College freshmen who end up applying to law school tend to be richer, more self-confident, and have at least one lawyer parent, a study by the Law School Admission Council finds.
These young adults rated themselves higher than the average freshman on academic ability, public speaking, and academic drive, according to the study first reported on by The National Law Journal's Karen Sloan.
LSAC researchers relied on data from the Freshman Survey, which is administered to first-year students at 1,500 institutions of higher academic education.
They looked at answers from 40,000 freshmen who subsequently applied to law school between 2006 and 2009, according to Sloan. LSAC researchers then compared these answers to classmates who didn't go on to apply to law school.
Parents of students who then applied to law school were also much more likely to be highly educated than those of the average freshman.
More than 40 percent report their fathers have advanced degrees and 28 percent say their mothers have them, compared with 23 percent and 18 percent respectively among the rest of first-year college students.
The parents of aspiring lawyers also tend to have more money to pitch in for college.
Half of law school applicants had parents who covered at least $10,000 of expenses during their first year of college, compared to 37 percent of non-law school applicants.
That wealth could come in handy since some law schools charge $50,000 a year.
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