Boston U ($) vs GWU ($$) vs Wash U St Louis ($$$) vs Fordham (???) Forum

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MaxMcMann

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Boston U ($) vs GWU ($$) vs Wash U St Louis ($$$) vs Fordham (???)

Post by MaxMcMann » Fri Mar 16, 2018 1:36 pm

So I got in to BU with $75k, GWU with $105k and Wash U with $120k.

My goal is to do NYC biglaw, which essentially means be in the top third at any of these schools. I'm in a somewhat unique position in that I HAVE to go to school this year to activate my trust fund. I had a shit GPA in college (3.2) because I skipped 2/3 of my classes and generally did all my studying in the week before an exam. Then four bitter years as a paralegal taught me that 1) I'm cut out for law 2) I can spend 12-14 hours a day doing something way more boring than studying. I got a 169 twice over on the LSAT after studying for two years so I'm pretty sure I hit my peak there. I'm a New Yorker.

Why do I HAVE to go you may ask? I have parents who will pay for it (still comes out of my inheritance relative to my siblings, and with tax not included!) on the condition that I graduate and get a good job (by their standards, not TLS's).

I've worked in four different legal environments (all NYC) and to be honest while I prefer biglaw I have assurance that a midlaw firm I worked for would love me as an associate and even the "shitlaw" firm I worked for was honestly not that bad of an experience. I think I'd be fine not getting biglaw - staying in New York, on the other hand, is of paramount importance. I just got waitlisted at Fordham (which I consider a polite rejection) as well as waitlists at a bunch of T14s (had an insanely polished app, good softs, and am a refugee so I guess that mildly balanced my GPA). Now obviously if one of those T14s comes around, I'll be on the first plane to Ann Arbor or Dixie or wherever, but waiting a year is not an option as that would result in loss of significant financial support from my parents. Also I'm already 27 so I can't take an extra year as casually as a 23 year old would.

My thought is that out of my options, BU is the way to go. I hear lots of bad things about GWU and its placement is nearly 100% DC which isn't ideal for me. Wash U doesn't seem so bad and between the 120k and the COL it'd be by far my cheapest option - I could probably cover the costs myself.

BU, on the other hand, is more appealing. I know a couple of M&A partners (including a hiring partner at a V50) and they both said they are inclined to view BU favorably as far as non T14s go and even recommended over Fordham (my first choice when I thought it was a sure thing). And whereas a bad outcome at Wash U is getting stuck in Missourah, getting stuck in Boston on graduation wouldn't be so bad. Pretty much the one thing Wash U has going for it besides money is BBQ, as far as I can tell.

Thoughts?

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Re: Boston U ($) vs GWU ($$) vs Wash U St Louis ($$$) vs Fordham (???)

Post by gaddockteeg » Fri Mar 16, 2018 1:47 pm

GW. I went to GW so I might be biased but the school places a lot better than the numbers indicate because GW has ton of transfers going both in and out.

Even though about only 1/3 of the graduating class gets big law, that's heavily distorted by (1) students who transfer IN to GW and don't get big law (because top 1/3 at AU is enough to transfer to GW but not enough for big law), and (2) the students who transfer OUT because they did great during 1L. GW is the only school I'm aware of that has such massive transferring numbers.

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Re: Boston U ($) vs GWU ($$) vs Wash U St Louis ($$$) vs Fordham (???)

Post by MaxMcMann » Fri Mar 16, 2018 3:12 pm

So update: right as I wrote this post, UCLA's dean called me. Not only is it the highest ranked school I got into, but LA sounds like an awesome place to live for three years. If they give me competitive cash (I'll find out when my admission package arrives), I'd seriously consider it. Would that be a mistake for someone trying to stay in NY? (Granted, I can't rule out falling in love with LA)

I imagine that most people going there don't want NY, hence their almost totally California placement is largely self selection. I'm getting in touch with their career services to get their take on it, but I'm kinda psyched about this one! No offense to Boston or DC, but as a New Yorker I feel LA would be more on par with what I'm used to in terms of being a fun town. Wash U def has the best BBQ of all my choices, for what it's worth.
gaddockteeg wrote:GW. I went to GW so I might be biased but the school places a lot better than the numbers indicate because GW has ton of transfers going both in and out.

