Thoughts on a dual JD/MA program?

[Deadpool]

12 minutes ago, LegalPerson said:

An assumption that would follow from the abstract meaning of the quoted post but not in its context. It's quite obvious to me that the (original) claim wouldn't have extended to, say, musicology or French. That much I read from the context, as I assume anyone reading it charitably would.

If this discussion was simply a result of that initial mistake, then I suppose it can now be laid to rest!

Also lmao at "law-adjective". Damn my autocorrect!

You are taking this way too personally. We get it. You are a philosophy major and disagree with some of the things said here, and thought this discussion centered around this specific topic, when others may not have. @Benwas flipping between using the words legal academia and academic humanities and academic job market, that I reasonably presumed that they meant the latter. It would have been helpful to clarify this discussion from the very beginning. There is no need to stoop to childish banter now. Calling people out for "amnesia" and auto-correct mistakes on an internet forum is petty and takes away from the otherwise valid points you have made. Stick to the discussion at hand. 

Edited November 20, 2021 by Deadpool

[LegalPerson]

3 minutes ago, Deadpool said:

You are taking this way too personally. We get it. You are a philosophy major and disagree with some of the things said here, and thought this discussion centered around this specific topic, when others may not have. @Benwas flipping between using the words legal academia and academic humanities and academic job market, that I reasonably presumed that they meant the latter. It would have been helpful to clarify this discussion from the very beginning. There is no need to stoop to childish banter now. Calling people out for "amnesia" and auto-correct mistakes on an internet forum is petty and takes away from the otherwise valid points you have made. Stick to the discussion at hand. 

Spoiler: I'm not a philosophy major.

Also the autocorrect mistake was mine, not yours lol. Didn't you notice? You were the one quoting me. Who's taking it personally?

Frankly, why should I be surprised. You haven't taken the time to carefully read anything else that has been written so far...

Edited November 20, 2021 by LegalPerson

[Deadpool]

1 minute ago, LegalPerson said:

Spoiler: I'm not a philosophy major.

Also the autocorrect mistake was mine, not yours lol. Didn't you notice? You were the one quoting me. Who's taking it personally?

Frankly, why should I be surprised. You haven't taken the time to carefully read anything else that has been written so far...

The auto-correct mistake was mine which you quoted. I'm done having this conversation with you on a Friday night. Keep up this attitude. I'm sure it'll do wonders for you in the legal profession. 

[LegalPerson]

5 minutes ago, Deadpool said:

The auto-correct mistake was mine which you quoted. I'm done having this conversation with you on a Friday night. Keep up this attitude. I'm sure it'll do wonders for you in the legal profession. 

Lmao it was mine! You quoted my autocorrect mistake! Don't steal my credit.

You literally just have to go back to look at my post that you quoted. You were the one making fun of MY autocorrect. Ughhh

Edited November 20, 2021 by LegalPerson

[mistertubby]

16 minutes ago, lolnodude said:

My observation as someone with a UofT JD and MSc who worked a ton of PhDs has been that the quality of the students at UofT law (and difficulty getting in) is absolutely higher than the students in science PhD programs.

science PhDs just serve to collect the med school rejects

[BlockedQuebecois]

I never thought I would have to settle an argument about who gets credit for making a typo, but it’s definitely @Deadpool.

Edited November 20, 2021 by BlockedQuebecois

[LegalPerson]

7 minutes ago, BlockedQuebecois said:

I never thought I would have to settle an argument about who gets credit for the typo, but it’s definitely @Deadpool.

Well, I'm guessing you weren't there to see the typo in action, so I can't blame you.

Notice the "Damn MY autocorrect" in the following post, after it was corrected in the original

Edited November 20, 2021 by LegalPerson

[Rashabon]

6 hours ago, johnny.rahmbo said:

Fair enough - as someone who once explored the potential route of OP (re JD/MA) i thought i would give my two cents based on what i was told by those who advised me once upon a time (i.e., undergraduate Professors and administrators). I also literally said the exact same thing as Deadpool regarding a JD/MA (Econ). So clearly i'm not so disconnected that my perspective is useless. I nevertheless understand where you're coming from. 

I didn't disagree with your take about an MA in Econ being useful for becoming an antitrust/competition lawyer, but that's largely the only MA that might benefit you in legal jobs. An MBA would be a benefit. All the others are purely of personal interest, vis a vis jobs as a lawyer.

[Deadpool]

19 minutes ago, LegalPerson said:

Well, I'm guessing you weren't there to see the typo in action, so I can't blame you.

Notice the "Damn MY autocorrect" in the following post, after it was corrected in the original

...

