Does it make sense to transfer from lower T-14 to HYS? Forum

[Anonymous User]

While second semester is still up in the air, I ended up doing surprisingly well this semester at a lower T-14. Transferring up has been on my mind, but I'm not sure whether it makes rational sense beyond just being 'prestigious.'

I essentially have no debt at this point and am on track to graduate with around 70K, but if I do end up transferring to HYS, I'll likely forego a moderate (~20K/yr) scholarship and end up with around 130K debt instead.

If your goal is BigLaw (especially in California) and then eventually in-house at a major F500, does it even make sense to transfer to HYS? Barring a catastrophic collapse this semester, my grades should be sufficient to get me in the door for a post-grad BigLaw job. Will a brand name school actually help open better doors down the road, or am I just taking on more debt/forgoing 1L grades and my network for no good reason?

I know that it is hard to tell the future impact of things like this, but I would appreciate hearing your opinions. Thanks!

[Br3v]

While second semester is still up in the air, I ended up doing surprisingly well this semester at a lower T-14. Transferring up has been on my mind, but I'm not sure whether it makes rational sense beyond just being 'prestigious.'

I essentially have no debt at this point and am on track to graduate with around 70K, but if I do end up transferring to HYS, I'll likely forego a moderate (~20K/yr) scholarship and end up with around 130K debt instead.

If your goal is BigLaw (especially in California) and then eventually in-house at a major F500, does it even make sense to transfer to HYS? Barring a catastrophic collapse this semester, my grades should be sufficient to get me in the door for a post-grad BigLaw job. Will a brand name school actually help open better doors down the road, or am I just taking on more debt/forgoing 1L grades and my network for no good reason?

I know that it is hard to tell the future impact of things like this, but I would appreciate hearing your opinions. Thanks!

If your goal is Cal then transferring to Stanford doesn't seem like a bad idea. HY will of course open doors there too. If you had a more substantial scholarship it might be a harder decision.

[Anonymous User]

If your goal is Cal then transferring to Stanford doesn't seem like a bad idea. HY will of course open doors there too. If you had a more substantial scholarship it might be a harder decision.

I'm not terribly worried about getting back to Cali since I have decent ties to the area. Plus if I can maintain grades that would let me transfer to HYS, those same grades should definitely get me back to Cali as well. If I can't maintain said grades, then the transferring dilemma is moot anyways.

While my scholarship isn't substantial, an extra 40K isn't nothing. I was wondering more along the lines of whether going to HYS for the additional costs (financial, network, hassle, etc...) will be offset by the eventual professional benefits. For example, availability of elite firms that only OCI at HYS and not lower T-14s, being considered for better in-house positions down the road due to the brand-name school, have a stronger professional network....

Again, I understand that people can't possibly validate this precisely, but I'm happy to hear your thoughts!

[sundance95]

I've always thought of it like this:

If you have the grades to transfer to HYS, you've already won your T14. You'll have your pick of OCI interviews, you'll be on the law review (depending on your journal system), and you'll be a top candidate for clerkships out of your school (i.e. faculty will get behind you b/c it's good for the school to make clerks and you'll be one of their better candidates).

I can't think of any instrumentalist reason why someone would want to transfer. What benefit could it create? Only possibility is prestige, that lay folks will be impressed when you say you went to HLS, but that seems like a foolish thing to care about. Could understand transferring for personal reasons (e.g., spouse gets a job in another market, ill parents) but outside of that I'm not sure I get it.

All of this presumes that you want to practice law. There's a tenuous case to be made for transferring to HLS if you want to go into politics.

[fats provolone]

even the lay prestige reason isn't that great bc you feel kinda dirty telling people you went to HYS without explaining that you transferred

[Longtimecoming19]

even the lay prestige reason isn't that great bc you feel kinda dirty telling people you went to HYS without explaining that you transferred

Oh?

