SMU 2011 Forum

bartleby · Post by **bartleby** » Thu Apr 14, 2011 12:31 pm

not UT. u probably wouldn't get into UT, but for sure $76,000 at SMU. I'd sit it out this cycle.

smithc2011 · Post by **smithc2011** » Thu Apr 14, 2011 1:48 pm

numbers in the profile are accurate, my hard drive crashed in december so i had to completely start over. applied at or just before the deadline for all schools

And those numbers are after COA adjustments, I got 35k a year at Texas Wesleyan (COA around 40k for me) and 25.5k a year at SMU. top 25% stip at TWU, which I'm not too worried about considering i dicked around in undergrad and my GPA is at the median for them, and plan on working significantly harder at law school. I have to go this cycle, I lose $120 a week life insurance for the next 3 years if I'm not a full-time student. I'll graduate with $120,000-$130,000 in debt from SMU. which scares the daylights out of me too.

I guess the main thing I'm questioning is whether the difference between the schools is as huge as people play it out to be; if I graduated around top 25% at TWU, would that look significantly worse than just top 50% at SMU (which is ultimately what I'm betting on)? And do law students really make anywhere near the amount of money even the reputable places are saying? As an economics major, I fully expect the legal market to turn around by the time we're graduating.

p.s. if any of you are still deciding, and haven't seen the charts on the link i posted, they're amazingly helpful, if true.

fathergoose · Post by **fathergoose** » Thu Apr 14, 2011 1:54 pm

1. Don't assume you'll be top 25%. Scholarship stipulations are a suckers game. If you seriously want to go the twu make them remove the stipulations.
2. Yes the difference between the schools is that big. SMU is in the top 30 employment wise and twu is well out of the top hundred.
3. Don't go to twu. Top 25 at twu is far far far far below top half at smu. That'd be like me saying top 25 at smu is basically the same as top half at harvard.
4. For the love of all that you hold dear don't go to twu. Bite the bullet and take the loans to go to smu or don't go at all.

ArchRoark · Post by **ArchRoark** » Thu Apr 14, 2011 2:08 pm

fathergoose wrote:1. Don't assume you'll be top 25%. Scholarship stipulations are a suckers game. If you seriously want to go the twu make them remove the stipulations.
2. Yes the difference between the schools is that big. SMU is in the top 30 employment wise and twu is well out of the top hundred.
3. Don't go to twu. Top 25 at twu is far far far far below top half at smu. That'd be like me saying top 25 at smu is basically the same as top half at harvard.
4. For the love of all that you hold dear don't go to twu. Bite the bullet and take the loans to go to smu or don't go at all.

+1

Except, I would add reapply and enroll full-time at a community college to maintain your insurance. You shave a solid shot at a number of the T14 with those numbers or near/full tuition at a number of other T1 schools (mostly midwest splitter friendly schools).

Also, I believe those numbers are pre-ITE pwned.

Thirteen · Post by **Thirteen** » Thu Apr 14, 2011 2:10 pm

fathergoose wrote:1. Don't assume you'll be top 25%. Scholarship stipulations are a suckers game. If you seriously want to go the twu make them remove the stipulations.
2. Yes the difference between the schools is that big. SMU is in the top 30 employment wise and twu is well out of the top hundred.
3. Don't go to twu. Top 25 at twu is far far far far below top half at smu. That'd be like me saying top 25 at smu is basically the same as top half at harvard.
4. For the love of all that you hold dear don't go to twu. Bite the bullet and take the loans to go to smu or don't go at all.

+100000000

bartleby · Post by **bartleby** » Thu Apr 14, 2011 2:15 pm

smithc2011 wrote:numbers in the profile are accurate, my hard drive crashed in december so i had to completely start over. applied at or just before the deadline for all schools

And those numbers are after COA adjustments, I got 35k a year at Texas Wesleyan (COA around 40k for me) and 25.5k a year at SMU. top 25% stip at TWU, which I'm not too worried about considering i dicked around in undergrad and my GPA is at the median for them, and plan on working significantly harder at law school. I have to go this cycle, I lose $120 a week life insurance for the next 3 years if I'm not a full-time student. I'll graduate with $120,000-$130,000 in debt from SMU. which scares the daylights out of me too.