An assumption that would follow from the abstract meaning of the quoted post but not in its context. It's quite obvious to me that the (original) claim wouldn't have extended to, say, musicology or French. That much I read from the context, as I assume anyone reading it charitably would.

If this discussion was simply a result of that initial mistake, then I suppose it can now be laid to rest!

Also lmao at "law-adjective". Damn my autocorrect!

Alright, let's put this to rest. I quoted Ben, not you. Secondly, the last edit on your post was 5 minutes before I edited my original post to correct the "law adjective" (which you had quoted) to "law-adjacent".  

Good game. I enjoyed this friendly back and forth. It's been a while since a law student on here has debated with me like this. Cheers.

Edited November 20, 2021 by Deadpool

[GGrievous]

34 minutes ago, Deadpool said:

I'm done having this conversation with you on a Friday night.

Please though? I don't want to study for midterms. 

[Rashabon]

2 hours ago, LegalPerson said:

Lmao philosophy is not competitive? The acceptance rates at top-15-20 programs (the only ones worth going to if you want a job) range typically range from 2-5%. U of T's philosophy PhD acceptance rate last cycle was about 2.4% (with about 470 applicants). U of T law's acceptance rate was almost 5x higher than that. Most admitted students in philosophy have an undergrad GPA over 3.9 (which is much more difficult in philosophy as compared to, say, political science or commerce) and GREs in the high 160s (philosophy majors have the highest GRE scores). Moreover, those stats are considered necessary but not even close to sufficient, as the most important factor is the writing sample, which must be graduate-level if you want to have a shot at admission.

 

Who said anything about law school admission? The discussion was about appellate/SCC clerkship. Nobody was arguing that a JD program is more difficult to get into than a difficult PhD program.

[Deadpool]

Just now, Barry said:

Please though? I don't want to study for midterms. 

I stopped watching Wheel of Time for this so have to get back and finish it, lol. 

[LegalPerson]

5 minutes ago, Deadpool said:

Alright, let's put this to rest. I quoted Ben, not you. Secondly, the last edit on your post was 5 minutes before I edited my original post to correct the "law adjective" (which you had quoted) to "law-adjacent".  

Good game. I enjoyed this friendly back and forth. It's been a while since a law student on here has debated with me like this. Cheers.

My last edit was 26 mins ago (concerning something else) so I'm not sure where you're getting that info from

[Rashabon]

39 minutes ago, LegalPerson said:

Spoiler: I'm not a philosophy major.

Also the autocorrect mistake was mine, not yours lol. Didn't you notice? You were the one quoting me. Who's taking it personally?

Frankly, why should I be surprised. You haven't taken the time to carefully read anything else that has been written so far...

So your reference to getting into a top philosophy program was to...undergrad? Your spoiler doesn't act as the gotcha you think it does when you were noting your expertise in the field because you were admitted to a philosophy undergraduate degree (that you did not, apparently, pursue).

[LegalPerson]

6 minutes ago, Rashabon said:

Who said anything about law school admission? The discussion was about appellate/SCC clerkship. Nobody was arguing that a JD program is more difficult to get into than a difficult PhD program.

Read the quoted comment. It said that philosophy isn't competitive. The comment you quoted was solely in relation to that

4 minutes ago, Rashabon said:

So your reference to getting into a top philosophy program was to...undergrad? Your spoiler doesn't act as the gotcha you think it does when you were noting your expertise in the field because you were admitted to a philosophy undergraduate degree (that you did not, apparently, pursue).

Are you really this bad at reading? I never said that either. For reference, I'm in a philosophy PhD program

Should I just go ahead and assume that your only purpose here is to score points (and fail at doing it)?

Edited November 20, 2021 by LegalPerson

[Hegdis]

As the admin I can see edit history. And I kind of hate you all for making me tap into this. As punishment, I am not going to tell you that @Deadpoolwon even though he did. 

[Rashabon]

11 minutes ago, LegalPerson said:

Read the quoted comment. It said that philosophy isn't competitive. The comment you quoted was solely in relation to that

Are you really this bad at reading? I never said that either. For reference, I'm in a philosophy PhD program

Except that Deadpool's post wasn't saying it wasn't competitive in relation to law school, which is what you said. He was speaking in comparison to other PhD programs. You may want to re-read it. I've helpfully quoted it for you. Feel free to explain why JD admissions in comparison to philosophy PhD admissions has anything to do with their post:

Quote

I think we need to clarify what you mean by strong PhD programs. And in what fields specifically. There are people that get PhDs from York in the humanities field and teach at Osgoode; and these PhD programs are not particularly difficult to get into, last time I checked. When you talk about strong PhD programs, are you referring to those being offered at schools like Oxbridge, ivy league, etc., or ones at Canadian schools. Some programs like psychology are really competitive, while others like philosophy or political science are not.

