Case Western or Rutgers-Newark Forum

[champ33]

I really appreciate the kind of perspective I've gained from reading these forums the last few months, and this should be the last post I make here in regard to figuring out my own situation. Depending on my score on the coming June LSAT, I may take at least a cycle off (if I score substantially higher) but for a variety of reasons my options have come down to:

Case Western ($20,000/yr. scholarship) - 3.15 GPA stipulation
Rutgers-Newark ($8,000/yr. scholarship) + in-state - 3.00 GPA stipulation

This leaves about $20,000 per year in tuition at Case, and about $13,000 per year in tuition at Rutgers. I am very lucky in that I can anticipate about $20,000 per year being covered by family members. I like what I've been hearing and what I saw regarding Rutgers, and have lived my whole life in NY, so will be comfortable there as far as knowing people and the area. But I am not really afraid of a big change, and think I might benefit from one at this stage.

Overall I feel comfortable attending either school, slightly less comfortable with taking some time off. My area of interest is pretty broad, so I'd just as soon ask anyone reading this to put it out of their minds. I'm interested in which school provides a better learning environment, more name recognition (to a lesser extent), and any type of mobility (I know they're both regional, so I suppose the mobility I'm talking about is the number of markets close by in which the school has good connections to employers).

I'd really like to see how opinions shake out in this particular scenario of X vs. Y, and I'll do my best to impart anything I feel might be helpful to others in the coming months, maybe even years if I really can't get much else going. Thanks.


Edit: added a poll.

[champ33]

anybody?

[DonReady]

Go with Rutgers, significantly better job market in the Tri-State than Cleveland/NE Ohio. That part of Ohio is dying a slow death and Cincy and THE Ohio State University are the two big players in OH in terms of law schools. If you like that part of the country, I'd consider Pitt and living in Pittsburgh. Very livable city and Pitt rules that town's legal market. Coming from an extremely biased Northeast/Midatlantic guy FWIW.

anybody?