Pre-Law Preparation
Admission requirements at law schools normally include the completion of a baccalaureate degree program at a regionally accredited institution, a distinguished cum. GPA and a competitive score on the Law School Admission Test (LSAT).
Standards concerning GPA's and LSAT scores vary between schools. Law schools do not specify a particular undergraduate curriculum or major as preparation for a legal education. Legal study draws on many fields of knowledge in the social sciences, natural sciences, and humanities. Potential law students should elect courses sufficiently diverse to acquire the basic ideas and methodologies of a number of disciplines, and to develop their skills of critical analytical thinking and effective written and oral expression. Pre-law advisors are available to help in this process; they assist pre-law students with selecting courses, how to prepare for the LSAT, the law school application process while providing periodic programs and workshops of interest to pre-law students.
WC General Education requirements meet part of the general preparation for law school. Pre-law students should consider taking some of the following courses, either as part of General Education, or as electives.
- Courses marked with a 1: logic, because it is helpful to prepare for the LSAT
- Political science courses, because they prepare students for the study of cases in law school
- Business law because it introduces topics like contracts and torts, philosophy of morality and ethics courses; these are issues central to the profession
- Sociology courses because they explore domestic and global crime and justice issues.