For your post to have any meaning, you'd have to compare philosophy PhD admissions to Psychology PhD admissions, for example. I don't know enough about PhD admissions to know if Deadpool is accurate, but I do not enough to know your post was tilting at a strawman.

You got me on the second point I guess - pedantic in my opinion to say you're not a Philosophy major while pursuing a PhD but whatever.

The conversation has strayed pretty far from its original aims but I think the original thesis still stands that getting an SCC clerkship is much tougher than getting into a PhD program. For example, you exist.

Edited November 20, 2021 by Rashabon

[LegalPerson]

2 minutes ago, Rashabon said:

Except that Deadpool's post wasn't saying it wasn't competitive in relation to law school, which is what you said. He was speaking in comparison to other PhD programs. You may want to re-read it. I've helpfully quoted it for you. Feel free to explain why JD admissions in comparison to philosophy PhD admissions has anything to do with their post:

For your post to have any meaning, you'd have to compare philosophy PhD admissions to Psychology PhD admissions, for example. I don't know enough about PhD admissions to know if Deadpool is accurate, but I do not enough to know your post was tilting at a strawman.

You got me on the second point I guess - pedantic in my opinion to say you're not a Philosophy major while pursuing a PhD but whatever.

The conversation has strayed pretty far from its original aims but I think the original thesis still stands that getting an SCC clerkship is much tougher than getting into a PhD program. For example, you exist.

He said that getting into a philosophy PhD is not competitive. I showed that it is more difficult to get into (on some plausible assumptions about the quality of candidates) by comparing it to law school admissions, which are presumably difficult. How do you not see that? Your quip about me being dumb doesn't mean much when you lack such basic reasoning skills.

Also, jokes on you. See you at the SCC!

[Deadpool]

3 minutes ago, Rashabon said:

Except that Deadpool's post wasn't saying it wasn't competitive in relation to law school, which is what you said. He was speaking in comparison to other PhD programs. You may want to re-read it. I've helpfully quoted it for you. Feel free to explain why JD admissions in comparison to philosophy PhD admissions has anything to do with their post:

For your post to have any meaning, you'd have to compare philosophy PhD admissions to Psychology PhD admissions, for example. I don't know enough about PhD admissions to know if Deadpool is accurate, but I do not enough to know your post was tilting at a strawman.

You got me on the second point I guess - pedantic in my opinion to say you're not a Philosophy major while pursuing a PhD but whatever.

The conversation has strayed pretty far from its original aims but I think the original thesis still stands that getting an SCC clerkship is much tougher than getting into a PhD program. For example, you exist.

Thanks. I differentiated psychology programs as many of them are more difficult to get into than even medical school, particularly those focusing on clinical psychology. When I mentioned philosophy, political science, etc., I just threw a couple of examples of programs that are less competitive to get into in comparison, but I admitted later that philosophy and economics are more rigorous programs and are competitive to get into. I was not singling out philosophy specifically, and did not intend for this one statement to trigger the fallout that has happened with posters like @LegalPerson. They chose to focus on the philosophy comment, but not the political science or psychology programs I mentioned.

My general statement is that PhD programs for the most part are not as competitive to get into as appellate and SCC clerkships. What is bizarre is that all the lawyers here agree with this statement, but many of the law students do not. Hence, this downward spiralling debate. 

[Rashabon]

10 minutes ago, LegalPerson said:

He said that getting into a philosophy PhD is not competitive. I showed that it is more difficult to get into (on some plausible assumptions about the quality of candidates) by comparing it to law school admissions, which are presumably difficult. How do you not see that? Your quip about me being dumb doesn't mean much when you lack such basic reasoning skills.

Also, jokes on you. See you at the SCC!

Again, they did not say philosophy programs were not competitive to get into in a vacuum. It was a comparative statement, not a declaration of ultimate tiers.

So again, I do not see your point, because your point is a strawman and worthless. You're welcome to think I lack reasoning skills (I'm far past giving a shit about academics - I graduated with honours and left that behind long ago) but you actually lack basic reading comprehension since you've missed the obvious point here which I am now repeating. I'll do it once more:

Deadpool's post was not saying philosophy programs are not "competitive" period. They are a smart person - they weren't claiming getting into George Brown for basket weaving or whatever was on par with getting into a philosophy program (the logical extension of your apparent read of their post). Deadpool was saying it in relation to other PhD programs.

