take berk for example--would that do better in boston than bc/bu? what about uva? gtown? you get the idea.

pretty sure T14 will do better there but I haven't seen any in depth placement statistics for the city of Boston

I've always been told that any T14>regional school, even in that region.

This is an unscientific opinion, but I think the only cases where a regional school might be better is where the region is not a big city and does not have T14 schools nearby. A local school in Wyoming or Montana might get you better options to work there than Berkeley, but I would doubt that this would be the case for local schools in places such as Boston, Chicago, New York.

True.

But to answer OP's question further, the fact that those two schools are so highly ranked, I doubt job prospects outside the T14 would be better anywhere other than BU and BC. For example, I think BU and BC would give you better prospects than Texas or UCLA, not to mention that if you have the numbers to get into those two schools you could probably get a little $ from your Boston schools.

If you get into Berk, you can probably get $$ from BC/BU. I really don't think Berk is going to give you a placement advantage over BC/BU in Boston. If it does, it will be minimal at best. Additionally, plenty of BC/BU alumni in Boston to network with. Networking is essential in this challenging job market. From a return on investment standpoint, you're probably better off with BC/BU & $$ vs. Berk if Boston is your #1 market for law.

All of this is very smart. Networking for 3 years - if you do it - combined with less debt could outweigh the T14 boost - ONLY if you are sure you want Boston. If you might want somewhere else, the answer changes...

UT >>>>>>>>Cornell, NU, and GULC for Texas
Vandy>>>>Cornell and NU for Atlanta

I don't know the answer to this, but I would say at least T14 if not higher. Based on one presentation I went to it seems like BU/BC students can give us a run for our money in the Boston area. I'm not sure Georgetown or Cornell would place much better up here, though that may be at least partially a matter of self-selection.

I wouldn't consider Texas or Vanderbilt to be true regional schools, like BU and BC are. Look at those schools' placement statistics. They're all over the place, especially Vandy - places most grads into NY, followed by TN, CA, and then GA (http://officialguide.lsac.org/SearchRes ... BA1871.pdf). I would think Texas would have similar stats if they weren't public and had to live up to quotas.

Anyway, while T14 is an exclusive group and all, Texas is ranked 15th - it's not like that's a huge jump.

Agreed

Does anything back up your admittedly unscientific opinion? I've met two people at UVA who insinuated that getting a good job in their hometowns (very remote markets) was very easy.

BU spreads its grads around much more than UT. Only 38% stay in MA from BU, while Texas I believe is much higher. I get the Texas self selection thing, but I'm sure a lot of BU grads self select into Boston as well. I'll give you Vandy, they are really surprisingly spread out.

No idea how BC/BU fares against T14ers, but they are thought of really well and imagine it would be like trying to go from T14 to LA given the competition from UCLA/USC. I do hear a ton about UVA in Boston. I've met quite a few UVA alums at top Boston firms. I haven't met many other T14ers other than a bunch of Harvard. I think BC is tougher competition because most of their grads stay in Boston, 60% of BU's class leaves for NYC, DC, LA, etc. I had no idea how national of a school it was until I got here.

Well, I didn't say it's impossible to get a job in a different area coming from a good school. One of the well-known advantages of attending a good school with national reach is that (at least in theory) you can get a job anywhere. The question, however, was whether (all other things being equal) it is always better to go to a lower-ranked local school or to a higher-ranked 'national' school in a different region.

I have no doubt that people from UVA can find jobs in remote regions. But what I was arguing here is that while a UVA student will probably have a leg up in Boston over a BC student, the UVA student's advantage will be smaller in Pierre, South Dakota. (Because in Pierre, they don't get a lot of UVA students, so they don't have experience with them, and they might prefer people who went to school nearby and studied South Dakota law.)

So in terms of advice (still unscientific and based on a gut feeling), to a student trying to decide between Boston College and UVA and planning to work in Boston after graduation, I would say go to UVA. To a student trying to decide between South Dakota University School of Law and UVA, planning to work in Pierre, I think the decision would be harder, especially with scholarships involved.

Problem with this is that it fails to take a few things into account.

At BC/BU, interviews will be strictly pre-screened. The employer gets to see your resume, transcript, etc. before making a decision whether or not to give you a screening interview. Employers also will not recruit as deeply into the class as they will at a t14. Further, since these are regional schools, it might be tougher to target more then one market come OCI time.

At the t14 (except UVA), not only do employers recruit deeper into the class, but screening interviews are "blind". You get assigned interviews by a bidding + lottery combo system instead. You also have many more employers coming to OCI compared to BU/BC.

