Michigan, UCLA, Vanderbilt, or Texas?

[005618502]

Yeah, I understand that. And it is interesting that Michigan grads disperse so much, but you're not trying to tell me that Notre Dame is a secret key to get into markets that you otherwise couldn't get into, so I'm not sure why it means that for Michigan. We are talking specifically about the OP's prospects. Name some markets that Michigan will get him into that those other schools will not.

The point is not that it will get him somewhere the others won't. The point is that Michigan provides that easiest opportunity to keep his options open. If OP goes to UCLA, he'll have a harder time getting to Dallas and it will require a lot more legwork. If OP goes to texas he'll have to do more leg work to get to LA. If OP goes to Michigan he has provided himself with the an easier time to reach out to all the regions he is interested in.

You're a 0L, no? (Your post gives it away.) I should have been more clear: I want somebody who knows what they are talking about to name some markets that OP could not break into from Vandy/etc., but could break into from Michigan.

California (LA, SF (with ties)), as well as NYS are really the only advantages that Michigan will give him over Vandy. Now if you go UCLA then it will be hard for OP to leave Cali, while Michigan could send you anywhere with ties as well as NYC, Chicago, etc.

Michigan is the sure choice

[005618502]

Yeah, I understand that. And it is interesting that Michigan grads disperse so much, but you're not trying to tell me that Notre Dame is a secret key to get into markets that you otherwise couldn't get into, so I'm not sure why it means that for Michigan. We are talking specifically about the OP's prospects. Name some markets that Michigan will get him into that those other schools will not.

The point is not that it will get him somewhere the others won't. The point is that Michigan provides that easiest opportunity to keep his options open. If OP goes to UCLA, he'll have a harder time getting to Dallas and it will require a lot more legwork. If OP goes to texas he'll have to do more leg work to get to LA. If OP goes to Michigan he has provided himself with the an easier time to reach out to all the regions he is interested in.

You're a 0L, no? (Your post gives it away.) I should have been more clear: I want somebody who knows what they are talking about to name some markets that OP could not break into from Vandy/etc., but could break into from Michigan.

I don't know why you made it personal, as his point is completely valid. But if you want to be a dick about it, that's fine, so let me be clear - being at Michigan, I got offers in NYC, SF (quite possibly the hardest market during 2010's OCI, maybe even above DC), and Arizona, all through OCI. You want to talk about keeping options open, please try to get offers in all of those markets through OCI at Vandy, UCLA, or Texas, and let me know how it works out for you.

boom

[pereira6]

I don't know why you made it personal, as his point is completely valid. But if you want to be a dick about it, that's fine, so let me be clear - being at Michigan, I got offers in NYC, SF (quite possibly the hardest market during 2010's OCI, maybe even above DC), and Arizona, all through OCI. You want to talk about keeping options open, please try to get offers in all of those markets through OCI at Vandy, UCLA, or Texas, and let me know how it works out for you.

What salary range were your offers, and where in your class are you at Michigan?

[Patriot1208]

Yeah, I understand that. And it is interesting that Michigan grads disperse so much, but you're not trying to tell me that Notre Dame is a secret key to get into markets that you otherwise couldn't get into, so I'm not sure why it means that for Michigan. We are talking specifically about the OP's prospects. Name some markets that Michigan will get him into that those other schools will not.

The point is not that it will get him somewhere the others won't. The point is that Michigan provides that easiest opportunity to keep his options open. If OP goes to UCLA, he'll have a harder time getting to Dallas and it will require a lot more legwork. If OP goes to texas he'll have to do more leg work to get to LA. If OP goes to Michigan he has provided himself with the an easier time to reach out to all the regions he is interested in.

You're a 0L, no? (Your post gives it away.) I should have been more clear: I want somebody who knows what they are talking about to name some markets that OP could not break into from Vandy/etc., but could break into from Michigan.

Didn't I just say that WASN'T the point??? I clearly said it's not about getting into a market that another school couldn't. I may be an 0L but from everything i've heard my post is spot on. Flightofearls just posted another anecdote (among the dozens i've read or been told) that supports the assertion that it is easier to spread out from a school like michigan than it is from Texas.

