Online Undergraduate Degrees

[planejane]

I have been reading and reading on the boards here.  I have completed my associates degree in business administration online and I am working on my bachelors degree online as well.  I hope to be done with my bachelors by Christmas.  Anyway, do law schools frown upon online degrees?  My business degree is southern regionally accredited and my bachelors degree is midwest regionally accredited. 

Is it something to disclose when applying?  If this is the case, do I need to look at lower tier schools then?  I was wanting to apply to Georgia, Georgia State, Mercer, Tulane, Florida, Miami, and Stetson for Fall 2005.

Give me some advice please.

Thanks!
Christie

[David Bakody]

Some of my courses at Regis University were online.  Some were on-campus.  In some cases, I was taking on-campus courses at the community college PLUS taking an online course.  It's a mix and match of everything.

I did NOT mention any of this anywhere on my applications.  They didn't ask, I didn't tell.  My degree is legit and was hard earned, and I bet yours was too.

The truth is about 75% of LS decision is going to be based on your LSAT.  I've seen people with 1.9 GPA's and 165 LSAT's get into schools my 3.53 GPA and 151 LSAT wouldn't (and won't) let me even touch.

I wouldn't worry one single bit about your degree being obtained online.

[planejane]

Thanks for the reply.  I would not think so.  If anything, it shows self-discipline and determination.  No where on my diplomas does it say or will it say "online degree".

See ya,
Christie

[jgruber]

I've been taking undergraduate online courses lately and I don't think they schools who offer them distinquish between onsite and online when reporting.

That said, I think there is a wide variety of quality among online schools, even among 'traditional' schools that now offer online courses.

[camelbx]

I think there's a big difference between doing some of your university credit online (and doing most on campus) and going through DeVry or U. of Phoenix. I just can't believe that a law school wouldn't raise its eyebrows at U. of Phoenix.

I posted this somewhere else but its applicable here too. U. of Houston (good 2nd Tier) has a 'ask questions section' of their law school website (called ask shasta) and it has an answer saying something to effect that they would want to know why you have a degree from an online school as opposed to a physical one.

Then again if you get it from a non-DeVry-sounding school they probably wouldn't notice.

Just a thought-- in any case you could e-mail the admissions anonymously and ask.

[planejane]

Can I ask you why you think this way?  A lot of these online schools hold the same regional accreditation as their traditional classroom counterparts.

Just wondering.

See ya,
Christie   

[camelbx]

I guess my feeling about that comes from the barriers to entry. Compare DeVry and U. of Illinois, both are accreditted fully and offer totally legit degrees but one is much harder to get into than the other-- possibly harder to succeed once you're in?(not sure about this) and I have no idea what grade inflation is like at DeVry but my instinct is that its pretty rampant. An "A" from UI may not be like an "A" from DeVry.
On a similar idea-- compare flagship schools to satelites--
how would an adcomm compare a 3.5 at UT-Austin to a 3.5 and UT-Permian Basin (anyone even know where that is? )

disclaimer-- sorry if that came out snooty on the first post-- not intended that way and this is also mostly what i think not a fact-- im no adcomm

EDIT: i thought of this later-- comparing DeVry to UI is like comparing U. of Virginia to Texas Southern U.
Both are accreditted and teach law -- but one piece of paper probably means a lot more than the other.

[andywp8]

isn't permian basin where that guy wrote that book about the high school football team.  He made it sound like the middle of nowhere

[camelbx]

Permian Basin is -- well the basin out in West Texas with lots of oil. look a map of major cities around there-- Odessa, Midland.. and nothing for a good 300 miles, I drove out there a few times, after Ft. Stockton no radio stations (AM or FM) till El Paso.... Ever seen your radio seek button go ALL the way through the dial without finding a single station ?