Even though about only 1/3 of the graduating class gets big law, that's heavily distorted by (1) students who transfer IN to GW and don't get big law (because top 1/3 at AU is enough to transfer to GW but not enough for big law), and (2) the students who transfer OUT because they did great during 1L. GW is the only school I'm aware of that has such massive transferring numbers.
Right on man! Generally people here are super down on GWU ("trap school") so it's nice to hear something positive. And DC is a great place to live so that will factor into it.

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Re: Boston U ($) vs GWU ($$) vs Wash U St Louis ($$$) vs Fordham (???)

Post by AppraisalWaisal » Fri Mar 16, 2018 4:51 pm

gaddockteeg wrote:GW. I went to GW so I might be biased but the school places a lot better than the numbers indicate because GW has ton of transfers going both in and out.

Even though about only 1/3 of the graduating class gets big law, that's heavily distorted by (1) students who transfer IN to GW and don't get big law (because top 1/3 at AU is enough to transfer to GW but not enough for big law), and (2) the students who transfer OUT because they did great during 1L. GW is the only school I'm aware of that has such massive transferring numbers.
very true. I went to GW for 1L. Transferred to CCN. 6 people, including me, in my section of 80 transferred to HYSCCN. that's like almost 10% of the 1L class that would have gotten big law/fedclerk but that doesn't get reported into the numbers at year end.

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Re: Boston U ($) vs GWU ($$) vs Wash U St Louis ($$$) vs Fordham (???)

Post by andychen » Fri Mar 16, 2018 10:25 pm

balance the reputiation , location, job placement, alumni influence, faculty scholarship, gw is the definitely best choice.

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Re: Boston U ($) vs GWU ($$) vs Wash U St Louis ($$$) vs Fordham (???)

Post by MaxMcMann » Sun Mar 18, 2018 10:28 pm

Wow, I didn't realize it was such an easy choice.

I could've sworn that in addition to placing 26% vs 18% in Amlaw100 firms (although the transfer stories make that comparison seem less relevant), BU has a better intangible reputation.

Keep in mind I don't actually know what I'm talking about beyond "things I vaguely remember hearing" so this is my attempt to stir the pot.

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Re: Boston U ($) vs GWU ($$) vs Wash U St Louis ($$$) vs Fordham (???)

Post by RedGiant » Mon Mar 19, 2018 8:18 pm

BU grad here. If you have any questions, post them here.

I also chose bw Wash U and BU, with similar money. The kicker for me was when my biglaw mentor partner shut the door to my office and said, "[RedGiant], I heard you just got back from WashU. I absolutely forbid you from attending that school. Five years at Cravath and Seven years in Silicon Valley, and I can count the number of times I've worked across from a WashU grad on one hand, with fingers leftover." (He knew I wanted to work in biglaw again.)

I urge you to look at the total cost of attendance for GW and BU, and also to decide whether you like DC or Boston better, since both schools place well in their local markets. I was very interested in corporate law (and not in a lot of the kinds of law that are DC-ish--policy work, regulatory work, litigation, etc.) and so BU was the obvious choice for me.

GL!

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Re: Boston U ($) vs GWU ($$) vs Wash U St Louis ($$$) vs Fordham (???)

Post by acr » Tue Mar 20, 2018 3:05 am

RedGiant wrote:BU grad here. If you have any questions, post them here.

I also chose bw Wash U and BU, with similar money. The kicker for me was when my biglaw mentor partner shut the door to my office and said, "[RedGiant], I heard you just got back from WashU. I absolutely forbid you from attending that school. Five years at Cravath and Seven years in Silicon Valley, and I can count the number of times I've worked across from a WashU grad on one hand, with fingers leftover." (He knew I wanted to work in biglaw again.)

I urge you to look at the total cost of attendance for GW and BU, and also to decide whether you like DC or Boston better, since both schools place well in their local markets. I was very interested in corporate law (and not in a lot of the kinds of law that are DC-ish--policy work, regulatory work, litigation, etc.) and so BU was the obvious choice for me.

GL!
Lol this is some of the worst advice I've read on this site.

I attend Wash U and don't really like it, tbh, but to suggest that OP shouldn't consider Wash U because your big law mentor from god knows how many years ago thought it was a poor option for you is laughable.

