JD to NES

[hopefulJD]

Hello everyone. This is the first time I'm posting in the forum. i've been a regular follower and have found this site really useful. Thank you in advance for your input.

I will be a 3L in law school next year. While I love studying law, I've come to realize that my interests in the legal field is purely academic instead of professional. I don't regret spending money to go to law school since, as I've said, I have enjoyed my experience as a law student and my research interests have a lot to do with the law.

I am going to be applying to Near Eastern PhD programs next fall. My research interests lie within the study of Middle Eastern legal structures. I know this is very broad and I will be narrowing it down. But I just wanted to let you all know of where I stood in terms of my interests.

I am a native speaker of a Middle Eastern language and fluent in another. My research interests would most likely focus on countries whose languages I already know. I have also worked, lived, and traveled extensively in one of the countries I am interested in. I'm wondering how much language plays a role in doctoral admissions to area studies programs. A friend told me it wouldn't give me much of a boost and that admission are based largely on quantitative factors much like law school admissions. However, as far as I understand from these forums, this is far from reality. Would language ability give me a boost?

Also, would a JD be looked down upon for NES admissions? I know a number of JD's pursuing PhD's in history and polisci but not many go onto interdisciplinary programs like NES. I am top 15% at a solid regional school. My combined GRE score is 1410. The only thing I'm worried about is my lowly undergraduate GPA (3.45).

Any advice is much appreciated. Also, any recommendations as to which school to look into would also be very welcome. As a note, I'm not interested in MA programs. I realize these programs are rarely fully funded and I just don't like the idea of taking on more debt.

Thank you in advance!

[samarkand]

Nothing is particularly "looked down upon" by NES admissions. You constitute a package as an applicant, and professors might see your attainment of a JD as a welcome addition to their interdisciplinary program. They might also see it as a hindrance, but this is all dependent on the person who ends up examining your app.

Languages play a major role in admissions, this is certain. You're expected to enter the program able to read in the languages of the discipline - otherwise professors know that you'll spend most of your time linguistically occupied, rather than being theoretically occupied - and distractions such as these are never welcome in programs that promise to produce stellar theoretical (and of course philological - but this assumes prior knowledge of language) scholars.

Now your GRE and GPA should be the last thing on your mind, since it seems that both are good. Focus on the more important aspects of the app - your writing sample, proposal, and CV. These are the most important items.

As for schools to look into, that is for you to research and figure out. I'm very bothered by the amount of applicants on this forum that continuously ask for potential schools. As a potential doctoral or masters student, one should have the skills and forethought to research and answer these questions alone.

As for programs being rarely funded, that's false. As a PhD student in the humanities, you should be fully funded. This isn't the case for Masters however.

[doxie-chan]

Hey there! It's good to see someone in a similar position. I will be starting my final year of law school/MA in Japanese Studies in the fall, and am applying for Japanese Studies doctoral programs for next year.

From everything I have heard from advisors/profs/etc., what the previous poster says is dead-on. That said, I wonder if it might be a good idea to at least consider an MA before starting a PhD program. I realize that you indicated you are not interested in MA because of the debt issue, but humor me for a minute. "Middle Eastern Legal Structures" is super super vague (and I'm sure you know that). MA programs are outstanding for firming up research goals/plans, as well as putting you in contact with people who are going to write good LOR's. In an application process that values SOP's, LOR's, and other less tangible parts of the application over things like test scores (which is a crazy concept, after going through law admissions...), getting all of those things from an MA could be really important. It's awesome and enviable that you have solid language skills, but without a pretty firm statement of purpose and letters of recommendation to back it up, I don't know how far it will go.

Maybe your law school has some sort of dual degree that it's not too late to sign up for? My law school made it very easy for me to pursue both degrees at once, and I am optimistic it will pay off in applications. Alternatively, funded MA programs do exist, it might just take a little more legwork. Plus, if the MA gets you into a fantastic fully-funded PhD program instead of a not-so-great and not-fully-funded program, you will save money in the long run.

Anyway, this is just my 2 cents, and obviously I haven't been accepted to any doctoral programs yet, so I could be completely wrong! But if you haven't firmed up your research goals or figured out what schools to look at yet this close to applications, my intuition tells me an MA might be the best bet.

Good luck!

[hopefulJD]

Doxie-chan,

Thank you for the advice! After giving it further thought, I have, in fact, come to that same conclusion. I don't think I'm ready for a PhD program yet. I need to hone my research interests and get used to writing graduate school style papers, instead of law school. I just hope it pays off!