm curious how the data would turn out if you included first year attrition rates? (Maybe their numbers are better than I recall but I think they're pretty low). If you don't, you might get lucky and have things work out, like they did for my brother and, I suspect, thousands of other law school graduates every year who never get too deeply involved in the whole game. I know that this is a very basic analysis that can be changed in a bunch of different ways, but that's why I don't get the "accept it or gtfo" mentality. I’m not sure why people are bothering to make post after post when you basically take their advice and throw it in the trash. Apply to strong regional schools and go wherever gives you the most aid. Do not overload yourself. To be fair I'm a successful grad of one of those only-lawschool-in-the-state schools and biglaw was never a goal of mine (tbh it's a term I don't even hear IRL), so I'm probably jaded against the hard reliance on tiers and incoming 1L class stats. Don't go to law school, having a law degree doesn't help you. Last note: A little bit about me. I hope it helps. It may not be an easy decision, but you're not looking at any truly disastrous outcomes. Having personally known a four different people who enrolled into these bottom quartile schools, I do wonder whether this will be of service to most students like them. Top 25% at Wyoming is about equivalent to median at Florida International (or bottom 25% at Colorado). Once I got that list, I ran the results through some pivot tables in Excel, to group them by the number of times each school appears in these categories - 6 means a school appeared in all of those categories, 5 in 5 of them, etc. My advice would be - go to community college for however long it takes to finish your prereqs. Stay away minorities, people of color, and be prepared to sleep your way to the top if you're a woman. This is just a really bad idea all around. Today, the 43-year-old Texas computer programmer dreams again of becoming an attorney—by studying at an online law school, so he can continue to work and support his family. I have known the temptations of Big Money at lower ranked schools, and I have known the agony of Huge Tuition at higher ranked schools. There are many solo schools from small states/big square states with small populations and only 1 law school. Life is about options, and I would compare this option to marrying a 50 year old crack whore instead of Natalie Portman. It's far better to spend 3 years and $3,000 on LSAT classes to raise your score from a 145 to a 152 and get into a ranked regional school than it is to go to a '6' school right off, scholarship or do. If one of the following schools with a rating of 5 or 6 is your best choice, you should ideally either take a year and do the studying/work to make a better school your best choice, or you should not go to law school. According to data from 78,000 law school applicants in 2011-2012, provided to U.S. News & World Report by the Law School Admission Council, students who majored in pre-law were less likely to be admitted to law school than those who chose other degree programs. Yes, I know: your cousin's best friend's neighbor's dog breeder's roommate's father-in-law thrice removed has an old Army buddy who went to GGU and makes $200k per year. question without realizing the most important question is "what is my outlook at this given school, comparing sticker price with my offer?" The subreddit for law school admissions discussion. So long as someone doesn't have super high expectations in terms of employment outcomes - i.e. The Department of Education provides useful information on graduate debt to earnings ratios. Applying for law school is a challenging and often opaque process, that requires both the knowledge and the ability to honestly and correctly evaulate your own qualifications, the character of the schools to which you are considering applying, and the degree … All I heard was that I was a complete fool if I went to law school, and unfortunately I didn't look into the details enough to realize that things were actually not so horrible for people who could get into good schools and do well. An online degree … Even though it's relatively new and the inputs are pretty meh, the employment outcomes are nowhere what you'd expect because of the freaking A&M network. Even with a strong drive, I can't forsee going to a brick and mortar school. Those for whom a 145 is so low as to be inconceivable - you could get that in your sleep. Or possibly you could even end up like me, sitting on the sidelines, at a tremendous opportunity cost, because you didn't understand that sometimes the risk is worth it. You'd think in Wyoming they'd be able to recruit some Native Americans. If someone is able to utilize the multitude of options available to them in such a way that they can personalize their plan in an effective and efficient way for them, it doesn't make their plan any less valid. Would you like to earn an online law degree from the comfort of your own home? If you apply this logic to, say, Duke/Vandy/Emory, there's nothing to fault it. ), and that somehow after 36 months I would be eligible to practice in NY(? All you've done here is prove that bottom-of-the-barrel students