Aside from your advice being purely anecdotal, the fact that your big law mentor is a partner means that he's likely older (probably 40s or 50s), and things change over the course of time SIGNIFICANTLY. Like, even within the last few years alone, Wash U has seen a substantial rise in employment statistics, especially big law outcomes, to rival Georgetown, UCLA, Vandy, etc.

Maybe your big law mentor just happened to be on a path where he didn't encounter any Wash U grads.

OP, disregard this awful advice, and consider employment statistics for your desired outcome, total cost of attendance and anticipated debt, and location/school amenities/feel if it's important to you.

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Re: Boston U ($) vs GWU ($$) vs Wash U St Louis ($$$) vs Fordham (???)

Post by MaxMcMann » Thu Mar 22, 2018 10:25 am

Taking the stats at face value I'd rather go to GWU - it's cheaper than BU, I like DC better than Boston and they seem to have similar placement.

But I keep hearing GWU is a trap school where IP skews the stats - which would seem to make BU the better choice by a mile.

I know that in either school I'd have to do really well to attain my first goal (corporate in NYC), but is GWU significantly worse for that aim like many appear to imply or is it roughly on par with BU as another T30ish school?

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Re: Boston U ($) vs GWU ($$) vs Wash U St Louis ($$$) vs Fordham (???)

Post by sparkytrainer » Thu Mar 22, 2018 11:00 am

MaxMcMann wrote:Taking the stats at face value I'd rather go to GWU - it's cheaper than BU, I like DC better than Boston and they seem to have similar placement.

But I keep hearing GWU is a trap school where IP skews the stats - which would seem to make BU the better choice by a mile.

I know that in either school I'd have to do really well to attain my first goal (corporate in NYC), but is GWU significantly worse for that aim like many appear to imply or is it roughly on par with BU as another T30ish school?
Here is a true story of 5 of my friends that recently graduated from GW law. All top 20-30%. All on journal editorial staffs. None of which got biglaw (all tried desperately), and 3 of them still don't have a single legal job 10 months after graduation. 1 of the luck 2 that did get a job is in a one-year fellowship paying 30k such that this person cannot afford a tiny closet of an apartment, food, and loan payments. This person has to skip meals because there just isn't enough money to buy ramen all the time. Truly awful. Only 1 of those 5 got a decent legal job, working for 50k in a market in the middle of nowhere because it was the only job offer he got. All are now being crushed by debt and have no prospects of ever paying it off in their lifetimes.

This is just my personal experience. Take that for what you will. All of them say the people who got biglaw gigs from GW were either the IP kids that significantly skew the stats, or URMs. Its not like any of these 5 were bad candidates either. None were KJD, all top in their class, all had good summer jobs and school year externships, and are personable.

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Re: Boston U ($) vs GWU ($$) vs Wash U St Louis ($$$) vs Fordham (???)

Post by AppraisalWaisal » Thu Mar 22, 2018 1:15 pm

sparkytrainer wrote:
MaxMcMann wrote:Taking the stats at face value I'd rather go to GWU - it's cheaper than BU, I like DC better than Boston and they seem to have similar placement.

But I keep hearing GWU is a trap school where IP skews the stats - which would seem to make BU the better choice by a mile.

I know that in either school I'd have to do really well to attain my first goal (corporate in NYC), but is GWU significantly worse for that aim like many appear to imply or is it roughly on par with BU as another T30ish school?
Here is a true story of 5 of my friends that recently graduated from GW law. All top 20-30%. All on journal editorial staffs. None of which got biglaw (all tried desperately), and 3 of them still don't have a single legal job 10 months after graduation. 1 of the luck 2 that did get a job is in a one-year fellowship paying 30k such that this person cannot afford a tiny closet of an apartment, food, and loan payments. This person has to skip meals because there just isn't enough money to buy ramen all the time. Truly awful. Only 1 of those 5 got a decent legal job, working for 50k in a market in the middle of nowhere because it was the only job offer he got. All are now being crushed by debt and have no prospects of ever paying it off in their lifetimes.

This is just my personal experience. Take that for what you will. All of them say the people who got biglaw gigs from GW were either the IP kids that significantly skew the stats, or URMs. Its not like any of these 5 were bad candidates either. None were KJD, all top in their class, all had good summer jobs and school year externships, and are personable.
This is pretty surprising to me. What's the graduation year? I graduated sometime between 2014-2016 As I mentioned, I went to GW for 1L and trnasferred but my SO (who I met at GW) stayed behind along with most of my friends.

