A new study looks at the average LSAT scores of students with different undergraduate majors, sometimes grouping related fields together to gather a statistically significant sample. (Via.) And the best scores were attained by students studying:
- Physics/Math (160.0)
- Economics (157.4)
- Philosophy/Theology (157.4)
- International Relations (156.5)
- Engineering (156.2)
At the bottom of the list? Prelaw (148.3) and Criminal Justice (146.0).
I’m not one to crow about the superiority of physics with respect to other fields, so I found this more amusing than anything else. Still, that’s a pretty substantial gap between #1 and #2, if you compare to the differences between the lower scores. The obvious explanation: physics and math students get to be really good at taking tests like the LSAT. I don’t imagine this correlates very strongly with “being a good lawyer.” Then again, I don’t think that good scores on the physics GRE correlate very strongly with “being a good physicist,” over and above a certain useful aptitude at being quick-minded.
“I grew up in Queens where you could get a two bedroom apartment not far from the Flushing line for less than $250K, and that was at the peak of the boom.”
No doubt you could and maybe you still can. There’s just one problem. Here’s a typical school in the area you mentioned
http://nces.ed.gov/ccd/schoolsearch/school_detail.asp?Search=1&DistrictID=3600102&SchoolPageNum=2&ID=360010202352
You can call me classist or racist, but I won’t send my children there … Maybe things were better back when you were in school. Certainly not today.
Most lawyers cluster around $35K. Others cluster around $135K, but the air gets very thin very quickly up there.
Your article seems to imply that graduates from T14 and those who graduate at the top 10% of their class stand a far better chance to be in the second cluster, that’s a key component of “Cravath System”. T14 schools produce less then one tenth of all lawyers in the system. The other mode includes people who graduate at the 50th percentile from University of Tulsa.
Back on the topic of LSAT scores vs. majors, I found some data on SAT vs. intended majors. It appears that LSATs and SATs are well correlated:
http://professionals.collegeboard.com/profdownload/Total_Group_Report.pdf
I agree with nameless@30.
If you are considering getting a Ph.d in physics – go to a top ten instituition – graduate degree from anywhere else will be worthless for a later research faculty position. Graduate degree in physics is also completely useless if you have to work in the industry. Better use that time to get a degree in something that will give you some “job-skill” or start working after B.S.
@52 WC
I agree that law is an attractive alternative, regardless of your level (BS, MS, PhD). But I know plenty of PhDs (and several in Physics) who have gotten very lucrative jobs in consulting. Of course I also know of exceptions, too, but hey, I think many industries appreciate people who have spent 5 years learning how to solve problems that nobody has solved before.
” and the other 3 [Physics PhDs] will get exactly the same jobs and exactly the same salaries they could have gotten if they went looking for jobs after getting their B.S. degrees”
Sorry, but this is flat wrong. There are lots of good jobs where you come in ahead of where you’d be with a B.S. and 6 years experience, and having an advanced degree often gives you a much higher ceiling. Maybe your experience is colored because you have an M.S. and that is truly worthless. All you do for an M.S. is retake all your undergrad classes from slightly harder books, while doing a PhD you learn many very valuable skills (especially if you’re an experimentalist).
To break well past the 100K ceiling on a normal career path you should probably get one of the following degrees:
-PhD in Physics, Math, Chemistry, Geology, or any Engineering
-MD
-JD
-MBA
True the PhD (and the MD) take much longer than the others, but the PhD they pay you to get and it’s much more fun while you’re there. Being dept free is worth what, 5–10K a year for 30 years?
Industry jobs with a science PhD look particularly good to me if you measure by salary/hr rather than just yearly salary as highly paid law associates work insane hours.
DW —
Why go get a job? Why not throw out your own shingle in the city you want to practice in and work for yourself? One of the advantages of being a lawyer is that you don’t have to work for someone else, but have the ability to be a solo practitioner and be your own boss.
Sean says: “Another tip: some lawyers don’t have much of a sense of humor. Also some physicists, for that matter. Probably best to stick with chemistry”
There you go again Sean, being part of the precipitate. If you weren’t such a polarizing figure we wouldn’t all have become so hard anodized to your commentary.
I got a 164 the one and only time I took it. My undergraduate degree? Aerospace engineering. I also passed the MPRE and the bar exam on the first try. These tests all test for the same things, things that help make people good scientists, engineers or rigorous analytical thinkers in general.