I'm a 1L. i picked a top-30 with a half scholly in the region I want to work, and I'm infinitely glad I did. Even coming out of many top-10 schools, getting a biglaw job is far, far far from a sure thing. Even HYS are seeing their students deferred or offers withdrawn from the top firms. I'll graduate with under 50K in debt, which would allow me to clerk (my school somehow places a ton of people in Article III clerkships) or work for the DOJ or whatever should I decide to.

My caveat, however, is this: don't assume that you can graduate in the top 10% at a T-30 just because you got in to a T-14. My money is no-strings-attached. I know for a fact that my opportunities will be more limited out of this school, but the reality is they are currently also pretty limited in the T-14.

keep in mind, i'm not advocating you go to some 3rd tier shithole...we're talking about half scholarships at some pretty solid schools.

After researching as much as I could into WUSTL's ranking vs. its prestige and reputation, I turned down a full tuition scholarship offer there and chose a T10 school at near sticker instead. I'd actually have picked BC or ND with less $$ over WUSTL if I hadn't gotten in here. I don't find myself a big fan of WUSTL at all, since their ranking seems in part due to an ability to buy higher LSAT scores with massive scholarship offers. I worry more about what I'll be able to do once I graduate than the cost of the education.

ITT: vanwinkle becomes Kool-Aid spokesman

depends on what region you want to work in

T-30 in region you want at half price is a great opportunity
T-14 in a region you don't want may not be so good in comparison

some people in this thread need to read some threads in the Legal Employment forum. Honestly. There you will fine post after post after post of people going to PMDNVCG, at or above median, who are completely unable to find work. The notion that T14 at sticker is almost always better than a T20 1/2 tuition is ignorant. Do you have a BETTER SHOT at biglaw coming out of a T14? Yes. But is 5% really much better than 1%? Or should I say, is it worth $75,000 for that extra 4%/tiny boost (obviously my numbers are not real)? IMO if you can't get into HYSCCN, you should hedge your bets and go to a good school that will give you at least half tuition. If you look at local law firms (where most of you will be forced to end up applying, T14s included), many of those baby boomer lawyers don't give a shit about USNWR rankings and couldn't tell you what school is ranked higher than another. The TLS "T14-or-fail" mindset is not normal.

The most valuable thing you can do is not merely to attend the best school you can get into, but rather find valuable work experience before you go to school. After all, someone who spent a few years working for the EPA with a JD from GW is going to look much better applying for an environmental law job than someone with a JD from GULC with no work experience.

The bolded is just not true, it would be more fair to say the the top 1/3 (except GULC) are getting jobs out of the T14 as oppose to people at a school like ND (#23) who has students in the top 5% on LR that can't get jobs and that is quite a significant difference besides the fact that the ND grad is pretty screwed outside the chicago market whereas a t14 can place reasonably well into any market and many median or lower students at the T14 have a decent shot at smaller secondary markets (like milwaukee) adds some extra value to the national T14 degree

I will agree that some t20's are comparable in their own market to a t14 but only vandy, ucla, or texas any schools besides that are not really very close to the t14 in terms of reputation at all

I agree, the specifics matter.


In general sure, but there are some specific cases (like UT vs GULC above if you want to practice in TX) where the rule doesn't always apply.

I think you are on the right track to focus on jobs not OMG they are offering me a big scholarship. $60k less in loans may seem like a big deal to someone coming out of ugrad and used to living on less than $1k per month, but it only takes slightly better job opportunities or LRAP to overcome the difference once you enter repayment, and with IBR the difference may be negligible. And if the are significant strings attached to the scholarship it is even more in favor of better jobs over attractive scholarship.

In your case I think you absolutely made the right choice, but not everyone has the same circumstances.

You should read the same threads were people in the top 25% of T30's aren't able to find jobs either. At some schools that used to place amazingly well for their rank like UIUC and Notre Dame, top10% and LR doesn't even guarantee an offer.

So either 100K in debt for Illinois with having to be in the top 10% of the class, or 200K in debt for Northwestern and needing to be top 50%. Which would you choose? Getting top 10% percent is many times more hard than top 50%. There is a lot of random variables involved in law school grading that makes top 10% a bit of a crap shoot.



Its more like 10% to 50%(probably 33% at Gt and Cornell). And yes that is worth 75,000K.

+1 -- i didnt even read what you said, just looked at your icon

You seem to be confused about things a bit.

The difference between T14 and lower-T30 hiring is a lot bigger than "5% vs. 1%" as you make it sound. From what I've been hearing, here at UVA it's been folks in the top 25-30% of their class that have been getting job offers; on the other hand, some firms that did OCI/OGI at T14 schools have cancelled out of it altogether at schools like WUSTL and UIUC. There are firms that aren't hiring at all at non-T14 schools right now. That's a pretty stark difference, and given the prestige-driven nature of law hiring in general, that's likely to continue for a while and only gradually ease up as the job market recovers.

Not only that, but if law firms aren't hiring as many people in general, that means fewer T14 graduates getting jobs than usual, and they're still going to be looking for work. Where are they going to go? To those MidLaw/gov't/PI jobs that normally would've been grabbed up by T30 grads because the T14 grads wanted more money. Just because T30 grads have historically been getting those jobs doesn't mean they have an equal chance at them now, the T14 prestige is still going to win out in a lot of those cases and it's going to end up displacing T30 grads from more than just the BigLaw markets.