[fats provolone]

even the lay prestige reason isn't that great bc you feel kinda dirty telling people you went to HYS without explaining that you transferred

Oh?

i do anyway

[bjsesq]

even the lay prestige reason isn't that great bc you feel kinda dirty telling people you went to HYS without explaining that you transferred

Oh?

Ignore duck. He's a piece of shit transfer.

[Elston Gunn]

Yeah, stick it out where you are.

[jumpin munkey]

I think the TLS CW, and the correct view, is that there is a strong but rebuttable presumption that transferring to HYS (but especially Harvard) from within the T14 is usually going to be a mistake. In other words, you have to make the affirmative case yourself for why you should do it. Maybe you're paying sticker at Cornell and would get need aid at Harvard, or maybe your wife is doing her Ph.D. at Yale, so on and so forth. It's not like you're not going to get a great job at OCI going from a lower T14 to HYS, because you will, it's just that there are a lot of downsides (losing 1L grades, usually losing law review, losing friends, losing professors who will do a lot for you if you're top 5% at Duke) and not many upsides. It's essentially always going to be a bad move to transfer for clerkship reasons -- if you're #3 at Georgetown, you'll almost always be better off staying than by transferring to Yale, and if you're #30 at Georgetown, you'd rather be at Yale but you're not going to get in.

In your case, I think it would make a ton of sense to transfer to Stanford if the cost were the same, because it sounds like you want to be in California after school and I feel safe assuming that living in Palo Alto is preferable to living wherever you are now. For $50k more, you should probably stay. If you have the grades to transfer to Stanford you'll almost certainly get a good job in California at OCI from your current school.

[toothbrush]

i do anyway

this made me lol


OP - I admittedly transferred from a lower t14 to C/N for what you could call 'personal reasons'. I am just posting here to tell you that I forewent a similar scholarship and it scares the shit out of me how much debt I will graduate with now. Going from <100k to >150k didn't seem like a lot when I decided to transfer, but now that I'm taking out loans for 30k+ / semester and seeing that interest accumulate I appreciate the scholarship I had. Also, I ended up at a firm that I likely could have gotten from my lower t14. They do interview at the lower t14's OCI, though.

With similar long-term goals (biglaw-> f500), I don't think you need one of those "elite HYS only" firms tbh. Many of the v10/5 probably are sufficient to open doors for f500 so long as other factors are in place (timing/work-product quality/luck).

Feel free to PM me if you want to discuss anything in more detail.

[MagicMike80]

even the lay prestige reason isn't that great bc you feel kinda dirty telling people you went to HYS without explaining that you transferred

Oh?

i do anyway

When I meet a new person and tell them where I go to school, they are universally impressed. Then I tell them I'm a transfer and maybe we talk about it. The second time I meet them they don't even remember. No one thinks about you as much as you.

[fats provolone]

even the lay prestige reason isn't that great bc you feel kinda dirty telling people you went to HYS without explaining that you transferred

Oh?

i do anyway

When I meet a new person and tell them where I go to school, they are universally impressed. Then I tell them I'm a transfer and maybe we talk about it. The second time I meet them they don't even remember. No one thinks about you as much as you.

but see http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 0#p7656069

[Anonymous User]

Great advice guys. Thanks for the help. It seems like that most people are leaning towards "stay" since it won't make a substantial difference in immediate desired employment outcomes.

A friend of mine came out more or less on the same side, but also did caveat it by saying that HYS has the potential to give you a boost if you ever decide to leave the legal field down the road. Although people joke about the lay prestige, the recognition of HYS over lower T-14s might have a tangible impact for non-legal jobs. For example, while the legal industry universally recognize Michigan and Virginia as elite schools, few outside of law will know that these are actually "top" due to their reputation as just "good" public schools.

Essentially, is the potential benefit of universal name-recognition on your resume down the road worth the extra 50k and the hassle of transferring?

[Nebby]

I'm thinking of transferring to Princeton Law, what are my chances?

[mvp99]

plus that hls diploma will indicate you're a stinky transfer