get bottom-of-the-barrel results. Do it this way or it's wrong. These students were not expelled for dishonesty under the Honor Code. It's working smarter not harder, and that's why so many of you are so salty. This is wrong. I will then need to learn more about what is required for reciprocity in my home state. I really don't think DC is experiencing a shortage of lawyers.... Absolute shortage, no; BigLaw, hell no; affordable attorneys for routine legal services at the low end of the socio-economic spectrum, yes...ish. you're ok doing small town law, or chasing speeding tickets and the like for a few years to get your own firm going - it's not an unsafe option. Edit, to actually contribute something of substance: You are an entire undergrad degree away from having to make this decision. George Washington’s online law school offers a healthcare corporate compliance graduate certificate and a paralegal studies graduate certificate to online students. It's only just now that I'm realizing law school actually probably was the right choice after all, and I'm years behind where I could've been because of it. US News & World Report provides a wealth of information, including things like average graduate debt load. On top of that, I think a lot of people in the bottom quartile are the kinds of people who are very present-focused and live in the moment and don't have much regard for what comes after. You can see from the links to the right that the stronger your credentials, the more likely that you could get a full ride to a traditional law school. We're only looking at the bottom 50 schools. (Graduate of a rival school here.). It's not easy, and even professionals frequently get it wrong. I am probably going to start some classes in advance to prepare for the CLEP, which to my understanding is mostly all that's required to start a JD in California. Political science is the study of government systems, political behavior, and how the judicial system works. I personally would hold out for something better, but if my life options weren't that flexible, I would go there before South Texas, Texas Southern, or Saint Mary's. All are thus at risk of losing the ability to get federal funding for their students (assuming the Trump Administration doesn't tank the current rules). A sleazy place full of sleazy people. Ranked as a Top 15 online program by U.S. News & World Report, UCF believes everyone deserves the opportunity to pursue their dreams.UCF designed its online degree programs to make education affordable and accessible for everyone. If we build upon the sorting from above by adding in 1st year attrition (drop out rate), employment rates at graduation and at 10 months after graduation, and bar passage rates, we get the following tables (already pared down to match the schools on the list above, to keep this post a sane length): This also matches our usual list of suspects, and is especially chilling, because it shows just how many of those 'jobs' at graduation don't last for many of these schools. Now if you look at this table you'll notice immediately that: There are some perfectly acceptable, and even excellent schools present. OP's "this is math" comment seemed a bit arrogant because the chosen measuring factors are arbitrarily and subjectively applicable depending on student. You say life is about options but provide only two. Those for whom a 161 is a dissapointment, not a score beyond their wildest dreams. To further refine that, I added in three other factors - public vs private, tutition charged, and for-profit vs not-for-profit - to get what seems like a very clear correlation. If 7 schools are tied for 138, what's to differentiate them? I’m sure you’ve experienced the harshness of job outlook with only a GED, so compare that to an online law degree. Many high paying jobs for good lawyers with good resumes otherwise. Please for the love of god don't. Feel free to ask questions in the comments, or PM me. You will rack up levels of debt that exceed those garnered by Harvard, Yale, and Columbia graduates, only to face employment prospects of less than 50%. Whether you go to George Washington at a 10% discount, GMU at 50% off, or American at a full ride, at the end of the day you're getting a solid education and so long as you don't screw up you'll have the job prospects to match. maybe somehwere down the line the "i am an attorney with this hack" trick worked for a few people. These are folks who are more likely to have gone to Regional State Tech for undergrad, not Flagship U - regardless of intellect or ability. At this level, there are still many schools that offer an excellent education and value, but there also are also schools that are accredited and that do not offer similar returns on education, value, or employment. I would likely consider establishing a virtual presence for that purpose. The School of Diplomacy and Seton Hall School of Law offer a joint degree program leading to the degrees of Master of Arts in Diplomacy and International Relations and Juris Doctor. 