I'm a 1L with a legit shot at being accepted as a transfer to both of these schools if my grades stay the same. I'm at a school I like in a city I like and have a lot of friends here. I'd be very happy working here after I graduate. Also, I'll be able to negotiate a full scholarship and probs a stipend here if accepted as a transfer, which would be pretty boss.

My question is, are Stanford/Harvard really so rad that I'd just HAVE to go if I got in? I'd obviously be paying full $$$ at both, and although I wouldn't have to take out debt to finance it, if I stayed here I'd obviously get to keep that cheese in the fridge, plus that stipend, plus having an easy time at OCI.

Also worth considering: I'd have to do law review to get the job I want from this school. I know without doubt that I will loathe every single moment of that experience, so not having to do that from Stanford/Harvard would be cool.

What city and what school in that city?

And what kind of law do you want to do?

Assuming that (1) you just want the most efficient route to biglaw in your current market; and (2) you have a significant scholarship --- then no, there's no real reason to transfer even to HYS.

Students in your position typically transfer for geographic reach at OCI, better clerkship access, slim chance at academia, or because they are already paying sticker at their current school and would rather use that money to buy a HYS degree.

Gotcha.

There are only three reasons I'd want to go - (1) I think it'd be cool to live in Boston or SanFran for a couple years. I'd probably come back here afterwards though, unless I just absolutely loved either place. I've never been to CA or Boston before, so I dunno; (2) Prestige, pride, street cred; (3) Most importantly, I wouldn't have to do law review. I can't explain in writing how much I don't want to do law review.

Stanford is not in San Francisco. You most likely would not be in SF very much with the possible exception of weekends.

Oh, yea I know its in Palo Alto. I have friends from undergrad that live in between SF downtown and PA.

Isn't Palo Alto part of the SF metro area though?

I wouldn't say that. SF is dirty, foggy, and cold. It is also a city. Palo Alto is a clean, sunny, and warm suburban environment. It is possible to live in SF while going to Stanford, but only if you like 45min-1hr car commutes or 1.5-2hr public transit commutes. Some people do it though.

It sounds like you have no good reason to transfer. Everything you want you can get where you're at. Don't get sucked in by the stupid TLS prestige-whoring mentality.

How much scholarship money would you be foregoing? Are you sure you're not going to qualify for aid?

Your advice seems sound. It's not the TLS mentality though. I have a (probably skewed) conception that people at places like Harvard/Stanford are really motivated, are doing really interesting, really big things, etc. I would imagine that in reality, you get there and it's just like it was before except maybe people are a bit smarter on average.

I didn't realize PA and SF were so separate. I thought PA was just a suburb of SF.

Question: In The Social Network, when they're in that club with that music playing and Sean Parker is quoting the goonies to Mark Zuckerberg, is that in downtown SF?

I don't know what you have to do to qualify for aid, but I imagine that I won't since I have zero need (and you're talking about need based aid right?).

HYS is more generous than other schools. I'd apply and just see if they offer you any money, unless you/your parents have sick assets/income. Do you have a big aid package now?

If you're under 29, and your parents' incomes combined total $180K or more, you're probably not getting a dime at HLS, unfortunately.

I wouldn't call $90k sick income for a middle-aged professional (especially in a high CoL metro area), but I understand why the cutoff is necessary.

And just to answer: no Harvard students are not that awesome; though, on average the community is probably more stimulating than most others.

Yea, that sounds pretty realistic. I think maybe I'm just getting law school in general confused with medical school at places like Stanford/Harvard where students are going to be curing diseases and whatnot in the future. Or with places like MIT where students spend their spare time making solar powered micro-robots the size of a grain of rice that can fly and repair themselves.

Also this may all be premature anyway since my grades might take a tumble down an elevator shaft in a few weeks.

True. I didn't know what the exact cut-off was, I just knew that people are often surprised to qualify. Thanks for sharing!

This is similar to what I think is the (often) detrimental TLS mindset. Before going to law school, you look at the average student at the schools you're considering. Ex ante, the Stanford student will be more successful than the lower T14 student, who will do better than the T30 student, etc. However, now that you have grades, you need to change your thinking slightly. The top students at lower T14s and (often) T30s do much better than the average YSH student. So yeah, while my classmates on average at S seem to be more interesting than at my previous T6 school (probably more because SLS uses a more holistic app evaluation- I'd guess that this doesn't hold up as much at H, where the admissions process gets a group of people with exceedingly high numbers), you're not going to improve your success at all by transferring. In fact, given that you seem to be where you want to be right now (in terms of location/classmates/etc), you'd very likely hurt yourself by transferring.

So yeah, YSH are cool communities, but it's not worth giving up what you've got now, and in terms of job prospects/future success, it'd probably hurt you to transfer.