There is no one undergraduate major or program that is “best” preparation for going to law school. Law school admissions officers are unanimous in their advice: find the subject you most love and are best at, and then excel at it. (It helps if the subject you choose includes rigorous training in analytical writing, but that’s a secondary factor.) In recent years, a plurality (but not a majority) of applicants to law school from Catholic University have been Politics majors, followed by History and Business majors, but applicants have majored in just about anything, from Engineering and the natural sciences, to Psychology and Media and Communication Studies, and beyond. Law school admissions officers also emphasize that it is not necessary to seek courses or programs with obvious connections to “law” – learning about the law is what law school is all about, after all, and undergraduate previews of it will get you only a taste of it – but there are options if you want to pursue this.
IMPORTANT: Please be aware that the pre-law advisor is always happy to talk to any student about course choices, but students pursuing any of the options below must consult with the academic advisor of the program in question for specifics: requirements, when particular courses will be scheduled, progress checks, and the like.
If you are especially interested in a major or minor with direct connections to law, our advice is to try out a course or two from the following options and see how simpatico it seems to you:
Politics Pre-Law
You can do this as a track within the Politics major, or as a minor (6 courses).
Advisor: Dr. Justin Litke (litke@cua.edu).
Sample courses:
- POL 220: Introduction to Law and Politics
- POL 323: Constitutional Law I
- POL 324: Constitutional Law II
- POL 407A: The Supreme Court
Philosophy Pre-Law
You can do this only as a track within the Philosophy major.
Advisor: Fr. Ignacio De Ribera-Martín (deriberamartin@cua.edu).
Sample courses:
- PHIL 302: Introductory Logic
- PHIL 333: Natural Right and Natural Law
- PHIL 403: Morality and Law
B.A./J.D. (3+3)
This program makes it possible to complete a B.A. plus a J.D. at Columbus School of Law (Catholic University) in six years. It requires exceptional planning and consultation with advisors from the very beginning (and outstanding academic performance), because it means arranging undergraduate coursework to complete the major requirements in three years. Senior year is also 1L. It requires a student to take the LSAT before or early in the junior year and be accepted by the law school by end of junior year.
There is no formal application process to be admitted to this program. Instead, students interested in it should confer as soon as possible at the beginning of the freshman year with their own (departmental) academic advisors and also the Assistant Dean for Undergraduate Programs in the School of Arts and Sciences (Dr. Lilla Kopár, kopar@cua.edu), to map out a curriculum plan. A student then applies to the Columbus School of Law during the junior year; if admitted, the student can then work with the Assistant Dean to arrange the double-course-credit-counting that the B.A./J.D. entails, or alternatively can decide to continue the undergraduate curriculum to completion and apply to other law schools thereafter.