5. Using the information downloadable from the ABA here, I ranked schools from worst to best by: percentage of graduates employed at graduation. I think you can get certified without a degree. Back to Top. I have also heard that I can practice in Vermont and Wyoming somehow after passing the bar in California(? Most likely none of you are actually attorneys. Especially since my highest completed level of education is a GED and I would need to obtain a bachelor's before considering law school. In California you don't even need schooling to take the bar exam. Knowing from the beginning that you wanted to go to law school afterward would help motivate you to earn the best possible grades. https://www.google.com/amp/www.latimes.com/local/education/la-me-law-schools-20150726-story.html%3foutputType=amp. they do everything in their power to convince potential students that they are legitimate, rack up levels of debt that exceed those garnered by Harvard, Yale, and Columbia graduates, Western New England University School of Law. Reading the law in another state is not an option for the aforementioned reasons. According to a Gallup poll of over 4,000 adults who obtained a law degree between 2000 and 2015, only 23% said obtaining a law degree was worth the cost. A&M doesn't really abide by normal indicators. There are 204 schools, so let's chop them into neat quartiles of 50, and round down: the top 154 schools will make the cut as being solid enough to not require careful consideration. They're offering me a full ride!". Counterpoint: Yes and no, because of social context. You almost definitely won’t be able to get a job as a lawyer with an online law degree. Use the resources on this subreddit and on r/LSAT. It also awards master’s degrees in both professional studies in law … And then pulled the bottom 50 out of each category (yes, this gave me more than 50 schools total, but we'll get to that). Similarly, Appalachian is $1,000 cheaper than Capital U, even though it is deep in the mountains and Capital is in downtown Columbus, OH. The result is, the final list removes any school scoring a 3 or less off the list - they're largely public, long-established, well-known, and respectable. How to get into American and Canadian law schools. By using our Services or clicking I agree, you agree to our use of cookies. Average LSAT Score: 153.8 Average GPA: 3.39 The most popular major of law school candidates is political science. Why all of the pushback against sound advice? The odds are overwhelmingly against that being you. Student Body: Female 59.3% – Male 40.7% Tuition & Fees: … Kind of a ritual, sexual handing off of the torch. There’s a reason why many successful politicians are lawyers—the link between law and political theory is very strong. Go to a university online or onsite, no one cares. In particular, there exists what we might call the 'cascade of tradeoffs': numbers that are good enough to get you into higher ranked School A are enough to get you some money from less highly ranked School B, and are enough to get you a full ride or close at much lower ranked School C. Taking School C does much to cut down on costs of education, but it will also cut into future potential earnings, as well as the ability to change markets should Life Happen. without paying a cent of tuition. I have not had any schooling in over 16 years, but I'm prepared to buckle down and kind of excited if this has potential. This is math. This is not opinion. 32 YO with three kids and a working wife when I enter a legitimate law school. I could establish residency there if they won't allow schooling for out of state residents. This is where a political science degree shows its advantage in law school. I'm writing this post as a companion piece to that one, because I have been through the process of applying to law school with a low undergraduate GPA (2.1). A law school doesn’t teach you what it’s like to be a lawyer any more than having a niece teaches you what it’s like to be a parent. They even put Parkinson's name on a plaque outside the Annex because he was so good at raising money from other white racists. Business/corporate law programs focus on how to establish, buy, sell, manage and close businesses. Are they worth your time and money? It won't make a law degree any less legitimate to have saved four years. Vicky Phillips was cited in 2009 by US News & World Report as “for 20 years the leading consumer advocate for online college students.”In 1989 she designed America’s first online counseling center for distance learners on AOL. So I had this crazy idea to become an attorney. Using these and other tools (Google and common sense being perhaps the most powerful), it's entirely possible to screen schools effectively. I said to get more money, and he said he was pretty sure law schools don't give out scholarships and I'm wasting my time. Even a little further down the rankings, say Fordham/Cardozo/Brooklyn, you're looking at the same general trend. Excellent submission! However, at the low end of the rankings, things get tougher. U.S. News asked some law school grads who earned their J.D. Graduate. Top 25% at Roger Williams is about equivalent to median at Wyoming. Get a 4.0 or as close as possible at both. (You may click the name of the school to visit its website.) Student Wastes Time Pursuing Law Degree He Was Ineligible To Receive, Tries To Sue School, Fails Miserably Considering the law school allowed this charade to … It should be, but it all too