We all now live in DC and in my friend group of 8 (not including me); only 2 of them made LR and yet, eveyrone is in biglaw/midlaw and 1 is a fed clerk. My 1L roommate graduated median, struck out at OCI but had 2 big law offers by end of 3L.

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Re: Boston U ($) vs GWU ($$) vs Wash U St Louis ($$$) vs Fordham (???)

Post by longtimelurker123 » Thu Mar 22, 2018 1:31 pm

sparkytrainer wrote:
MaxMcMann wrote:Taking the stats at face value I'd rather go to GWU - it's cheaper than BU, I like DC better than Boston and they seem to have similar placement.

But I keep hearing GWU is a trap school where IP skews the stats - which would seem to make BU the better choice by a mile.

I know that in either school I'd have to do really well to attain my first goal (corporate in NYC), but is GWU significantly worse for that aim like many appear to imply or is it roughly on par with BU as another T30ish school?
Here is a true story of 5 of my friends that recently graduated from GW law. All top 20-30%. All on journal editorial staffs. None of which got biglaw (all tried desperately), and 3 of them still don't have a single legal job 10 months after graduation. 1 of the luck 2 that did get a job is in a one-year fellowship paying 30k such that this person cannot afford a tiny closet of an apartment, food, and loan payments. This person has to skip meals because there just isn't enough money to buy ramen all the time. Truly awful. Only 1 of those 5 got a decent legal job, working for 50k in a market in the middle of nowhere because it was the only job offer he got. All are now being crushed by debt and have no prospects of ever paying it off in their lifetimes.

This is just my personal experience. Take that for what you will. All of them say the people who got biglaw gigs from GW were either the IP kids that significantly skew the stats, or URMs. Its not like any of these 5 were bad candidates either. None were KJD, all top in their class, all had good summer jobs and school year externships, and are personable.
Sorry, I call bullshit. I see plenty of recent gw grads ('16 or '17) with zero honors at plenty of v100 firms with no IP and no URM. I'm typing this on my phone and I literally just checked hunton williams, holland knight, and hogan lovells (just happened to scroll to the Hs). All of them have median GW, non URM, no IP.

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Re: Boston U ($) vs GWU ($$) vs Wash U St Louis ($$$) vs Fordham (???)

Post by sparkytrainer » Thu Mar 22, 2018 4:11 pm

longtimelurker123 wrote:
sparkytrainer wrote:
MaxMcMann wrote:Taking the stats at face value I'd rather go to GWU - it's cheaper than BU, I like DC better than Boston and they seem to have similar placement.

But I keep hearing GWU is a trap school where IP skews the stats - which would seem to make BU the better choice by a mile.

I know that in either school I'd have to do really well to attain my first goal (corporate in NYC), but is GWU significantly worse for that aim like many appear to imply or is it roughly on par with BU as another T30ish school?
Here is a true story of 5 of my friends that recently graduated from GW law. All top 20-30%. All on journal editorial staffs. None of which got biglaw (all tried desperately), and 3 of them still don't have a single legal job 10 months after graduation. 1 of the luck 2 that did get a job is in a one-year fellowship paying 30k such that this person cannot afford a tiny closet of an apartment, food, and loan payments. This person has to skip meals because there just isn't enough money to buy ramen all the time. Truly awful. Only 1 of those 5 got a decent legal job, working for 50k in a market in the middle of nowhere because it was the only job offer he got. All are now being crushed by debt and have no prospects of ever paying it off in their lifetimes.

This is just my personal experience. Take that for what you will. All of them say the people who got biglaw gigs from GW were either the IP kids that significantly skew the stats, or URMs. Its not like any of these 5 were bad candidates either. None were KJD, all top in their class, all had good summer jobs and school year externships, and are personable.
Sorry, I call bullshit. I see plenty of recent gw grads ('16 or '17) with zero honors at plenty of v100 firms with no IP and no URM. I'm typing this on my phone and I literally just checked hunton williams, holland knight, and hogan lovells (just happened to scroll to the Hs). All of them have median GW, non URM, no IP.
Why would I lie about this? Just because some GW grads have good outcomes doesn't mean all will. I am just giving a truthful account of 5 people I know who graduated in 2017. Call BS all you want, but its a truthful account of their experience.

