Mick Haller wrote:Hastings is also offering tremendous scholarships these days. My offer with 3.8/162 would have ranged from $60k to $105k. My actual offer was $0k. Sure, nobody made us attend UCH. But the point is, UCH could have afforded to offer better financial aid packages all along, yet did not.
The depth of how badly Hastings hosed the classes of 2010-2015 is almost incalculable.
I got $10k, which was the most they offered. In addition, my suspicions are strong that they stacked the scholarship recipients in the same section (i.e., mine). My section was so full of gunners (having the largest presence on HLJ, taking up more library rooms than other sections, not showing up for social events, etc.) it wasn't even funny.
Also, they (or perhaps the LSAT) are terrible at predicting student success. I think I was 75th percentile LSAT among the applicants at a score of 164 (damn mauve dinosaurs!), but I graduated bottom 11% of the class! I learned how to "think like a lawyer" studying for the bar by myself, not at Hastings.
The fact that I have a good job at a firm with decent pay (just shy of 6 figures, but made up to 6 figures by helping bar examinees) is in large thanks to luck, creative thinking, and genuine pursuit of my area. If you're going to Hastings, you're probably a Boalt reject (almost good enough but couldn't scale the plateau), meaning you have or will need to develop a considerable amount of one or all of the above to graduate Hastings anyway.
I think law ruins lives, but is that for Hastings people only? Should I remain ignorant of various perks afforded by other schools that I try not to know about?
Well, in any case, I make it sound horrible (and it is), but if I can do it, you can too. Eventually, it will just be a semi-distant memory, and something you convince yourself was what you had to do—that the ends justify the means. Beware that the memory will likely be tinted with gross regret, though.