Transferring into JD/MBA programs as a 1L

i would honestly only pick one in your case. Companies are going to be wary of your JD because they will think you want to be an attorney. Law firms will view an MBA as a waste of time.

Thanks for the input. I'm planning on taking the GMAT in late March so it will be too late to apply to any of the joint programs. I'm considering applying to SBS, HBS and potentially Columbia if I score over a 700. If I get in and attend one of these MBA programs, what is the likelihood of being admitted to the law school as a first year MBA assuming said law school rejects me this cycle?

Without knowing your stats (LSAT, GPA, etc), it's impossible to say if you would be accepted in to one of those law schools. Those are top law schools that are extremely competitive to get in to - even candidates with extremely high LSAT/GPAs are regularly rejected. If you have been previously dinged, something would need to change in your application for those schools to accept you...

170, 3.65 and assume I get rejected this cycle.

This is a fairly unique situation. Have you considered talking to an admissions consultant?

Your GPA is low for Harvard and Stanford. Your LSAT is also on the low side for Harvard and Columbia. Those are reach schools, but you never know (especially if you have something that will really add to your application... like if you are minority). A 170 is a great score, but you may want to consider retaking if you are set on attending one of those three schools and aren't accepted this cycle. I found lawschoolnumbers and top-law-schools (websites) to be helpful during the application cycle. Good luck.

You cannot predict MBA admissions based on GPA and GMAT scores alone. B-schools like to look at the full profile of students. There are many unpredictable factors that determine who gets into a B-school and who doesn't.

My view is that if you are already in the law school of a university, and apply to the university's B-school, they are more likely to select you over similarly qualified applicants, because you are already a student of the university.

1) Personally I think your GPA/LSAT qualify you for all programs from 1-14 but keep in mind the Top 14 (in law it's the Top 14, btw) see plenty of kids with your scores. That said, law schools rely much more heavily on LSAT + GPA and are more open to people on the K-JD program. However, they are trying to move away from that model, so the less WE you have, the better your scores will have to be. I was 23 when I went to LS and I can say that nearly everyone who was on the younger side of proto-piranha had some sort of orphan deworming/lemur protection society/non-profit making handknit hats for disabled kittens type background (I worked for the Dems during the disastrous 2000 elections). Originally I thought I was going to be the only one who had committed to a year worth of public servic but I had classmates who had been in Afghanistan, teaching in inner-city classrooms...pretty much all forms of humanitarian work. If you're on the junior side, I'd set to do-gooding if you want to be able to compete with all the other Harvard-law bound 175/3.95 kids who spent the summer parked on the hillsides of Mt. Everest handing out Gatorade to overburdened sherpas. I mean, I'm joshing here but you do kind of have to prove to LS why you want to go there-I liken LS to the military of professional schools-people think they want to go there because they don't know what else to do with their lives and LS are very sensitive to that. Oftentimes the right amount of slaving for low wages actually puts you in a position where you can see how deeply the law can affect people/causes (and can help develop the right frame of mind to be able to explain "why LS"). All I'm saying is, paralegaling for a firm is not going to cut it for Harvard/Columbia etc. unless you have a really compelling story beyond "scores". Non-profitesque work seems to be the biggest story but I also met a lof entreprenurs, theatre kids (the dramaturg ended up winning moot court), engineers, minor sports stars etc. If you want to go to HLS/Columbia etc., you either need a 180/4.0 or r. scores + interesting essay.

2) Business schools, however, require significantly more work experience than law schools and I've noticed that the pursuit of filthy lucre is okay with them. That said, if you have less than 4-5 years WE, then I think score-wise, you probably stand a better chance of getting into LS and then applying for the b-school wherever you end up.

3) I'm just going to go ahead and say that a non-Harvard/Stanford/Wharton law school will never ever let you just gad off to H/S/W to do the MBA in conjunction with their law degree unless those schools have a special agreement with another university the way MIT lets you do an MPA (or whatever) at the Kennedy School or you work out some sort of special deal with them. As I said, you should get into a LS where you also like the business school. With your scores, I would also seriously consider Northwestern. It's a Top 14 with a highly ranked b-school. Other programs you might be interested in would include Michigan (though keep in mind that their law school is bloody incredible and you're going to need a good story apart from your scores), UCLA, NYU, Duke and Cornell. Probably the crazy top LS programs with good B-schools would be H/S/W of course, but also UChicago and Columbia. I would consider these "reach" because both the JD and MBA programs are extremely tough to get into.

4) You should have a really good reason for wanting both these degrees. First because you don't want to look like a degree collector and second because I can attest to law school being extremey rigourous. I mean, now I look back on it with sort of these hazy, fond memories but if I dig under the complacency I remembe how awful it was at times. First, unlike b-school,they don't have grade collusion and as I mentioned in my first post, they can have BRUTAL curves. I went to a B/B- curve school. The assumption is that the lower you get in the ratings that the worse the curve is-and to some extent, that's true as the Tier 2 schools and below really don't want you switching out. That said, UChicago and Georgetown are both highly ranked and it seems like everyone I know from there complains about the brutal grading. OCI is very difficult unless you beat the curve in the majority of your classes because you have to declare grades.

