The Final Round: SMU vs. Houston Forum

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zanzbar

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Re: The Final Round: SMU vs. Houston

Post by zanzbar » Thu May 10, 2012 3:22 pm

sparty99 wrote: How you going to bring girls home? Just don't do it. Negotiate for more money at both schools and if you decide on Houston, set up a contract with your parents where you will subsidize living at an apartment. You don't want to live with your parents, bro. That is high-schoolish...
Of course there is also the upside of years of drunken debauchery if I managed to hit BigLaw with low initial debt. From the few trips I have made to each city I would have to say Dallas has better overall talent than Houston, but maybe I was on the wrong side of town.

So the pros of SMU:
Not murdering my parents
A chance at getting laid over the next three years
Slightly better biglaw job prospects

Houston pros:
Half to 1/3 of the overall debt of SMU.
Connections/weak ties
Pretty much get to eat steak every night
Heroine dealers are really close by after I felt I bombed my finals :lol:

hmmm... the idea of trying it out at home 1L year and then moving into an apartment if I can't handle living with them doesn't sound too horrible honestly.

sparty99

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Re: The Final Round: SMU vs. Houston

Post by sparty99 » Thu May 10, 2012 3:51 pm

You shouldn't focus on getting BigLaw. You will have the same BigLaw opportunities depending on your grades. If they are top 30%, you will have options. If not, where you goes will matter little.

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togepi

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Re: The Final Round: SMU vs. Houston

Post by togepi » Thu May 10, 2012 3:52 pm

zanzbar wrote:
sparty99 wrote: How you going to bring girls home? Just don't do it. Negotiate for more money at both schools and if you decide on Houston, set up a contract with your parents where you will subsidize living at an apartment. You don't want to live with your parents, bro. That is high-schoolish...
Of course there is also the upside of years of drunken debauchery if I managed to hit BigLaw with low initial debt. From the few trips I have made to each city I would have to say Dallas has better overall talent than Houston, but maybe I was on the wrong side of town.

So the pros of SMU:
Not murdering my parents
A chance at getting laid over the next three years
Slightly better biglaw job prospects

Houston pros:
Half to 1/3 of the overall debt of SMU.
Connections/weak ties
Pretty much get to eat steak every night
Heroine dealers are really close by after I felt I bombed my finals :lol:

hmmm... the idea of trying it out at home 1L year and then moving into an apartment if I can't handle living with them doesn't sound too horrible honestly.
I'm no doctor, but I believe banging fat chicks all the time is healthier than eating steak everyday

mtyler19

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Re: The Final Round: SMU vs. Houston

Post by mtyler19 » Thu May 10, 2012 3:57 pm

zanzbar wrote:
So the pros of SMU:
Slightly better biglaw job prospects

Houston pros:
Half to 1/3 of the overall debt of SMU.

hmmm... the idea of trying it out at home 1L year and then moving into an apartment if I can't handle living with them doesn't sound too horrible honestly.

zanzbar

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Re: The Final Round: SMU vs. Houston

Post by zanzbar » Thu May 10, 2012 4:00 pm

mtyler19 wrote:
zanzbar wrote:
So the pros of SMU:
Slightly better biglaw job prospects

Houston pros:
Half to 1/3 of the overall debt of SMU.

hmmm... the idea of trying it out at home 1L year and then moving into an apartment if I can't handle living with them doesn't sound too horrible honestly.
Somebody must not like steak...

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mtyler19

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Re: The Final Round: SMU vs. Houston

Post by mtyler19 » Thu May 10, 2012 4:07 pm

zanzbar wrote:
mtyler19 wrote:
zanzbar wrote:
So the pros of SMU:
Slightly better biglaw job prospects

Houston pros:
Half to 1/3 of the overall debt of SMU.

hmmm... the idea of trying it out at home 1L year and then moving into an apartment if I can't handle living with them doesn't sound too horrible honestly.
Somebody must not like steak...
Ha who doesn't??

I'm just saying for 50k more than UH, SMU's 5ish% difference in Big Law is not worth it. It doesn't sound like your parents wouldn't be willing to help you in the event that they drive you crazy enough to move out.

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legalese_retard

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Re: The Final Round: SMU vs. Houston

Post by legalese_retard » Thu May 10, 2012 4:21 pm

I went to SMU for law school and recently graduated. Looking back, if I had your options I would still take SMU over Houston, especially since you don't know if you want to practice in Dallas or Houston. There are more biglaw firms in Houston than Dallas, but a lot of that is tied to the energy industry. On a corporate level, Dallas is more diversified than Houston. While Dallas biglaw might have not been as successful as Houston biglaw in the past few years, it was mainly due to rising gas and oil prices.

I'm not too familiar with the Houston legal market beyond that. The Dallas bar is very well organized and is very loyal to SMU. I know the Texas state bar copies a lot of the CLE and bar programs the Dallas bar implements.

