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Hey guys! Now I'm facing a tradeoff between Wisconsin and Wake Forest, and I really need your help. Previously, I was planning to go to Wake Forest since it had offered me a comfortable scholarship, but recently Wisconsin raised my scholarship and reduced my COA to that of a Wisconsin resident. Now that the COA of Wisconsin is almost the same with that of Wake Forest, I began to wonder which school is a better choice. I really need your suggestions. Thank you very much!

Here is(are) some additional information(questions):

1. Both WI and NC are OK for me.

2. My career goal is to find a job with which I can pay back my debt and live a comfortable life. Of course, like many 0L law school students, I wish I can get a Big Law after graduation, but I'm not going to law school for Big Law (and I know both the two schools won't give me great shot).
Q:
Wisconsin did not post the career stats on its website? Anybody got some insight in its career prospect (compared to that of Wake Forest)?

3. Personally, I prefer the atmosphere of a small private college,where people know each other quite well. I really hate being ignored in a big Unv. But I'm not sure if I like the city W-S. Madison seems a nice city to me.

4. Generally, people seem to agree that Wake has great and very accessible professors. So Does anyone know something about the faculty in Wisconsin?

There are not so many threads on Wisconsin at this forum so there isn't enough information. Thank you again for your information

Choose where you want to live after graduation. This difference is much larger than the small differences between these two peer schools.

NYCbound35 wrote:Choose where you want to live after graduation. This difference is much larger than the small differences between these two peer schools.

Thank you very much for your feedback. Now I'm not sure where I want to live. Maybe NC is more attractive to me, but WI seems OK, too.

Which place has the larger legal market, WI or NC?

And how about the mobility of the diplomas of these two schools, any insight?

Madison, Wisconsin is a great college town & a wonderful city. Winston-Salem is not. Graduates of Wisconsin or Marquette do not have to sit for the Wisconsin State Bar in order to become a member. North Carolina is a beautiful state with the Smoky Mountains in the west & the Outer Banks in the east. Charlotte is a nice city.

Visit both law schools & decide if you are open to living in either state.

P.S. Since you are an international applicant/student, Madison might be the more welcoming international environment due to its size & diversity.

You really don't have any preference between WI and NC? They're pretty different. WI is absolutely cold as fuck in the winter, but Madison is a lovely, hip college town. NC on the other hand is delightfully moderate in the winter, but W-S (as mentioned above) isn't exactly a cultural mecca. NC has a much bigger legal market, but there's also a lot more competition with UNC and Duke around. WI loves football. NC loves basketball. You really need to decide which region you're most at home in and go with it.

As for degree mobility, they'll be very similar, with perhaps an ever-so-slight edge to Wake. If you wanna take either school's name out of its immediate region, you're gonna have to hustle your butt off and do all the leg work on your own. Schools from California, NYC, etc. see no real difference between these schools- they know they're both well-respected, and they also know that the firm has few if any alumni from either one. Wisconsin would give you a slightly better chance at Chicago (read: this still means only slightly better than a snowball's chance in hell), while Wake would give you slightly better access to Atlanta, D.C., and possibly NY. But you'll need top 5-10% from either one to be able to exercise the above options at either school.

As the above posters have said, it comes down to where you'd rather live. Saying that you're okay with either NC or WI doesn't cut it- neither schools offers a substantive advantage over the other beyond location preference. The key will be deciding whether you want to live in the Upper Midwest or the Mid-Atlantic for the next 5-10 years.

Wisconsin will give you more access to more markets after graduation, plus you don't have to sit for the bar, and Madison is a better place, I'd go with Wisconsin even if the COA is a little more

Mobility should not be a big concern. If you are committed to working someplace else, I am sure you could make it work from either school. I vote for Wisconsin.

same COA, then wisconsin is my vote

Thank you for your opinion, and yes I'm an international student. Is it my language or my profile picture that gave me away?

P.S. Since you are an international applicant/student, Madison might be the more welcoming international environment due to its size & diversity.[/quote]

IrwinM.Fletcher wrote:You really don't have any preference between WI and NC? They're pretty different. WI is absolutely cold as fuck in the winter, but Madison is a lovely, hip college town. NC on the other hand is delightfully moderate in the winter, but W-S (as mentioned above) isn't exactly a cultural mecca. NC has a much bigger legal market, but there's also a lot more competition with UNC and Duke around. WI loves football. NC loves basketball. You really need to decide which region you're most at home in and go with it.

As for degree mobility, they'll be very similar, with perhaps an ever-so-slight edge to Wake. If you wanna take either school's name out of its immediate region, you're gonna have to hustle your butt off and do all the leg work on your own. Schools from California, NYC, etc. see no real difference between these schools- they know they're both well-respected, and they also know that the firm has few if any alumni from either one. Wisconsin would give you a slightly better chance at Chicago (read: this still means only slightly better than a snowball's chance in hell), while Wake would give you slightly better access to Atlanta, D.C., and possibly NY. But you'll need top 5-10% from either one to be able to exercise the above options at either school.

