subject matter jurisdiction Forum

[daesonesb]

I

[legalease9]

Tough call. Don't go Cornell in this situation. Go either UCLA or UW. As far as deciding between those two, its a tough call. Remember though that you can apply for residency in California for years 2 and 3.

[Neelio]

pleeeeeeeeeeease withdraw from UW so I can claim a spot... haha. Thanks.

[HerseyChris]

For those of us not in the know, can you post the costs?
UW 22k in state.
UCLA... 40k OOS?
Cornell 48k OOS?

Any chance at any money at all from UCLA?

[daesonesb]

[q

[missvik218]

If by "stay on the west coast" you mean work in the Northwest ... I'm voting UW. Also considering the fact that you don't seem to care very much about Big Law, I'm voting even harder UW. Unless you want to work in LA or other big markets in CA, then I'd vote UCLA but sticker is rough and residency doesn't help much with the CA schools (still approx 35k).

Don't go to Cornell it's ridiculously expensive and it doesn't appear to match up well with your stated goals.

[uwb09]

if you want to stay in the northwest/canada (vancouver area) - UW
if you want to move to cali, get in state tuition by your second year, and have more national options - UCLA
if you want to pay for a school that really doesn't seem to fit what you want at all - Cornell

[HerseyChris]

When you say Canada, do you mean the Vancouver area? Or Toronto/Montreal (where Cornell actually might give you an advantage)?

[daesonesb]

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[daesonesb]

The

[UFMatt]

Don't go to UCLA. The cost is outrageous. We're talking $100k more than UW. Cornell doesn't seem to fit into your goals. UW will be the cheapest by far, has excellent placement in your desired market, is highly regarded, and would presumably give you the best QoL due to family (and the fact that Seattle is awesome).

UW.

[jcl2]

I think you know my opinion, and I voted accordingly. I didn't realize that you weren't interested in biglaw until now though, which just strengthens the argument for UW. For the NW or Canada I don't think a UCLA degree will serve you better than a UW degree, regardless of what type job you are looking for, so it is definitely not worth the cost; for eastern Canada Cornell might give you an advantage over both, but I don't think it would be worth the huge debt. If you really want to end up in Canada you should probably go to a Canadian school, which would be really cheap.

[nocal]

Take UCLA and be thankful you have it. UW is not in the same class. The only thing that gives me hesitation is the family in Washington, but that's pretty thin. I don't think it offsets the differences in reputation, opportunity (connections you will make while there) and weather.

[jcl2]

Take UCLA and be thankful you have it. UW is not in the same class. The only thing that gives me hesitation is the family in Washington, but that's pretty thin. I don't think it offsets the differences in reputation, opportunity (connections you will make while there) and weather.

If you want to work in the NW, UW and UCLA are absolutely in the same class, except one will only cost half as much and allow you to more easily network and make connections in the location you want to work.

Even nationally, I don't think the difference would be worth the extra cost, both schools are mostly regional, but respected nationally. If you want to work somewhere other than the NW or CA, and you don't get in to a T14, you should probably go to a T30 in the region you want to practice anyway, not UW or UCLA. The only cases where UCLA makes more sense are if you want to work in CA or if you are committed to gunning for biglaw, don't have specific regional preferences, and the increased chance at biglaw from UCLA is worth the considerable risk that you won't still won't get biglaw but will have 200k in debt.

[daesonesb]

I

[jcl2]

I am going to revive this thread with two relevant points, if no one minds.

1. Is it possible that being one of 300 in the class of 2013 at UCLA would bode better for me entering the Los Angeles Market, then being one of 200 graduating from UW and entering the Seattle market?

Basically, are employment prospects for ucla grads in LA better than those of UW grads in Seattle? I've heard about a couple of people from my cousin who are top ten percenters at UW who didn't find anything at all worthwhile in Seattle out of UW, and ended up going to California anyway!

Oh and Point 2.

To all you admitted students at UW: Are you going to the Student Bar Ass. sponsored Mariners game on Friday the 16th? I'm thinking of taking the train down...

I think your chances at biglaw in LA would be better from UCLA than your chances at biglaw in Seattle from UW, because the biglaw market is much smaller in Seattle than LA, but I doubt that holds true for anything other than biglaw. Also, as I have said, even if you were interested in biglaw and would be equally happy in Seattle or LA, there is still a pretty big chance of not getting biglaw out of UCLA, so I'm not sure that the increased odds at biglaw quite make up for the increased risk in the form of much greater debt; it might be, it would just depend on your personal priorities and level of risk aversion.

edit: Oh, and I don't think I will make the admitted students events or the Mariners game. I went last year and figure it will be pretty similar, and I have other things going on that weekend. I do recommend going though, I thought it was pretty informative and it was fun meeting current students and other prospective students.