often isn't. The subreddit for law school admissions discussion. Call me cynical, but I think it's fitting that we apply the same logic to the law schools themselves. Study for the LSAT and do well. But here I am, 34, married with four kids under 7, living in a small city in Pennsylvania, and fed up with our local system here. I'm hoping someone here will be able to set me straight. Florida A&M, UDC, Memphis, Northern Kentucky, Northern Illinois, Southern U, and Texas Southern all fit this description. The University of Wyoming College of Law is not a place where the rule of law applies. There is no one simple solution, and anyone who tells you they have it is probably trying to sell you something. A lot of these bottom fifty schools cull the bottom quartile of their class in order to maintain inflated bar pass rates. There are a lot of people—and not just those who end up going to TTTT schools like the ones listed here—who just take the LSAT, apply to their local school or their undergrad alma mater, attend, and then get a decent job, all without ever knowing any of these acronyms and jargon and tiers and what not. Happily, though, in the middle of the rankings, this isn't actually as hard as it might sound. Cookies help us deliver our Services. Prospective law students benefit from a degree … Online Law Degrees . Want that hot "A" exam outline? Steer clear from UW College of Law unless you plan on fucking and cheating your way to the top. Ranked in 2020, part of Best Law Schools. Even assuming that full ride is unconditional (hint: it won't be), and even assuming cost of living was somehow covered as well (hint: it also won't be), when you graduate you're screwed: these schools are so toxic, no one wants to hire from them. I would be shocked if over 40% of people doing that online school pass the California bar exam upon graduation. There are a number of regional public schools and HBCUs. But I am still uncertain of the different kinds of exams and terminology(MBE, UBE), and how those will effect my path and ultimate goal of practicing in PA. I realize that initially I will only be able to practice law in California. It's public, so the cost of attendance is a lot lower. In contrast, it is common for alumni of top law schools to get jobs at big law firms straight out of law school without having to work their way up from a smaller firm, experts say. It might work best to focus the next four years on earning your bachelor's degree. At the end of the day, you have to do what is best for you. And most of them don’t have the added complication of not wanting to live/practice in CA long term. … Telling the difference from an unranked school and #138 isn't always easy - especially if you search rankings from past years and find that some that are unranked were once ranked and others that are ranked once were not. Vermont (Vermont Law), Rhode Island (Roger Williams), DC (UDC), Delaware (Widener), Wyoming (Wyoming), North Dakota (UND), and Montana (Montana) all fit this description. Funnily enough, five years ago I failed to comprehend the important points you just made, and it's what caused me not to go to law school straight out of undergrad (as had always been my plan). What majors are good pre-law majors? Math is brutal like that, but...if you are not capable of dispassionately applying facts to real-world situations to reach rational judgments...the law is probably not the field for you. Money is a very important factor, but so are things like family needs, knowing where you want to live/work, etc. All come from states/markets that have 4+ law schools, and they are the lowest-ranked public option in those areas. If your heart is set on being a lawyer take some online community classes then get a 4 year degree from a accreddited school (do public only cause you have a family to consider). Particularly when there are multiple competing rankings that often conflict, many schools go out of their way to carpet-bomb students with advertisements, and the ABA provides little guidance or oversight. Some of course are ignorant of the reality of their chosen school, and hopefully resources like this one can steer them away. If you know anything about law school applications, you know by now that everyone is ranked in quartiles. This post is aimed at addressing a little of that. I'm the guy who wrote this stickied post in the sidebar for how to calculate whether a given school is worth the cost. When I told him I was retaking the LSAT to get a better score, he asked why—my LSAT was already great in his view. I'm glad someone said this. If I should be looking in a different direction, where? No online law school is accredited by the American Bar Association (ABA), and 49 states require that law school graduates earn a degree accredited by the ABA in order to take the bar exam needed to practice law. It’s obvious that you “researched” this for about five minutes. Although it's typical for law students to acquire a six-figure debt burden during law school, it's possible to earn a J.D. The site may not work properly if you don't, If you do not update your browser, we suggest you visit, Press J to jump to the feed. From 15-20 through 100-120, picking a law school is genuinely challenging; hence all of the 'School X $$ vs School Y $$$$' posts. Teasing this tangle apart can be challenging. Some of them will be extremely intelligent, some of them will not be...and they may have achieved similar results in both GPA and LSAT anyway, because of the leveling effects caused by things like having to work 40-50 hours while going to school, etc. You might have troubles with biglaw because A&M law hasn't existed for very long, but the business/political network is unbeatable. "I don't know what else to do." We've got your back. Students seeking a reputable, regionally accredited online law degree should consider UCF’s online bachelor’s degree in legal studies.The 120-credit program from the community innovation and education college gives learners a foundation in law … But in theory that is set aside by the fact that the MIT student should get a 165+ in their sleep. Makes no sense bro. My post is aimed more at the person who got that 2.9/152 due to life, not lack of ability. The ABA Standards for the Approval of Law Schools currently do not allow for JD programs that are delivered fully online. Then apply to a good law school. It's something I've always held onto in the back of my mind since high school. There was an incident of mass cheating on one of Professor Welle's Contract exams. My brother is one of these people. There are two tiers of law school: The real law school rankings is always in the comments. Go to a real ABA law school. Sorry this ran long. That's what happens when you win … UCF in Orlando offers online bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in addition to graduate certificate programs. Hi, Texan here. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts. And even if you are one of the lucky minority who finds a job, you'll be at the absolute bottom of the pecking order, forever, and your pay will reflect that. degree (or if you are still enrolled in law school but will receive your degree … If you actually just want wanted to tell everyone that this is your plan...okay. Exceptions are affordable public programs for working adults, like UDC, Texas Southern, and Florida A&M - and you should be expecting work more in line with 'small town deeds and wills' and less 'BigLaw'. The degree conferred, admission process, requirements, testing fee, and tuition fee of these law schools are enumerated below. If you're a person of color, be prepared to play the stereotype otherwise you don't exist. It's very simple, really: no matter how badly you want to go, if one of the schools with a rating of 6 in the table above is your only choice, you should not go to law school at this time. Honestly, I'd even consider them before Texas Tech or Houston, depending on the money being offered. So I then applied the logic that, the higher the number of occurences a school gets, the more likely it is that the school is predatory. I am interested in what the OP thinks of Texas A&M, a formerly 4th Tier dump bought from Texas Wesleyan and - based on USNWR ranking alone - is considered a low T2 school. That in itself may sound foolish, and it no doubt was, but I also think this forum in particular and others like it are literally in the 99.9th percentile when it comes to how much we know and think about law school admissions and law job prospects. And I would be shocked if of those 40% anything greater then 20% are able to find a job as a lawyer. If you go/went to Yale, this isn't wrong. Douglas Blatt wanted to go to law school 20 years ago, but life got in the way. Part Five: Attrition Rates and Employment Outcomes, (Edit: this section has been added to the original post at the suggestion of u/mtf612 and u/throwaway1234096). Readjusting perspective can be helpful when considering options. You don’t need a JD to help people. The ABA Standard 509 Report tells you almost anything you might want to know about a given school's application numbers (unfortunately, this does not - but should - include whether it is for-profit or not). Many applicants take a commercial law school preparation course (they’re pricey, but you can ask providers about discounts at law school information fairs). Online bachelor’s in law programs use a distance learning format, and some master’s in law programs offer online options as well. If a '6' school is all you're getting the numbers for right now, don't worry: you can do better. Look up the employment statistics of this online school. Canadian law schools are one of the best in the world. degrees within the past dozen years whether, if they could go back in time to the moment when they decided to attend law school… Obviously these results are skewed. First - your analysis is spot-on, higher up the rankings. Fortunately, there are a number of powerful tools out there for applicants who want to use them. However, Texas—like most other states—allows only ABA-accredited law school … A Case for Studying the Classics in a Pre-Law … You can also structure a successful self-study program using commercial test prep books, free online resources and sample tests offered by Law School … I guess the point to my rambling is, you couldn't be more right about the importance of looking into the inputs as well as the results when evaluating law school options.

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