If i'm completely off base than someone currently in school can correct me. But that post is formulated by spending way too much time talking to people in law school, so I doubt it.

[FlightoftheEarls]

I don't know why you made it personal, as his point is completely valid. But if you want to be a dick about it, that's fine, so let me be clear - being at Michigan, I got offers in NYC, SF (quite possibly the hardest market during 2010's OCI, maybe even above DC), and Arizona, all through OCI. You want to talk about keeping options open, please try to get offers in all of those markets through OCI at Vandy, UCLA, or Texas, and let me know how it works out for you.

What salary range were your offers, and where in your class are you at Michigan?

PM'd with more information, but the firms all paid market, and both SF/NYC are well-known Vault firms. I'd rather not discuss GPA on here since I have plenty of friends on these boards; GPA was fine, but not spectacular by any stretch. This thread isn't about me - I only posted that anecdote because I don't appreciate that level of unnecessary condescension from somebody who hasn't even been through the OCI process.

[drylo]

Yeah, I understand that. And it is interesting that Michigan grads disperse so much, but you're not trying to tell me that Notre Dame is a secret key to get into markets that you otherwise couldn't get into, so I'm not sure why it means that for Michigan. We are talking specifically about the OP's prospects. Name some markets that Michigan will get him into that those other schools will not.

The point is not that it will get him somewhere the others won't. The point is that Michigan provides that easiest opportunity to keep his options open. If OP goes to UCLA, he'll have a harder time getting to Dallas and it will require a lot more legwork. If OP goes to texas he'll have to do more leg work to get to LA. If OP goes to Michigan he has provided himself with the an easier time to reach out to all the regions he is interested in.

You're a 0L, no? (Your post gives it away.) I should have been more clear: I want somebody who knows what they are talking about to name some markets that OP could not break into from Vandy/etc., but could break into from Michigan.

I don't know why you made it personal, as his point is completely valid. But if you want to be a dick about it, that's fine, so let me be clear - being at Michigan, I got offers in NYC, SF (quite possibly the hardest market during 2010's OCI, maybe even above DC), and Arizona, all through OCI. You want to talk about keeping options open, please try to get offers in all of those markets through OCI at Vandy, UCLA, or Texas, and let me know how it works out for you.

I wasn't trying to be a dick, although I understand how that came off as harsh--and I apologize, Patriot. I was asking you (Flight) the question, though, and these 0Ls try to answer my question (a legitimate one, by the way) with generalizations about how Michigan opens more doors. Not only was I not asking 0Ls for recycled TLS truisms, but even if I had been, Patriot's response doesn't even begin to answer my question (which was, in essence, "what doors?").

At any rate, I'm sure that Michigan has more firms come to OCI than Vandy/Texas/UCLA. So yes, it would be easier to get more jobs through OCI perhaps, but there is nothing wrong with jobs attained through Symplicity resume drops, etc.--I actually got offers both ways.

But the bigger thing that I am really after is how much you think Michigan expands any particular person's geographical options. Every school can send people to the major markets. But the secondary markets seem to depend way more on who you are and what your background is, than where you went to law school. Do you disagree with that?

[keg411]

Since you don't sound certain about where you want to practice and you want BigLaw/MidLaw, Michigan should be the easy choice.

[lisjjen]

If you want biglaw ITE, you have to make the investment. UMich is credited.

[flexityflex86]

If you can deal with the cold, I'd say Michigan all the way. I think the extra 50k is worth the diff between a long time top 10, and a top 14 breakthrough.

Personally, I can't deal with the cold, and I'd probably take Texas or UCLA. I think UCLA will do you better in LA, and prob do just as well as UT in NY, but I don't think either one will be much of a sure thing.

[thelaststraw05]

I wasn't trying to be a dick, although I understand how that came off as harsh--and I apologize, Patriot. I was asking you (Flight) the question, though, and these 0Ls try to answer my question (a legitimate one, by the way) with generalizations about how Michigan opens more doors. Not only was I not asking 0Ls for recycled TLS truisms, but even if I had been, Patriot's response doesn't even begin to answer my question (which was, in essence, "what doors?").