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Re: Boston U ($) vs GWU ($$) vs Wash U St Louis ($$$) vs Fordham (???)

Post by Gitaroo_Dude » Thu Mar 22, 2018 4:54 pm

MaxMcMann wrote:So update: right as I wrote this post, UCLA's dean called me. Not only is it the highest ranked school I got into, but LA sounds like an awesome place to live for three years. If they give me competitive cash (I'll find out when my admission package arrives), I'd seriously consider it. Would that be a mistake for someone trying to stay in NY? (Granted, I can't rule out falling in love with LA)

I imagine that most people going there don't want NY, hence their almost totally California placement is largely self selection. I'm getting in touch with their career services to get their take on it, but I'm kinda psyched about this one! No offense to Boston or DC, but as a New Yorker I feel LA would be more on par with what I'm used to in terms of being a fun town. Wash U def has the best BBQ of all my choices, for what it's worth.
UCLA 1L here. I think the school would make a lot of sense for you, assuming the money is right.

There is a huge push by the dean to encourage/push students to apply for jobs in NYC. They even offered $600 this year for students to visit the city over spring break with a bunch of networking events put together by the school to put you in touch with biglaw firms. On top of other support for students trying to head to NY. And especially if you'd be comfortable working in SoCal should NY not work out for whatever reason, the school makes a lot of sense.

Also I would definitely avoid GWU. The fact that the people pushing it on here are bragging about how their transfers do well upon transferring out of the school should be a huge red flag, not something to entice you. If a school is consistently losing it's best students to transfer then there's a reason for that.

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Re: Boston U ($) vs GWU ($$) vs Wash U St Louis ($$$) vs Fordham (???)

Post by MaxMcMann » Thu Mar 22, 2018 8:47 pm

Gitaroo_Dude wrote:
MaxMcMann wrote:So update: right as I wrote this post, UCLA's dean called me. Not only is it the highest ranked school I got into, but LA sounds like an awesome place to live for three years. If they give me competitive cash (I'll find out when my admission package arrives), I'd seriously consider it. Would that be a mistake for someone trying to stay in NY? (Granted, I can't rule out falling in love with LA)

I imagine that most people going there don't want NY, hence their almost totally California placement is largely self selection. I'm getting in touch with their career services to get their take on it, but I'm kinda psyched about this one! No offense to Boston or DC, but as a New Yorker I feel LA would be more on par with what I'm used to in terms of being a fun town. Wash U def has the best BBQ of all my choices, for what it's worth.
UCLA 1L here. I think the school would make a lot of sense for you, assuming the money is right.

There is a huge push by the dean to encourage/push students to apply for jobs in NYC. They even offered $600 this year for students to visit the city over spring break with a bunch of networking events put together by the school to put you in touch with biglaw firms. On top of other support for students trying to head to NY. And especially if you'd be comfortable working in SoCal should NY not work out for whatever reason, the school makes a lot of sense.

Also I would definitely avoid GWU. The fact that the people pushing it on here are bragging about how their transfers do well upon transferring out of the school should be a huge red flag, not something to entice you. If a school is consistently losing it's best students to transfer then there's a reason for that.
GWU was my first choice but tbh I'm getting a weird vibe from what people say about it.

The idea of spending three years in Beverly Hills seems awesome, and they do seem to support NYC moves more lately but they only gave me 30k and I don't honestly know if it's worth it.

Tough choice, not gonna lie.

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Re: Boston U ($) vs GWU ($$) vs Wash U St Louis ($$$) vs Fordham (???)

Post by Gitaroo_Dude » Thu Mar 22, 2018 10:28 pm

MaxMcMann wrote:GWU was my first choice but tbh I'm getting a weird vibe from what people say about it.

The idea of spending three years in Beverly Hills seems awesome, and they do seem to support NYC moves more lately but they only gave me 30k and I don't honestly know if it's worth it.

Tough choice, not gonna lie.
Yeah, assuming that's $10k per year, at out-of-state tuition, I don't think you can justify that. I'd definitely try to negotiate it up though.