Good luck. My perspective from the lawyer-transitioning-to-finance path is to put your eggs in the MBA basket unless you a) really want to practice law or b) and if you want to practice law, just get the law degree. Put some research into the practice-I know a lot of miserable lawyers who thought the practice of law was going to be lot different. Most of the value in my law degree and experience in terms of business is the 5 years that I've practiced.

My knee-jerk reaction is that I can see why someone would want the law degree after working for a while with an MBA, or I can see why an attorney would want an MBA but I don't necessarily get why someone would want to do both at once and I think the chances of getting into any JD/MBA program (if you make the baseline scores) hinge on having a really really good answer for that.

Nice post mufee.

Advanced apologies for asking my own question here, but does work experience have significant weight in LS admissions process?

I'm considering law schools along with B-schools, because I work in distressed debt environment, and a lot of my seniors actually have JD/MBAs or JDs. So, while I'm not concerned about my reason to pursue LS, my 3.55 GPA isn't all that stellar for a T-14 law school.

Also, how do law schools compare GPAs from different undergrad schools? There are significant grading differences across schools/majors so I'm not sure how can two GPAs be compared.

levfin: yes, I think they absolutely do count work experience/essays/recommendations but my impression from going through both processes is that b-schools are more generous in this regard. Law schools place a heavy emphasis on some formula they came up with using GPA + LSAT. However, I actually think your GPA is fine for most of the schools in the Top 14 outside of H/S/Y/C etc., if you had a really awesome GMAT score + discussed your work experience well and connected it to your goals. I have no idea where you went but I think even law schools understand that you aren't going to be pulling a 3.8 at UChicago or MIT or other schools that grade low.

Let me just put it this way-they're going to be seeing a bunch of young 20-somethings so if you have 2+ years of work experience, it's points in your favour.

Also, can I just say this? I know it's $200 or whatever for the apps but seriously, just try and don't let obsession with scores hold you back if you can make an impassioned plea for why you want to go there! I was so nervous about my bad undergrad GPA that I only applied to schools from 25-50. I'm perfectly happy with my law school, it's one of those Big 10 schools that's always ranked somewhere in the Top 25 but occasionally gets hit with a 27 or whatever-but I got into a school that has an average 3.7 GPA with a 3.09 (had a high LSAT however). A few years later a friend of mine applied to Northwestern with practically the same story and got in.

I am sure that people have awesome reasons why they might want an MD/JD, MD/MBA, JD/MBA at the same time. Just remember that you have to answer the "why" because these are all difficult programs and the first impression will be that you are a degree collector.

I have a similar question, but did not want to start a new thread to ask it so I figured this would be a good place. I've been accepted to both the JD and MBA programs of a school ranked in the 15-25 range in both. I'm trying to gage the possibility of transferring up after the first year, but am obviously worried about my chances of getting into the MBA portion of whatever school I want to transfer to (Duke, Northwestern, Penn) regardless of my performance in first year law.

Does anyone know how that would work? Would my performance in law school, if among the top of my class, improve my chances of being accepted by a top tier business school?

As someone with admits to UVA, UCLA, Michigan, and GULC, I am strongly considering the JD/MBA (also considering just the MBA as 3 years at law school in this corporate law environment scares me).

I know that transferring into a T14 from a T25 requires a pretty solid 1L year. Into a T14 from a lower tier 1 or a "good" tier 2 requires a stellar 1L year. From a TTT into a T14, you'd need to crush it (top in your 1L class-level).

Since most MBA programs start in the 2L year, you'd just be applying to the law school as a transfer and then to the MBA program as any other student.

Right, but my question from there would be: How is your first year of law school viewed by MBA programs? If you excel in law school, does that enhance your chance of being admitted to business school (elsewhere) or will they simply look at your work experience and GMAT score before law school?

I doubt it. I mean it shows you can excel in an academic environment, so that's something. But I doubt it'd be viewed differently than doing well in a master's of history program and then applying for an MBA.

Make up your mind what you want to do. I didn't know what I wanted after an Ivy B.s. in applied mathematics, so I went to a T10 law school. Boy, I hated every person there. Now, I've been practicing for over a year. All I can say is I hate everyone in the legal profession. I now realize that I am actually cut out for finance. I think JD/MBA is a complete waste. If you want to be a lawyer, just go for a JD, and vice versa for MBA. For now, if you are not sure what you really want to do, work for a couple of years and then decide. Rushing into a JD is the worst decision I've ever made, no matter if it's a T20 or T10 school.