At any rate, I'm sure that Michigan has more firms come to OCI than Vandy/Texas/UCLA. So yes, it would be easier to get more jobs through OCI perhaps, but there is nothing wrong with jobs attained through Symplicity resume drops, etc.--I actually got offers both ways.

But the bigger thing that I am really after is how much you think Michigan expands any particular person's geographical options. Every school can send people to the major markets. But the secondary markets seem to depend way more on who you are and what your background is, than where you went to law school. Do you disagree with that?

The problem with your aim is that nobody can actually answer your question from experience. For one person to be able to compare job searches between Michigan, Vandy, Texas, and UCLA from personal experience. They would have had to do job searches from each school. So a well researched response (like Patriot's) is actually more helpful.

Now, to answer the question from a 0L perspective again. You are right, through a resume drop your personal connections are going to be the most important aspect of having someone look at your resume. At the same time, which of the four schools will be better known by attorneys across the country as a great school?

I think the answer will pretty obviously be Michigan.

Having Michigan on your resume makes it just a fraction more likely that someone will glance at your resume in the pile of other similar resumes. So how much of a difference does it make? I would guess that like any factor in a resume dump style application process, it is the difference between your resume being looked at for 20 seconds and 24 seconds. Just long enough that something else can grab their attention.

[flexityflex86]

If you want biglaw ITE, you have to make the investment. UMich is credited.

I think all of these schools can and often do get their graduates into Big Law, but if this is his main goal - Big Law > Debt, Big Law > All other kinds of law, Michigan is the right call. However, I'm of the belief as a 0L that unless your school is HYS, you'll still need some ties (however these are made - OCI, reaching out to alumni) to get back to a region.

[ATR]

Thanks for the response!

[lisjjen]

Wow, thanks for all of the input, everyone! There have been some good points raised ITT that I need to investigate.

I think all of these schools can and often do get their graduates into Big Law, but if this is his main goal - Big Law > Debt, Big Law > All other kinds of law, Michigan is the right call. However, I'm of the belief as a 0L that unless your school is HYS, you'll still need some ties (however these are made - OCI, reaching out to alumni) to get back to a region.

To clarify, I have extensive connections in the Nashville market. As such, I don't think attending Vanderbilt is necessary if I want to return here. Is this right? (question is directed to everyone, not just flexityflex86)

I'm actually making this decision myself (replace UCLA with USC) but Vandy put itself in a wonky place where it's only a little bit cheaper than UMich and a little bit more expensive than UT. So if I was going for balancing prestige with debt load, I'd do UT, but if I was going balls to the wall with prestige, I'd go with UMich. Don't know if that helps, but that's my two cents.

[drylo]

To clarify, I have extensive connections in the Nashville market. As such, I don't think attending Vanderbilt is necessary if I want to return here. Is this right? (question is directed to everyone, not just flexityflex86)

This is correct. You could come back to Nashville because you are from Nashville. However, I have a couple of cautions for you (and others in your situation).

First, if you go to any of these schools (especially Texas or UCLA), you may face some skepticism about whether you actually want to be in Nashville, even though you are from here. Nashville firms are pretty picky about wanting people to show a commitment to Nashville. You will always have roots here, but Nashville firms will probably be more inclined to hire you if you were at Vandy (all else equal). That is not to say that you can't/won't get a job in Nashville coming out of UCLA, but you might want to be proactive in interviews to try to justify why you ran off to California for school if you really want to live in Nashville.

Second, Nashville is a competitive market, and you won't just be able to rely on Nashville as a back-up option. There will always be plenty of top Vandy students for Nashville firms to choose from. You can definitely get back into the Nashville market from any of these schools, but you will need to have pretty good grades.

[ATR]

Thanks for the response!

[drylo]

I don't know why you made it personal, as his point is completely valid. But if you want to be a dick about it, that's fine, so let me be clear - being at Michigan, I got offers in NYC, SF (quite possibly the hardest market during 2010's OCI, maybe even above DC), and Arizona, all through OCI. You want to talk about keeping options open, please try to get offers in all of those markets through OCI at Vandy, UCLA, or Texas, and let me know how it works out for you.