I guess the main thing I'm questioning is whether the difference between the schools is as huge as people play it out to be; if I graduated around top 25% at TWU, would that look significantly worse than just top 50% at SMU (which is ultimately what I'm betting on)? And do law students really make anywhere near the amount of money even the reputable places are saying? As an economics major, I fully expect the legal market to turn around by the time we're graduating.

p.s. if any of you are still deciding, and haven't seen the charts on the link i posted, they're amazingly helpful, if true.

smith-- will SMU really run you 120-130k debt? i have same scholly as you and figured 100k sounded about right. 50k in tuition and 50k living?

ebo · Post by **ebo** » Thu Apr 14, 2011 2:15 pm

smithc2011 wrote:numbers in the profile are accurate, my hard drive crashed in december so i had to completely start over. applied at or just before the deadline for all schools

And those numbers are after COA adjustments, I got 35k a year at Texas Wesleyan (COA around 40k for me) and 25.5k a year at SMU. top 25% stip at TWU, which I'm not too worried about considering i dicked around in undergrad and my GPA is at the median for them, and plan on working significantly harder at law school. I have to go this cycle, I lose $120 a week life insurance for the next 3 years if I'm not a full-time student. I'll graduate with $120,000-$130,000 in debt from SMU. which scares the daylights out of me too.

I guess the main thing I'm questioning is whether the difference between the schools is as huge as people play it out to be; if I graduated around top 25% at TWU, would that look significantly worse than just top 50% at SMU (which is ultimately what I'm betting on)? And do law students really make anywhere near the amount of money even the reputable places are saying? As an economics major, I fully expect the legal market to turn around by the time we're graduating.

p.s. if any of you are still deciding, and haven't seen the charts on the link i posted, they're amazingly helpful, if true.

Like someone said earlier, you should reapply next cycle and save yourself a ton of money. I applied early and got 76k from SMU with a worse GPA and a 166. If you waste a 173 LSAT on TWU, you're insane. Same goes for SMU at sticker. Look at Law School Predictor- you're a consider from Penn on down the Top 14. You should apply to all of those early next cycle and any school from 15-30 in a part of the country you're interested in. And apply to SMU early and save yourself at least 76k for the next three years.

smithc2011 · Post by **smithc2011** » Thu Apr 14, 2011 2:38 pm

bartleby wrote:
smithc2011 wrote:numbers in the profile are accurate, my hard drive crashed in december so i had to completely start over. applied at or just before the deadline for all schools

And those numbers are after COA adjustments, I got 35k a year at Texas Wesleyan (COA around 40k for me) and 25.5k a year at SMU. top 25% stip at TWU, which I'm not too worried about considering i dicked around in undergrad and my GPA is at the median for them, and plan on working significantly harder at law school. I have to go this cycle, I lose $120 a week life insurance for the next 3 years if I'm not a full-time student. I'll graduate with $120,000-$130,000 in debt from SMU. which scares the daylights out of me too.

I guess the main thing I'm questioning is whether the difference between the schools is as huge as people play it out to be; if I graduated around top 25% at TWU, would that look significantly worse than just top 50% at SMU (which is ultimately what I'm betting on)? And do law students really make anywhere near the amount of money even the reputable places are saying? As an economics major, I fully expect the legal market to turn around by the time we're graduating.

p.s. if any of you are still deciding, and haven't seen the charts on the link i posted, they're amazingly helpful, if true.
smith-- will SMU really run you 120-130k debt? i have same scholly as you and figured 100k sounded about right. 50k in tuition and 50k living?

I gotcha. 100k is pretty reasonable, i have another 15k from undergrad, and may end up taking out the maximum loans just for funzies.

smithc2011 · Post by **smithc2011** » Thu Apr 14, 2011 2:42 pm

bartleby wrote:
smithc2011 wrote:numbers in the profile are accurate, my hard drive crashed in december so i had to completely start over. applied at or just before the deadline for all schools

And those numbers are after COA adjustments, I got 35k a year at Texas Wesleyan (COA around 40k for me) and 25.5k a year at SMU. top 25% stip at TWU, which I'm not too worried about considering i dicked around in undergrad and my GPA is at the median for them, and plan on working significantly harder at law school. I have to go this cycle, I lose $120 a week life insurance for the next 3 years if I'm not a full-time student. I'll graduate with $120,000-$130,000 in debt from SMU. which scares the daylights out of me too.