As the above posters have said, it comes down to where you'd rather live. Saying that you're okay with either NC or WI doesn't cut it- neither schools offers a substantive advantage over the other beyond location preference. The key will be deciding whether you want to live in the Upper Midwest or the Mid-Atlantic for the next 5-10 years.

Thanks Fletcher! It's really kind of you to give me such an elaborate and useful suggestion.
I had spent my undergraduate years in one of the most unlivable cities in the world, so I thought that both Madison or W-S are OK for me. Now, after some research, I think I'm leaning towards Madison. I love the lakes.

Wisconsin:
- Cheese!
- Miller beer (or was it Bud?)
- Green Bay Packers
- Outdoorsy activities (hunting, fishing, etc.)

Beautiful place

Why not start a poll?

I PM'ed you some info.

Full disclosure alert: I am going to be attending UW next fall.

NC has much better weather, but Madison is a way better town to spend 3 years in than WS so if you are ok with the awful weather of WI as you say, let's consider that point moot.

I think that Wisco would leave you with better career prospects, but its very close. First off the Wisconsin legal market is a tad smaller, but you face much heavier competition from Duke, UNC etc. Do Washington and Lee, William and Mary or UVA students also compete for some of the same jobs?
Although Wisconsin's market is a little bit smaller Wisconsin truly dominates that market.

I know you said you were interested in big law. CO 2009 NLJ 250 #'s show Wake at 15.06% and UW at 12.30% so not a huge difference there.

I think these are the considerations that you should decide off of.

I've heard great things about the faculty at UW, but that is much harder to quantify and I don't have any numbers for that.

UW's class is larger ~250 vs. ~160 and UW has a huge student population, but as a law student I don't think that is as big of a consideration than in undergrad. The law school operates on the same campus as the undergrad student body but thats about the only thing they have in common in that regard.

Wisconsin is an awesome state if you can get over the cold. Its cheap to live in, the people are nice and there is a lot to do. I honestly believe that WIsconsin is a underrated school in a market where they face very little competition and if you do well it can carry to Minneapolis and Chicago.

also the fact that Wisconsin is ranked higher than Wake by USNews, which is the single most often used information to choose between schools (though not necessarily on TLS)

Jah'rakal wrote:also the fact that Wisconsin is ranked higher than Wake by USNews, which is the single most often used information to choose between schools (though not necessarily on TLS)

Yes.

glewz wrote:Wisconsin:
- Cheese!
- Miller beer(or was it Bud?)
- Green Bay Packers
- Outdoorsy activities (hunting, fishing, etc.)

Beautiful place

Miller is cat piss. At best.

K.R.I.T. wrote:

glewz wrote:Wisconsin:
- Cheese!
- Miller beer(or was it Bud?)
- Green Bay Packers
- Outdoorsy activities (hunting, fishing, etc.)

Beautiful place

Miller is cat piss. At best.

+ a million. Any self respecting Wisconsinite should know this.

Gotta drink Lakefront, Capitol, Ale Asylum, New Glarus, Furthermore....

You get the idea

I go to Wake, so I can't speak to Wisconsin much, except to say that one of my fellow students went to undergrad and is from Wisconsin, and he seems to like it here.

Wake has a great small school vibe. You not only get to know the faculty (I have had lunches and dinners with multiple faculty members, and stop into their offices unannounced routinely just to chat), but the small class sizes are great. I think that is one of the best things about Wake, that things are actually personalized.

In addition, the weather truly is a huge plus in my opinion, as is the general culture of North Carolinians. Again, I can't speak to Wisconsin, other that what I have heard, but the notion of spending three years in a place that is that cold would be pretty uncomfortable to say the least. As for the culture of Winston-Salem, it's not great, but there are a lot of options if you know where to look, and are actually interested in doing so. It's not jumping out at you like some places, but there are theaters, art galleries, sporting events, bars, etc., and one thing that is great is the convenience of getting from place to place, because there are really no traffic problems at all (if you have a car, which you may not, so that is important...W-S and NC in general require a car to get around). The city does have 230,000 people, and they aren't all sitting at home darning socks.

As for the portability, a JD from Wake travels fine. The real thing is that most Wake grads don't have the DESIRE to practice other places. Most people choose Wake because they like NC, and they like the South, and a lot of people who come here don't have the desire to leave once they have arrived. I know of a few exceptions, and to my knowledge the fact that their JD is from Wake isn't really hurting them, at least not any more than it would if they were from Wisconsin. We don't have a lot of people who end up in California, but that's in large part because we don't have many people from California to begin with, so I think it's important to note the distinction between causation and correlation. I know people from Texas who are getting jobs in Texas, but since most of our people are from nearby states, they usually end up in nearby states.

To give you at least one important piece of information that may sum up better than everything else: I really thought that after a year here I would transfer to another school in the T14, presuming I got the grades I needed. Well, as the year went on, I began to love Wake more and more, and realized that there was really no chance that would happen, because I just couldn't guarantee that I would be as happy at another school as I was at Wake. And that level of personal satisfaction in my mind is one of the things that is integral to law school success. If you don't enjoy the culture of your school, then you won't perform well. In the end I got the grades I needed, and easily could have transferred to a T14 school, but decided I was happier here, and the point was moot.