I'm a big fan of having several options available at graduation. Since you are from Houston, you already have that necessary connection if you decide you want to practice there. If you go to UH, it will be harder for you to break into the Dallas market unless you rank highly in your class. The biglaw firms in Houston do come to SMU for OCI, but they are very cautious about hiring non-Houston residents. This is because the candidates they were interviewing were getting interviews at similar firms in Dallas. The Houston firms would fly these candidates to Houston for callbacks and give them offers, but most would pick their Dallas offers over Houston because they wouldn't have to move to Houston for the summer and the pay was the same if they stayed in Dallas. Thus, most Houston biglaw firms require some connection to Houston to justify interviewing and hiring SMU students. That being said, provided you do well in law school, you will have a great shot at scoring a biglaw firm gig at either Dallas or Houston.

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Mce252

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Re: The Final Round: SMU vs. Houston

Post by Mce252 » Thu May 10, 2012 4:27 pm

mtyler19 wrote:
zanzbar wrote:
So the pros of SMU:
Slightly better biglaw job prospects

Houston pros:
Half to 1/3 of the overall debt of SMU.

hmmm... the idea of trying it out at home 1L year and then moving into an apartment if I can't handle living with them doesn't sound too horrible honestly.
+1

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Titleist

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Re: The Final Round: SMU vs. Houston

Post by Titleist » Thu May 10, 2012 4:36 pm

UHLC.

Spend all your time in the library and only go home to sleep. Do that and the parent factor is a non factor.


I don't see why you would pay more for essentially the same education. Only advantage I see for SMU is it is in a really nice part of town and their campus is really nice. Other than that who cares?

ETA- if you want big law then River Oaks >> Highland Park.

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miy

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Re: The Final Round: SMU vs. Houston

Post by miy » Thu May 10, 2012 7:19 pm

Titleist wrote: ETA- if you want big law then River Oaks >> Highland Park.
I'm not sure why I thought this was so funny, but its true :D

Jredelman15

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Re: The Final Round: SMU vs. Houston

Post by Jredelman15 » Thu May 10, 2012 7:51 pm

interested ITT I will hopefully be making this decision as I apply in the fall. Would you say that the same overall class rank at either school can get similar job offers? Say T-20% at both SMU and UH. I would like to work in energy law after graduation.

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Titleist

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Re: The Final Round: SMU vs. Houston

Post by Titleist » Thu May 10, 2012 8:21 pm

Jredelman15 wrote:interested ITT I will hopefully be making this decision as I apply in the fall. Would you say that the same overall class rank at either school can get similar job offers? Say T-20% at both SMU and UH. I would like to work in energy law after graduation.
Dude if you want energy law then UH is a no brainer. Houston is a great, if not the best, market for that.

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lisjjen

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Re: The Final Round: SMU vs. Houston

Post by lisjjen » Thu May 10, 2012 8:28 pm

OP, you are talking about a few of the only schools outside of the Top 50 that I can, in good conscious say it's not a bad decision to attend. With that price difference, I say go to Houston. The job prospects aren't going to be that different coming out of either. I mean unless you want to work in Dallas, because both of those schools have a very narrow name brand.
Titleist wrote:
Jredelman15 wrote:interested ITT I will hopefully be making this decision as I apply in the fall. Would you say that the same overall class rank at either school can get similar job offers? Say T-20% at both SMU and UH. I would like to work in energy law after graduation.
Dude if you want energy law then UH is a no brainer. Houston is a great, if not the best, market for that.
It is, but I don't think you know what you're talking about. Energy law doesn't work the way you think it does. The best school in the country for hands on energy law is University of Oklahoma. But that doesn't mean you're going to land a biglaw energy job coming out of there - if you're successful, you'll most likely work as a "landman" negotiating contracts for an oil compay making ~$80k/yr. University of Texas has a pretty decent program, and they also have a lot of alumni connections.

Otherwise, if you want to work in energy biglaw you're going to be in NYC, Houston, Washington DC, parts of Europe or Latin America. You'll also be coming from a Top 10 school.

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zanzbar

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Re: The Final Round: SMU vs. Houston

Post by zanzbar » Thu May 10, 2012 8:51 pm

Yeah I wanted UT but I got dinged a couple months ago I enjoy life in Texas so there is no real point to leave, and they aren't bad schools and their employment prospects seem to be better then some of the low Tier 1's.
lisjjen wrote: You'll also be coming from a Top 10 school.
I don't think the field is that elitist driven, I know of some attorneys in this area and they told me these jobs in Houston are typically grads of UHLC, Tulane, SMU, and UT.

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lisjjen

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Re: The Final Round: SMU vs. Houston

Post by lisjjen » Thu May 10, 2012 9:00 pm

zanzbar wrote:Yeah I wanted UT but I got dinged a couple months ago I enjoy life in Texas so there is no real point to leave, and they aren't bad schools and their employment prospects seem to be better then some of the low Tier 1's.
lisjjen wrote: You'll also be coming from a Top 10 school.
I don't think the field is that elitist driven, I know of some attorneys in this area and they told me these jobs in Houston are typically grads of UHLC, Tulane, SMU, and UT.
I'm not from the area but I have still enjoyed myself. And I have met a couple of UH grads in biglaw offices in Austin, which Austin gigs are hard to pull. I would be open to doing energy myself, and the T10 bit was hyperbole.

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togepi

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Re: The Final Round: SMU vs. Houston

Post by togepi » Fri May 11, 2012 12:21 am

Which school would a non EE/CS engineering graduate be better off at? I heard that Houston has a better IP program but also read to not pay attention to that stuff.

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