Chicago Kent or UIUC

[ajak88]

I received a $45,000 scholarship with no gpa stipulations from chicago kent. I also got waitlisted at U of I, i never really planned on going there and applied extremely late in the cycle. Now i am wondering if i do get accepted to U of I is it worth leaving all that money and attending U of I at sticker price, which I'm assuming will be the case since I have been waitlisted. Also, I want to practice law in Chicago. Thanks for any feedback

[kyle010723]

UIUC is the better school. But in your case, Id take the money at Kent and run with it.

[star fox]

The Chicago Legal Market is shit. I assume that scholarship is over 3 years. Tuition over that time is currently going to come to about $126,000. So you'd still be paying $81,000 just in tuition + COL + interest on loans for a school that places 11 % of its grads into BigLaw with Federal Clerkships being out unless your dad is lifelong buddies with a judge or something. Most of the grads from Kent that get full-time JD required jobs are in offices with 2-10 lawyers (22.7 % of class overall). How well do you think these jobs are paying for a first year attorney? Probably shit. These are the people that tend to wash out of the legal profession. After that the next most common outcome is "Business LT/FT" with 12.4 % of the class which given the 56 % employment score in JD required jobs and the combined Law Firm + Clerkship (Local and Federal) at 51.5 %, would indicate that the majority of these people are in a JD-advantage job. Think long and hard why you want to go to Law School before putting down a deposit.

What's your LSAT? Is re-taking a option? I wouldn't call either of your two outcomes good, imo. Look at what the 3Ls like rad and romo are saying for some perspective on what it's like on the other side.