TBH I don't think WashU would be bad at all. As a skeptical Californian I loved my visit there last year; campus was beautiful, students were friendly, city was better than I expected, and they have Dan freaking Epps. And the BBQ is THAT good. They place pretty well into NY and it's affordable tuition plus cheap CoL. Though I think BU makes sense too if you can negotiate their $ up a little too. Might want to visit WashU for yourself if possible and see how you vibe with it and STL (assuming you haven't visited the city before).

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Re: Boston U ($) vs GWU ($$) vs Wash U St Louis ($$$) vs Fordham (???)

Post by Shaheen678 » Mon Mar 26, 2018 8:44 pm

If I were you, I would take BU.

Wash U has better placement, but BU has a lot of placement in NY for whatever reason.

GW has worse placement than the other 2 and a lot of it comes from their IP Program.

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Re: Boston U ($) vs GWU ($$) vs Wash U St Louis ($$$) vs Fordham (???)

Post by omd3117 » Tue Mar 27, 2018 12:06 pm

anecdata but a lot GW's numbers for NYC OCI is because many actually don't participate in the program. GW has 2 distinct programs for the cities and you don't interview together. I found that most people who had decent grades (top 30% or above) and went into NY OCI did fairly well or at the very least snagged a job probably because many actually were WAY too selective and only did DC OCI.

Of course, you can never predict how well you'll do in law school, but was also surprised just by how many students didn't put in the work. More often times than not, I found that friends who cared about grades/ asked enough questions about doing well did at least get above median. (Most of my friends, again top 30%, who did DC or NYC OCI got a firm job.)

I also understand not wanting to take on the risk -- just looking at the 509 numbers can be fairly off-putting, but I was pleasantly surprised by how many people actually got firm jobs who wanted them.

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Re: Boston U ($) vs GWU ($$) vs Wash U St Louis ($$$) vs Fordham (???)

Post by longtimelurker123 » Tue Mar 27, 2018 12:13 pm

sparkytrainer wrote:
longtimelurker123 wrote:
sparkytrainer wrote:
MaxMcMann wrote:Taking the stats at face value I'd rather go to GWU - it's cheaper than BU, I like DC better than Boston and they seem to have similar placement.

But I keep hearing GWU is a trap school where IP skews the stats - which would seem to make BU the better choice by a mile.

I know that in either school I'd have to do really well to attain my first goal (corporate in NYC), but is GWU significantly worse for that aim like many appear to imply or is it roughly on par with BU as another T30ish school?
Here is a true story of 5 of my friends that recently graduated from GW law. All top 20-30%. All on journal editorial staffs. None of which got biglaw (all tried desperately), and 3 of them still don't have a single legal job 10 months after graduation. 1 of the luck 2 that did get a job is in a one-year fellowship paying 30k such that this person cannot afford a tiny closet of an apartment, food, and loan payments. This person has to skip meals because there just isn't enough money to buy ramen all the time. Truly awful. Only 1 of those 5 got a decent legal job, working for 50k in a market in the middle of nowhere because it was the only job offer he got. All are now being crushed by debt and have no prospects of ever paying it off in their lifetimes.

This is just my personal experience. Take that for what you will. All of them say the people who got biglaw gigs from GW were either the IP kids that significantly skew the stats, or URMs. Its not like any of these 5 were bad candidates either. None were KJD, all top in their class, all had good summer jobs and school year externships, and are personable.
Sorry, I call bullshit. I see plenty of recent gw grads ('16 or '17) with zero honors at plenty of v100 firms with no IP and no URM. I'm typing this on my phone and I literally just checked hunton williams, holland knight, and hogan lovells (just happened to scroll to the Hs). All of them have median GW, non URM, no IP.
Why would I lie about this? Just because some GW grads have good outcomes doesn't mean all will. I am just giving a truthful account of 5 people I know who graduated in 2017. Call BS all you want, but its a truthful account of their experience.
I might have overreacted. Right before I commented, I was in another thread where you told another OP that she needed top 2% from her regional t50 to break into DC big law (which is obv not true), I didn't bother to correct you but then when I saw you comment again here, I kind of just assumed you were just making stuff up.

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Re: Boston U ($) vs GWU ($$) vs Wash U St Louis ($$$) vs Fordham (???)