Another advantage to t14s is that legal writing is on a pass/fail grading system. I believe all t14s do this except Georgetown. Legal writing is a huge time suck and if you get a sub-par grade in that class many employers will think twice before hiring you. Not a problem if your school does the pass/fail system for the class.

One advantage specific to Berkeley is that ALL classes are graded on a pass/fail/honors basis. This puts a lot less pressure on students because 60% of the class will get a pass. And students who collect their pass grades do get good jobs, though I suspect employers are being a lot more picky right now because of the economy.

If you are absolutely sure you want to stay in Boston and will not consider working anywhere else, AND you are offered a full ride with no strings, AND you are flexible about what kind of work you do after law school, going to BU/BC over a T14 might be a good idea.

At least Chicago and NU have graded legal writing too. And yes, it blows.

I agreed with you until you said only take BU/BC full ride over T14. I think this comes with a few qualifiers. BU at least is still putting some people into biglaw at major Boston firms (although really not a lot). I think where the difference comes in is that a lot of people can get jobs in Boston if they work at it. I've heard that a lot of 2Ls/3Ls were able to push their way into small/medium firms making 70-80k starting (shit rolls down hill, I couldn't imagine how bad Suffolk is right now). I agree biglaw is definitely easier out a T14, but if you're set on Boston, and given the biglaw shit-storm, I would be less confident getting a firm job in Boston out of Berkley than BU/BC. Also, you really think G-town full fare would be better than BU/BC w/$ if you're sure you want to work in Boston? I concede that if I got into P/M/V or anything better, I would have taken it over the deal I have at BU now, but I'd be less than comfortable paying 100% at G and trying to get a firm job in Boston.

I question whether lottery OCI can be considered a good part of going to a T14 ITE. I guess it's nice if you like having a false sense of security until you actually show up to the interviews.

I agree that for most candidates it certainly will instill that false sense of security, but it could get your foot in the door if your grades don't reflect your ability to be a great attorney. It's kind of like the PS for admissions in that good numbers take you a long way but you are still able to prove yourself if your numbers are a little off.

It's not a false sense of security but gives you a little more leeway than you get at schools where interviews are strictly pre-screened.

If you are median at a t14, you're not bidding on Covington or Wachtell unless you are completely delusional. Usually career counselors will meet with students to go over their bid lists before they finalize them to make sure students aren't overreaching.

Before the economy crashed, many firms (not all) that interviewed at t14s would give callbacks and offers to people who had borderline grades for that firm, or they would take people from a range of GPAs. Firms would recruit deeper into the class and even take people who were below median. That's how these schools were able to place such a large number of their students in big firms. With pre-screening you have much less of a chance to get your foot in the door and firms that recruit at the non-t14 pre-screen schools are much more likely to employ set GPA cutoffs simply because they can.

Because things are so bad right now, I'd probably advise most people to hold off on law school for a couple years. Even if you don't want to work at a firm, the economy has still made non-firm jobs very competitive because there are many more applicants than before.

Because of the bad economy, I would suggest that students hold off on going to law school two years ago.

Because of the bad economy, I would especially suggest that students go to law school now if they ever want to go, because there are no jobs to get out there now. Conventional wisdom is that the job market will bounce back at least somewhat by May 2013.

It really comes down to your comfort level. At the very least I would try to get more money out of BU if you have a t14 acceptance. It can't hurt to try. Most smaller firms don't pay 70-80K. At smaller firms, you're looking at more like 40-50K. I'd say those students really lucked out. I'd be curious to know what you mean by "a lot".

Gtown isn't faring well right now from what I've heard, partly due to the large class size, but I've also heard that things at MVP really aren't much better. From what I know of students at my old tier 2 (I was a t14 transfer) and a couple other lower ranked schools things are pretty ugly and many of those students will be lucky to find any paying legal work at all come graduation time ITE.

If you apply to law school now and enter in Fall 2010, most firms will be recruiting you in Fall 2011. If things aren't starting to get better by then I doubt firms are going to suddenly start turning up the hiring quotas just so they're ready for what *might* happen in 2013. And 3L recruiting for firms is always a very dicey longshot even in a good economy.

So you recommend directly entering the poor job market rather than taking the fairly good odds that the economy will recover soon. Who's taking the bigger risk?

I'm ignoring all of the posts and chasing the OP's question.

You have to understand that law schools do not follow a set system.

BC/BU are the best schools in the state (that have significant numbers of graduates staying there).

If a student at Berkeley spent his/her 1st and 2nd summers in bos, then they would receive the "connections" advantage that BC/BU students receive.

Believe it or not, a law student devoting both of their summers to a particular state/market is a big deal [especially when that market is 1) not in the same state as the law school and 2) not the state the student has had any prior connections to].