What salary range were your offers, and where in your class are you at Michigan?

PM'd with more information, but the firms all paid market, and both SF/NYC are well-known Vault firms. I'd rather not discuss GPA on here since I have plenty of friends on these boards; GPA was fine, but not spectacular by any stretch. This thread isn't about me - I only posted that anecdote because I don't appreciate that level of unnecessary condescension from somebody who hasn't even been through the OCI process.

Just read this post--must have glanced over it earlier. I don't appreciate that level of condescension from someone assuming that I haven't been through OCI--for no apparent reason. (For future reference, there is a button at the bottom of all of my posts that says "profile"--try it out sometime.) At this point, the thought that you would call somebody out for being condescending is laughable.

Also couldn't help but notice that you still haven't answered my question. You didn't hesitate to jump on me for telling the 0Ls that I wasn't asking them the question, but you scuttled away without ever actually addressing it. Believe it or not, I actually wasn't trying to be hostile toward you at all, but don't let my questions disturb that chip on your shoulder.

In case you would like to address answer my question, I will repost my position:

Every school [in this thread] can send people to the major markets. But the secondary markets seem to depend way more on who you are and what your background is, than where you went to law school. Do you disagree with that?

And just so you know, people get to SF from Vandy's OCI too.

[AreJay711]

To clarify, I have extensive connections in the Nashville market. As such, I don't think attending Vanderbilt is necessary if I want to return here. Is this right? (question is directed to everyone, not just flexityflex86)

This is correct. You could come back to Nashville because you are from Nashville. However, I have a couple of cautions for you (and others in your situation).

First, if you go to any of these schools (especially Texas or UCLA), you may face some skepticism about whether you actually want to be in Nashville, even though you are from here. Nashville firms are pretty picky about wanting people to show a commitment to Nashville. You will always have roots here, but Nashville firms will probably be more inclined to hire you if you were at Vandy (all else equal). That is not to say that you can't/won't get a job in Nashville coming out of UCLA, but you might want to be proactive in interviews to try to justify why you ran off to California for school if you really want to live in Nashville.

Second, Nashville is a competitive market, and you won't just be able to rely on Nashville as a back-up option. There will always be plenty of top Vandy students for Nashville firms to choose from. You can definitely get back into the Nashville market from any of these schools, but you will need to have pretty good grades.

This is just a general 0L question related to this post but can't you just make up some reason for attending a school in another region and wanting to return? I guess this falls in with what are "ties" a little bit. For instance while I prefer for Chicago / Midwest to the South right now, if I decided I wanted to shoot for a job in New Orleans, where my SO has family, or SC where I have family, that I preferred Michigan to Duke or Tulane/Texas wouldn't be enough of a reason? Are those kind of ties enough to overcome that kind of skepticism?

[Slevin Kelevra 2011]

Michigan is worth the extra cost if you ask me. But to each his own.

[Patriot1208]

Every school [in this thread] can send people to the major markets. But the secondary markets seem to depend way more on who you are and what your background is, than where you went to law school. Do you disagree with that?

And just so you know, people get to SF from Vandy's OCI too.

I'm a little confused as to whether or not you can read because no one said you couldn't get to another major market from vandy. They just said it was easier to get across the country to different markets from Michigan.

[drylo]

To clarify, I have extensive connections in the Nashville market. As such, I don't think attending Vanderbilt is necessary if I want to return here. Is this right? (question is directed to everyone, not just flexityflex86)

This is correct. You could come back to Nashville because you are from Nashville. However, I have a couple of cautions for you (and others in your situation).

First, if you go to any of these schools (especially Texas or UCLA), you may face some skepticism about whether you actually want to be in Nashville, even though you are from here. Nashville firms are pretty picky about wanting people to show a commitment to Nashville. You will always have roots here, but Nashville firms will probably be more inclined to hire you if you were at Vandy (all else equal). That is not to say that you can't/won't get a job in Nashville coming out of UCLA, but you might want to be proactive in interviews to try to justify why you ran off to California for school if you really want to live in Nashville.