I guess the main thing I'm questioning is whether the difference between the schools is as huge as people play it out to be; if I graduated around top 25% at TWU, would that look significantly worse than just top 50% at SMU (which is ultimately what I'm betting on)? And do law students really make anywhere near the amount of money even the reputable places are saying? As an economics major, I fully expect the legal market to turn around by the time we're graduating.

p.s. if any of you are still deciding, and haven't seen the charts on the link i posted, they're amazingly helpful, if true.
smith-- will SMU really run you 120-130k debt? i have same scholly as you and figured 100k sounded about right. 50k in tuition and 50k living?

I may run a scholarship negotiation by them. I'll lose $18k from insurance benefits if I'm not enrolled full-time, and I don't know what the hell I would do at a community college. I'm also hoping for like a 3.7+ this semester, and can probably get a killer letter of recommendation from my department head. Apparently SMU doesn't really do scholarship negotiations.

...i should sue the maker of my hard drive, because it sounds like that really screwed me.

ebo · Post by **ebo** » Thu Apr 14, 2011 2:44 pm

smithc2011 wrote:
bartleby wrote:
smithc2011 wrote:numbers in the profile are accurate, my hard drive crashed in december so i had to completely start over. applied at or just before the deadline for all schools

And those numbers are after COA adjustments, I got 35k a year at Texas Wesleyan (COA around 40k for me) and 25.5k a year at SMU. top 25% stip at TWU, which I'm not too worried about considering i dicked around in undergrad and my GPA is at the median for them, and plan on working significantly harder at law school. I have to go this cycle, I lose $120 a week life insurance for the next 3 years if I'm not a full-time student. I'll graduate with $120,000-$130,000 in debt from SMU. which scares the daylights out of me too.

I guess the main thing I'm questioning is whether the difference between the schools is as huge as people play it out to be; if I graduated around top 25% at TWU, would that look significantly worse than just top 50% at SMU (which is ultimately what I'm betting on)? And do law students really make anywhere near the amount of money even the reputable places are saying? As an economics major, I fully expect the legal market to turn around by the time we're graduating.

p.s. if any of you are still deciding, and haven't seen the charts on the link i posted, they're amazingly helpful, if true.
smith-- will SMU really run you 120-130k debt? i have same scholly as you and figured 100k sounded about right. 50k in tuition and 50k living?
I gotcha. 100k is pretty reasonable, i have another 15k from undergrad, and may end up taking out the maximum loans just for funzies.

Can you really not reapply in the fall? If I was you I would do whatever possible to avoid paying sticker at SMU, especially with your numbers. As it stands now, the only thing that's guaranteed after you graduate is 100k + in debt. I wouldn't take that on for anything except a T14 school (and maybe not even then). You need to seriously think about what you're taking on. Going to sticker at SMU in this economy is not the smartest decision, and you have other, much better options. You will get a considerable amount of money from SMU next year if you reapply, or you could go to a school that's ranked significantly higher.

fathergoose · Post by **fathergoose** » Thu Apr 14, 2011 2:45 pm

smithc2011 wrote:I may run a scholarship negotiation by them. I'll lose $18k from insurance benefits if I'm not enrolled full-time, and I don't know what the hell I would do at a community college. I'm also hoping for like a 3.7+ this semester, and can probably get a killer letter of recommendation from my department head. Apparently SMU doesn't really do scholarship negotiations.

...i should sue the maker of my hard drive, because it sounds like that really screwed me.

18k is a lot but it's not that much given not only how much scholarship money you'd be forgoing but also the huge disparity in post-law school compensation you'd be looking at.

And if you can avoid all of that by dropping a couple grand at a community college taking something random and interesting, I say do it. Get a easy part time job at a golf course or something and just hang out for a year

bartleby · Post by **bartleby** » Thu Apr 14, 2011 2:49 pm

hm...he's not going to SMU at sticker though - he mentioned he got the 25.5k. if he's set on tx, then i'd advise to just go to SMU. cause there's a good chance he's not getting into UT and people w/ sim. splitter stats got the 25.5 either way.

smithc2011 · Post by **smithc2011** » Thu Apr 14, 2011 2:58 pm

bartleby wrote:hm...he's not going to SMU at sticker though - he mentioned he got the 25.5k. if he's set on tx, then i'd advise to just go to SMU. cause there's a good chance he's not getting into UT and people w/ sim. splitter stats got the 25.5 either way.

yeah it was a 25.5k scholarship, so overall cost of attendance is expected to be 35k-37k. Which I can't really imagine myself getting significantly more money than that, since I won't be bringing up my UGPA by much between now and the next cycle.

