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Just got grades back at Northwestern, sitting at 3.66 for the entire 1L year. Worth pursuing a transfer to HYS or potentially Columbia/NYU for scholarship leverage? Copped a CALI award if that helps. The big reason for transferring would be to pursue academia, so the fact that Biglaw is likely from NU doesn't really factor into my decision. Also, currently paying sticker. Really appreciate any advice, thanks for the help.

Not sure what your median is or where a 3.66 puts you at NU, but I'll assume top 10-15%. Anyway, I would definitely recommend at least applying. A 3.66 should give you a decent chance at HYS and the fact that you're paying sticker at NU means that you pretty much have nothing to lose.

Thanks for the reply, appreciate your input. Our median is 3.26, and there is no published rank so it's hard to know exactly where I'm at.

congrats on the grades

if you're borrowing sticker at northwestern, and you think you might get aid from harvard, I think a transfer application makes sense; whether you actually make the swap, that debatable. transferring within the T14 as a general rule is silly unless you have a specific reason to do so, like a) I don't like my current school, b) I need to move to X city/region for personal reasons, c) I can get more money at this school, or d) I have very specific faculty/scholarship interests that this school offers. Just switching for USNWR survey spots is generally self-defeating -- you lose out on law review, faculty connections, friends and institutional memory. then again, if you have no attachment to your current school and you just feel like making a change, go for it.

for example, transferring to columbia, harvard or nyu won't help you become an academic considering you're leaving behind probably LR and being a strong student at a top school. Those schools all take large and relatively anonymous transfer classes. (yale, that's a different story and might give you a noticeable advantage for scholarship, but with a 3.66 I wouldn't say your chances are that strong). similarly, those schools probably won't get you a meaningfully better firm (assuming someone top 15% from NU can get any big NY wall street firm).

jbagelboy, thank you for the time you took to write that, and the excellent advice. Unfortunately I'm not eligible for financial aid, so it would be the sticker price no matter whether I stay at NU or go. I think your observation about the difficulty of wheeling academia as an anonymous transfer is on point. That's the risk you take, I guess. I'm not overly attached to NU, but love Chicago. It would be difficult to leave, but I keep coming back to HYS>NU at the same price. Although I guess this doesn't matter if you get the same Biglaw job and no better shot at academia anyways.

Edit: The annoying thing is I did substantially better first term than second term, and was stoked about possibly hooking Y. Dammit.