Second, Nashville is a competitive market, and you won't just be able to rely on Nashville as a back-up option. There will always be plenty of top Vandy students for Nashville firms to choose from. You can definitely get back into the Nashville market from any of these schools, but you will need to have pretty good grades.

This is just a general 0L question related to this post but can't you just make up some reason for attending a school in another region and wanting to return? I guess this falls in with what are "ties" a little bit. For instance while I prefer for Chicago / Midwest to the South right now, if I decided I wanted to shoot for a job in New Orleans, where my SO has family, or SC where I have family, that I preferred Michigan to Duke or Tulane/Texas wouldn't be enough of a reason? Are those kind of ties enough to overcome that kind of skepticism?

Well, while that general principle may have some value in other contexts, I was specifically talking about somebody being from Nashville, and going away to law school somewhere else when that person had the option to stay in Nashville and attend Vanderbilt. In your situation, I wouldn't worry about it so much. It might (but I don't know for sure the dynamics of Duke) be similar to growing up in the Research Triangle, choosing Michigan over Duke, and then trying to tell firms how much you love the Research Triangle and that you really want to practice there. I just know that in Nashville, firms are very selective about wanting a commitment to the area, and I don't think you communicate that very well by going to school elsewhere when Vandy gives you equally good job prospects in Nashville--it basically communicates exactly what this OP is feeling (i.e., "I don't really know that I want to live in Nashville...").

[drylo]

Every school [in this thread] can send people to the major markets. But the secondary markets seem to depend way more on who you are and what your background is, than where you went to law school. Do you disagree with that?

And just so you know, people get to SF from Vandy's OCI too.

I'm a little confused as to whether or not you can read because no one said you couldn't get to another major market from vandy. They just said it was easier to get across the country to different markets from Michigan.

Well, you said that. I know that you said that. But like I said earlier, I wasn't asking you, because frankly, I can read the TLS forums too. I was asking somebody else who has at least some experiential knowledge (although to be honest, Flight seems to be more interested in getting offended than in having an honest discussion).

Edited to add: Also, depending on the interpretation of what you said above, I don't necessarily disagree. I think that in most markets, employers will basically give your GPA a bump for being at Michigan vis-a-vis Vandy/Texas/UCLA. In a sense, I suppose that would make it "easier" to get a job. But my point is that that has nothing to do with geographic mobility, per se. That is the whole reason that I asked Flight what he/she meant by "geographic mobility" in the earlier post. And then you were so kind as to give me your opinion on the matter, etc., and the rest is history.

[Patriot1208]

Well, you said that. I know that you said that. But like I said earlier, I wasn't asking you, because frankly, I can read the TLS forums too. I was asking somebody else who has at least some experiential knowledge (although to be honest, Flight seems to be more interested in getting offended than in having an honest discussion).

Edited to add: Also, depending on the interpretation of what you said above, I don't necessarily disagree. I think that in most markets, employers will basically give your GPA a bump for being at Michigan vis-a-vis Vandy/Texas/UCLA. In a sense, I suppose that would make it "easier" to get a job. But my point is that that has nothing to do with geographic mobility, per se. That is the whole reason that I asked Flight what he/she meant by "geographic mobility" in the earlier post. And then you were so kind as to give me your opinion on the matter, etc., and the rest is history.

No, I certainly did not. I said this, twice:

The point is not that it will get him somewhere the others won't. The point is that Michigan provides that easiest opportunity to keep his options open. If OP goes to UCLA, he'll have a harder time getting to Dallas and it will require a lot more legwork. If OP goes to texas he'll have to do more leg work to get to LA. If OP goes to Michigan he has provided himself with the an easier time to reach out to all the regions he is interested in.

[dooood]

-

[Rory1987]

Just remember that Michigan isn't a sure thing for BigLaw. I believe in the most recent NLJ 250 numbers released last month that something like 41% of Michigan kids got something -- 35% of UCLA kids got the golden ticket so the difference between the two schools isn't as huge as one may think.

[dooood]

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