Law school and grad school - how bad are they really?

I wouldn't do either course, frankly. Other posters are correct that the legal job market is somewhat awful right now, and the academic job market has been awful for years. It's not clear from your post what you want to do with a philosophy graduate degree. Frankly, there's not much of a job market for one. One of the greatest fallacies I see repeated, especially here on AskMe, is that education is good because it's education. That doesn't really follow; education is good when it provides you a set of skills that a future employer wants. Given that the two job markets to which your proposed degrees would be relevant are both awful it is not clear that pursuing this educational path will give you a skill set that employers want.

Grad school is 15% learning and at least 70% being socialized into the discipline that you're studying. If you're trying to go for education's sake exclusively with no intentions of becoming an academic, you're going to have to deal with a lot of {often painful) socialization for nothing.

You think a philosophy undergrad degree doesn't really qualify you for many positions besides grad school? Try a PhD in philosophy when not only do you come up against the stigma of "what can you really do with a philosophy degree?" but also the added stigma of being perceived as too overqualified because you have a PhD. Grad studies in the humanities: just say no.

If you're not already on that track, you ain't gonna get there. Whoa... That is not a given. The OP could get into a top law school, get on law review, get an appellate clerkship, and do the other things necessary to have a shot at being a law prof. It's unlikely (lots of people are trying to do all those things, and few people accomplish all of them), but it's not predetermined before you go to law school.

Kwine, I don't entirely understand the problem you have with me. I love philosophy. I find it deeply meaningful and fulfilling, and I derive great satisfaction from studying it. I would like nothing more than to spend 5-6 years in graduate school before getting a job teaching philosophy for the rest of my life. But I'm also realistic. I know that there are more people who would like to teach philosophy than there are jobs teaching philosophy. I also know that there are other people who like philosophy just as much as I do who will be gunning for those same jobs, and who may be better candidates for those jobs than I will. There is, thus, a possibility that I could go to graduate school in philosophy and yet be unable to find a teaching job. I recognize this, and--though I would like nothing more than to teach philosophy--I am ok with it. I could do something else with my life without feeling like a failure or sinking into depression. This strikes me as a healthy attitude. Certainly healthier than the "TENURE TRACK AT A RESEARCH UNIVERSITY/IVY LEAGUE OR BUST!" mentality. I find it curious that you've read so much into me as a person from my one post, and have, based on your interpretation, written such a strongly-worded post. If you're saying the only proper and appropriately respectful attitude to have towards graduate study in philosophy is a deranged obsession then no, it's probably not a good fit for me. But I don't see how you can infer anything about my level of commitment, intelligence, etc. from my post. All I said was that I'm not going to risk borrowing money for a PhD when the job prospects are so weak and that I could live a happy life if I got a PhD and was then unable to find a teaching position. If those are deemed unsavory attitudes then academia has become grotesque indeed.

A degree in philosophy doesn’t immediately qualify you for anything specific Neither do most undergrad degrees. This is not a good reason to go to grad school immediately after college. In fact, it is a very bad reason to go to grad school immediately after college. Loving a subject isn't enough to sustain you through a doctoral program: if you don't have a clear sense of why you're there and what your end-goals are, you'll very likely burn out. Do a lot more thinking about what you'll do during and after your PhD program. Talk to students in the programs you're interested in. Ask them what they did between undergrad and grad school, and what they plan to do after grad school. Having majored in a similar, shall we say, impractical humanities subject, I'd strongly urge you to explore all of your (many) options before thinking your only path is grad school in philosophy or law school. Generally, there's very little risk in getting some real world experience before pursuing graduate school (and some admissions committees prefer applicants who aren't just out of undergrad), and there's absolutely no shame in taking an entry-level office job or waiting tables or teaching abroad while you figure things out.

I dunno, I can kinda see where you're coming from; I went to law school simply because I had visited a friend at law school, thought the whole idea was awesome, got bored of being a journalist and decided to try out law school because it sounded fun. I fell in love with criminal law after my second year and now I'm very happy as a criminal defense attorney. So you really can get into law school simply because you like the idea of it ... but you'd better be flexible and able to choose a specialty once you're here, because eventually law school will get pretty stale. (I could hardly stand school my third year. I just wanted to get out into the world.)

I understand that things are bad now if your plan is . . . "go to law school, get a job at Big Law in NY/DC." Things are bad now, and will be bad for years to come, if your plan is to go to law school and get a job as a lawyer at any type of firm anywhere in the United States or abroad. My thinking is that I would prefer to go to a school slightly below my statistical level and get some scholarship money rather than stretch myself to go to a T-15 school where I’d be borrowing 100k Lower-ranked law schools often tend to be more expensive than higher-ranked schools, not less expensive. And 100k total costs for three years of law school is a pipe dream. Don't go to law school just for the fun of it unless you have unlimited time and unlimited money at your disposal. Law school is fun, yes. But you can study torts and whatnot all day long for free if you're the sort of person who has money to burn and nothing better to do for three years than have fun reading and stressing out. Outside the top 14 you'd face an extremely bad job market. Inside the top 14, you'd face an extremely bad job market, too. If you graduated in the top 10% of your class from one of the top 5 schools in the country, you'd face an extremely bad job market.

The virtue of grad school over law school is that it's free -- or should be; if you don't get fellowships and TAships you absolutely should not go. And you've got a good attitude about it: you just want to study for a few more years, and don't have your heart set on becoming a professor at all, let alone a Fancy one. The downside, in addition to what pised said, is that you're then spending several years doing something not career related. You're not getting into debt, but you're delaying the beginning of proper income and training. (And, on what pised said, go http://philosophysmoker.blogspot.com/ for a taste of the bitter.) Bear in mind, too, that it's as hard to get into a decent grad school as it is to get into law school -- so it sounds like you're not bound for a top top program. That matters a LOT to job prospects; not so much if you're not planning on a career in academia. Go http://www.philosophicalgourmet.com/ for program rankings, to be taken with an entire shaker's worth of salt.