alternate ideas?

[defeatist]

So I'm a soon-to-be law school graduate from a top 10 school, on track to graduate with honors (GPA ~3.5). I did a 750V/800Q/5.0 on the GRE, and I've apparently completely struck out in the grad school admissions process. I wanted to study public law/theory. What should I do instead?

[hondo19]

Defeatist, If you have a JD from a top school, do you really need a PhD as well? What exactly do you want to do? Teach?

Your GRE is great and the JD should help, so I'm surprised you struck out altogether.

But you shot pretty high. Why not try some places like JHU or WUSTL...just to name few. Still top tier and competitive, but maybe you'd have a better shot. Dunno, though.

The whole thing is really random, honestly.

[rlayla]

So I'm a soon-to-be law school graduate from a top 10 school, on track to graduate with honors (GPA ~3.5). I did a 750V/800Q/5.0 on the GRE, and I've apparently completely struck out in the grad school admissions process. I wanted to study public law/theory. What should I do instead?

uh... be a lawyer?

[jackassjim]

Edited for lack of relevance

[defeatist]

Defeatist, If you have a JD from a top school, do you really need a PhD as well? What exactly do you want to do? Teach?

A JD turns out not to be very good preparation for academia, even legal academia. It's primarily a professional degree, so you end up with ideas about the legal system and the judiciary from an insider's perspective. Reading the opinions of courts on what the powers of courts ought to be is a fun way to spend three years and $150k, but if you want to actually understand the thing, you need some other kind of advanced training, at least in my opinion.

uh... be a lawyer?

I was hoping not to have to do that.

[Penelope Higgins]

You could try the legal academic route: you need one well-placed law review piece, and a second one that you can talk about on interviews. The problem is that you need to find a way to support yourself while you're writing these - but there are various fellowship programs for people going this route (often they teach legal writing to first year law students). The upside: bigger salaries, lower bar for tenure... and you can work on many theory issues in law departments.