All that said, $75,000 may still sound like a lot on its own but it's not when you consider it's a difference between $125,000 and $200,000 in debt. Either amount is so large that you're not going to be able to pay it off without help, and that help is available in the form of IBR. With IBR, whether your debt is $125,000 or significantly more, you can get a fixed monthly payment based on your income that's manageable. Unless you get BigLaw-type salaries you're going to need IBR to manage your loan payments whether you go to a T30 or a T14. $75,000 is not a lot of money when (Toomuch - $75k) still = Toomuch.

Given that, isn't it obviously better to go to the T14 for its better post-graduation employment opportunities? That way you have a better chance at getting a reasonable job initially and building up experience and networking, which are important not just upon graduation but through your entire legal career. The T14 degree gives you the potential in the long run to make hundreds of thousands of dollars more money and to have better chances at state or federal jobs with better benefits and a stronger career ladder. These are things that have to be considered when choosing a school, not just where you're going to go when you graduate.

Gosh reading posts like these make me almost regret my decision to ED at a T14. Granted, I didn't get the decision just yet, but the thought of 150,000K+ of debt if accepted naturally sends shivers down my spine.

What made you decide to attend the T30 over a better school besides the half scholly? My reasoning is that it's easier to get into top 30% at a lower T14 than it is to get into top 10% at a T30.

You can always decline the offer to attend dooder.

Half tuition at T30 is what I would pick, but then again I'm going the IP law route (I know many lawyers from a school ranked ~#50 who are earning big $ in IP law; no T30 much less T14 required). I would say it boils down to how well the T30 places in your region of interest. If you're sole goal is big law, then I could see paying through the nose for T14, but otherwise not so much.

Read Above the Law. IP shops are getting just as slaughtered as any other firm. Good luck!

I was just talking with someone from a top DC IP firm. They were implying things were better there relative to the rest of the market. Then again, they were talking about IP litigation, which lags behind the market.

That being said, I've seen so many success stories in IP from T50 schools that I would consider it risky to pay T14 sticker merely in reaction to the current recession. If we're still in a recession in 4 years, then everyone is going to be screwed, T14 or not.

This is one of the biggest logical fallacies I see regarding the recession: People assuming/insinuating that either 1) things will get so much better that any T30/T50/T100 school will suffice to find work again, or that 2) things will get/stay so bad that everyone's screwed, T14 or not. It's like those are the only two possibilities and it has to come out one way or the other. It varies a little in that different people assert a different cutoff, but it always takes the same overall form: Plan for a recovery and go to a cheaper Top-XX school, because if things don't recover we're all screwed anyway.

There is a middle position that's not only possible but in my opinion more logical: Things recover, but at a very slow period of growth and hiring afterward. Law firms, having lower profits and tired of training so many associates that turn around and leave, may keep hiring smaller numbers and focus more on trying to train and keep the ones they do hire. Some people are also calling for the creation of essentially permanent associate positions so that firms can hire and keep lawyers for more basic work that they're not forced to eventually fire or promote. If they retain more people permanently they'll need to hire fewer replacements each year.

That could mean a much tighter job market even after a recovery, which will mean prestige matters even more and a T14 degree will be even more valuable than it is now.

Lulz, I love this.
Top 14 law school? $160,000-200,000, on 8%
Salary you get even though you graduate in the top half of your class after 3 years of sweat? 30,000-40,000, if you are lucky
Living worse and having a lower QOL than you would if you just worked straight out of undergrad with your bullshit degree but no debt? Priceless hilarity.

Could be worse. T14, no-offered, twice the debt, same $30-40k salary forthcoming.

Above the Law greatly exaggerates the phantom drop in IP work. Some IP firms have cut back on starting salaries, but offer rates for the large IP boutiques were still WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY higher than the average for even some of the best GP firms.

I take it you're not one to get out of your bubble?

Probably true, but Coke is also way better than Pepsi. This doesn't mean that I'd be happy with the outcome of drinking either (HFCS sucks). Admittedly idiotic and poorly formed analogy aside...

I talked to some 2Ls here and the consensus was that OCI was a joke. Tons of interviews, barely any offers. Many top 10% + LR were shut out. This could be a bad sampling, but still, T20 FTW! From what I've heard from friends at other schools, GW/BC/Fordham etc. are all the same. I'll only be 80k in debt, so I'm not really sweating it... I don't know how I'd feel if I were looking at 200k from a T14. I guess it depends on how risk adverse you are?

I'll have around the same amount of debt coming from a T10 with:

-A highly sought after engineering background for IP jobs
-Having passed the patent bar
-3 years of experience at a top5 (in terms of gross revenue) bigEngineering company

and I'm still shitting myself with terror ITE! I have no idea what all the rest of my classmates (who don't have scholys) were thinking.

Well, think of it this way. 80k is still cheaper than a lot of masters degrees. At least for what I want to do, JD/MA are pretty fungible. Sounds like you could always fall back on engireering... not the worst thing in the world. I agree with the full tuition thing.. a few of my friends are paying full fare. I would quit if that were me.

You have to figure that getting top 10% at UIUC isn't 5x less likely than top half of U of C. U of C students are going to offer much stiffer competition. Regardless, I'd go U of C. But its not 10% versus 50%. Not even close. It's entirely possible that it's harder to be top 50% at U of C than top 10% of UIUC.

(*kicks self for not attending easy UG where top 10% = top 10% for ls admissions)

+1 on this. While law school grading is certainly subjective, the increased level of talent is obviously going to make for tougher competition.