smithc2011 · Post by **smithc2011** » Thu Apr 14, 2011 2:59 pm

also i'm pretty sure there is a selection bias on all the admissions and scholarship calculators online, except maybe the LSAC tables.

david787 · Post by **david787** » Thu Apr 14, 2011 3:07 pm

If you do decide to reapply this fall (which would be smart since I assume you're still quite young), definitely store you app materials on a cloud server (or two or three), I had everything saved on mobileme, dropbox, and my hard drive (which auto backs up every day).

smithc2011 · Post by **smithc2011** » Thu Apr 14, 2011 3:19 pm

david787 wrote:If you do decide to reapply this fall (which would be smart since I assume you're still quite young), definitely store you app materials on a cloud server (or two or three), I had everything saved on mobileme, dropbox, and my hard drive (which auto backs up every day).

Yeah I've learned my lesson as far as the backup hard drive. I'm almost definitely going to matriculate though, whoever made the comment about my split made a good point. My GPA is significantly lower than the median, and it seems like SMU was solely targeting raising their medians this cycle.

ebo · Post by **ebo** » Thu Apr 14, 2011 3:22 pm

david787 wrote:If you do decide to reapply this fall (which would be smart since I assume you're still quite young), definitely store you app materials on a cloud server (or two or three), I had everything saved on mobileme, dropbox, and my hard drive (which auto backs up every day).

With a 173 he could have written his SMU app in blood on a napkin

smithc2011 · Post by **smithc2011** » Thu Apr 14, 2011 3:27 pm

ebo wrote:
david787 wrote:If you do decide to reapply this fall (which would be smart since I assume you're still quite young), definitely store you app materials on a cloud server (or two or three), I had everything saved on mobileme, dropbox, and my hard drive (which auto backs up every day).
With a 173 he could have written his SMU app in blood on a napkin

I got waitlisted at Baylor. lawlz

edit: I applied early admission, and just used my personal statement from UT's early admission, and changed the university names. I think they knew...

david787 · Post by **david787** » Thu Apr 14, 2011 3:27 pm

A 173 should open a lot of doors all by itself.

edit: Yeah Baylor probably didn't like that too much, I got in with a 162 so it definitely wasn't your score lol.

swilson215 · Post by **swilson215** » Thu Apr 14, 2011 4:36 pm

YAY! I finally got my SMU email address today. (finally, I was beginning to feel left out!)

Gecko of Doom · Post by **Gecko of Doom** » Thu Apr 14, 2011 4:58 pm

smithc2011 · Post by **smithc2011** » Thu Apr 14, 2011 5:07 pm

Gecko of Doom wrote:
swilson215 wrote:YAY! I finally got my SMU email address today. (finally, I was beginning to feel left out!)
+1.

snail mail?
I still feel left out...

Gecko of Doom · Post by **Gecko of Doom** » Thu Apr 14, 2011 5:11 pm

swilson215 · Post by **swilson215** » Thu Apr 14, 2011 5:12 pm

smithc2011 wrote:
Gecko of Doom wrote:
swilson215 wrote:YAY! I finally got my SMU email address today. (finally, I was beginning to feel left out!)
+1.
snail mail?
I still feel left out...

Yeah, snail mail. Got it today in California. It said it was from some undergraduate office on the envelope, which threw me off, but it had my number and email address in it.

ebo · Post by **ebo** » Thu Apr 14, 2011 9:17 pm

smithc2011 wrote:
bartleby wrote:hm...he's not going to SMU at sticker though - he mentioned he got the 25.5k. if he's set on tx, then i'd advise to just go to SMU. cause there's a good chance he's not getting into UT and people w/ sim. splitter stats got the 25.5 either way.
yeah it was a 25.5k scholarship, so overall cost of attendance is expected to be 35k-37k. Which I can't really imagine myself getting significantly more money than that, since I won't be bringing up my UGPA by much between now and the next cycle.

Sorry I was being a moron there for a second. Still, I think you should seriously consider waiting and reapplying next cycle to some higher ranked schools. SMU isn't going anywhere, but look at that graph you posted earlier- I don't know how accurate those figures are, but the fact remains that T14 grads are going to have considerably more lucrative options after graduation than us Ponies will, (EDIT: and JDs which are portable to legal job markets across the country) and you have a very good shot at being admitted to some of those schools.

PS- Hope this doesnt come off as me lecturing you. I would kill for your LSAT + admissions chances at T14

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