They have since clarified their position, so I'll let that stand for the record, but your inability to read contextual clues is impressive.

Edited November 20, 2021 by Rashabon

[LegalPerson]

1 minute ago, Deadpool said:

Thanks. I differentiated psychology programs as many of them are more difficult to get into than even medical school, particularly those focusing on clinical psychology. When I mentioned philosophy, political science, etc., I just threw a couple of examples of programs that are less competitive to get into in comparison, but I admitted later that philosophy and economics are more rigorous programs and are competitive to get into. I was not singling out philosophy specifically, and did not intend for this one statement to trigger the fallout that has happened with posters like @LegalPerson. They chose to focus on the philosophy comment, but not the political science or psychology programs I mentioned.

My general statement is that PhD programs for the most part are not as competitive to get into as appellate and SCC clerkships. What is bizarre is that all the lawyers here agree with this statement, but many of the law students do not. Hence, this downward spiralling debate. 

Yeah I appreciate your admission. That does show some character. My most recent comments were directed purely at Rashabon. But also, I'm not sure how being a lawyer is relevant to your knowledge of the competitiveness of SCC clerkships vs PhD programs. In fact, my assumption would be that people like me, being directly involved in both process (which, again, I'm assuming none of you can say), would have a better vantage point. I stand to be corrected if anyone has better info, or if people similarly situated disagree

Just now, Rashabon said:

Again, they did not say philosophy programs were not competitive to get into in a vacuum. It was a comparative statement, not a declaration of ultimate tiers.

So again, I do not see your point, because your point is a strawman and worthless. You're welcome to think I lack reasoning skills (I'm far past giving a shit about academics - I graduated with honours and left that behind long ago) but you actually lack basic reading comprehension since you've missed the obvious point here which I am now repeating. I'll do it once more:

Deadpool's post was not saying philosophy programs are not "competitive" period. They are a smart person - they weren't claiming getting into George Brown for basket weaving or whatever was on par with getting into a philosophy program (the logical extension of your apparent read of their post). Deadpool was saying it in relation to other PhD programs.

They have since clarified their position, so I'll let that stand for the record, but your inability to read contextual clues is impressive.

The irony is that you may be right about my failure to initially read the context, but this is just hilarious coming from you and Deadpool, given the history of this thread up to now

[Rashabon]

I don't see any irony on my part here. You misread their post entirely and went off on a tangent because of it and I pointed it out and it took me repeating it slowly for you multiple times for it to finally click, despite firing off a string of smug posts reiterating that you failed to grasp their statement. Perhaps that's the irony you meant to identify kiddo.

[LegalPerson]

1 minute ago, Rashabon said:

I don't see any irony on my part here. You misread their post entirely and went off on a tangent because of it and I pointed it out and it took me repeating it slowly for you multiple times for it to finally click, despite firing off a string of smug posts reiterating that you failed to grasp their statement. Perhaps that's the irony you meant to identify kiddo.

Oh I still disagree with your interpretation, but I don't think it's totally unreasonable. Whereas you joined in this thread and immediately started putting words into my mouth with reckless abandon

5 minutes ago, Rashabon said:

I don't see any irony on my part here. You misread their post entirely and went off on a tangent because of it and I pointed it out and it took me repeating it slowly for you multiple times for it to finally click, despite firing off a string of smug posts reiterating that you failed to grasp their statement. Perhaps that's the irony you meant to identify kiddo.

Also I love the "kiddo". It's funny imagining some dude on the other side imagining that he's older and wiser than me

[Pendragon]

14 minutes ago, LegalPerson said:

But also, I'm not sure how being a lawyer is relevant to your knowledge of the competitiveness of SCC clerkships vs PhD programs. In fact, my assumption would be that people like me, being directly involved in both process (which, again, I'm assuming none of you can say), would have a better vantage point. I stand to be corrected if anyone has better info, or if people similarly situated disagree

Are you referring to PhD in philosophy programs vs. SCC clerkships, or PhDs in general vs. SCC clerkships? If the former, are you referring to PhD in philosophy at certain schools or all schools? 

[LegalPerson]

5 minutes ago, Pendragon said:

Are you referring to PhD in philosophy programs vs. SCC clerkships, or PhDs in general vs. SCC clerkships? If the former, are you referring to PhD in philosophy at certain schools or all schools? 

If you read the whole thread, you'll see that it concerned humanities PhDs at top programs. I focused on philosophy because 1) I'm most familiar with it and 2) it was specifically mentioned as an "uncompetitive" field (possibly only compared to SCC clerkships)

Edited November 20, 2021 by LegalPerson