Post by MaxMcMann » Mon Apr 02, 2018 10:02 am

omd3117 wrote:anecdata but a lot GW's numbers for NYC OCI is because many actually don't participate in the program. GW has 2 distinct programs for the cities and you don't interview together. I found that most people who had decent grades (top 30% or above) and went into NY OCI did fairly well or at the very least snagged a job probably because many actually were WAY too selective and only did DC OCI.

Of course, you can never predict how well you'll do in law school, but was also surprised just by how many students didn't put in the work. More often times than not, I found that friends who cared about grades/ asked enough questions about doing well did at least get above median. (Most of my friends, again top 30%, who did DC or NYC OCI got a firm job.)

I also understand not wanting to take on the risk -- just looking at the 509 numbers can be fairly off-putting, but I was pleasantly surprised by how many people actually got firm jobs who wanted them.
This is good to hear. The conventional wisdom here is that there is no way to have any idea how well you'll do in law school.

I'm sure at Harvard or UPenn people are close to universally highly driven (although I imagine legacies/people who are smart enough to get in without working hard and the like are a factor like they are everywhere else), no offense to T1s, but in my experience in every single other field there is indeed a big difference between tiers of schools in terms of the seriousness of the students they attract.

I have a 3.1 GPA in college which I, for a long time, blamed on any number of external factors. In a sense this is true: I did face some difficulties - but what resulted in the outcome weren't the difficulties themselves but my approach to college as a whole and how I handled them.

I've been working as a paralegal for years in a variety of fields and am salivating at the thought of going back to school. I used to have "fun" and "boring" classes but honestly the most boring class I've ever taken has nothing on a 12 hour days of preparing trademark applications for 25 almost identical brands of detergent with slight changes in the drawing or reading 500 pages of medical records most of which are daily entries that are basically exact copies of each other with slight changes or arguing with the accounting department over discrepancies in bills I send out.

If I could work the same hours I do now and 1) not have it be dead-end 2) actually learn something more than once a month, I think I'd be ecstatic. And my unfortunate post-college job search really put the fear of God in me about law school.

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RedGiant

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Re: Boston U ($) vs GWU ($$) vs Wash U St Louis ($$$) vs Fordham (???)

Post by RedGiant » Tue May 22, 2018 11:00 pm

acr wrote:
RedGiant wrote:BU grad here. If you have any questions, post them here.

I also chose bw Wash U and BU, with similar money. The kicker for me was when my biglaw mentor partner shut the door to my office and said, "[RedGiant], I heard you just got back from WashU. I absolutely forbid you from attending that school. Five years at Cravath and Seven years in Silicon Valley, and I can count the number of times I've worked across from a WashU grad on one hand, with fingers leftover." (He knew I wanted to work in biglaw again.)

I urge you to look at the total cost of attendance for GW and BU, and also to decide whether you like DC or Boston better, since both schools place well in their local markets. I was very interested in corporate law (and not in a lot of the kinds of law that are DC-ish--policy work, regulatory work, litigation, etc.) and so BU was the obvious choice for me.

GL!
Lol this is some of the worst advice I've read on this site.

I attend Wash U and don't really like it, tbh, but to suggest that OP shouldn't consider Wash U because your big law mentor from god knows how many years ago thought it was a poor option for you is laughable.

Aside from your advice being purely anecdotal, the fact that your big law mentor is a partner means that he's likely older (probably 40s or 50s), and things change over the course of time SIGNIFICANTLY. Like, even within the last few years alone, Wash U has seen a substantial rise in employment statistics, especially big law outcomes, to rival Georgetown, UCLA, Vandy, etc.

Maybe your big law mentor just happened to be on a path where he didn't encounter any Wash U grads.

OP, disregard this awful advice, and consider employment statistics for your desired outcome, total cost of attendance and anticipated debt, and location/school amenities/feel if it's important to you.
He's not that old--mid-forties. He worked at Cravath in NY and London and now is a highly respected, Chambers-ranked IPO lawyer in Silicon Valley. So yeah...if working in top corporate firms on a coast is not what you want, don't follow the advice. FWIW, I've practiced a number of years now in biglaw and also haven't run across many WashU grads either.

A huge factor in employment figures is the number of _partners_ from your law school that reach back to hire. Gains in employment stats take years to "trickle up" in this way. Totally understand that larger firms are not for everyone, and the coasts may not be your goal, but Wash U does not place a lot of students nationally, or in biglaw outside the MidWest. Sorry. It doesn't.

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