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DoctorNick189 wrote:I've been reading this board since I started it and I've spoken with other people who are in the class of 2012 and who will be joining me in the class of 2013, and the sense that I get is that if you're on the fence about UCI, you probably shouldn't pull the trigger. But if you're on the fence about it, why did you apply? Perhaps you'd do well to re-read your "Why UCI?" statement and sleep on it.

I know someone earlier said this possibly sounded pretentious, but I agree that that's it. At ASD, the professors were asked about their committment to UCI. One after another talked of how they left tenure-track positions at T14's or T1's, and they all said they knew it was a risk but they wanted a chance to shape a new direction, build a new type of law school, etc. They all said their colleagues/friends kind of thought they were nuts. It was their pioneering nature/wanting to be a part of building something that made them do it. This is the risk of it, but in a sense this is the security - everyone, from the Dean to the profs to UCI itself to the countless big law partners/judges/politicians we met who said they've invested a decade and millions in making this school a reality, they all have a huge stake in making this succeed as something special. No one wants anyone involved with it to fall through the cracks in any way. Ideally though, it's similar-minded students that would be the ones to choose to take that same risk the profs/Deans/UCI/legal community have.

PS Got a hand-written thank you note for deciding to attend from Dean C. today. Quite a nice personal touch.

After a series of solicitation, persuasion, and some number crunching, I finally found a way to attend and submitted my SIR. I fell in love with UCI law when I first heard of them, and I’m so grateful that they loved me back.
Don’t hesitate to say hi to me when you see a girl with a name you can’t pronounce. I can’t wait to see you all.
<edit>
BTW, I finished the first draft of my ‘why UCI law’ essay in 10 minutes because I didn’t have enough time, but later I realized it was the best among all why essays since there was no BSing. I don't have a religion but I thank God that I found UCI.

poslhs wrote:After a series of solicitation, persuasion, and some number crunching, I finally found a way to attend and submitted my SIR. I fell in love with UCI law when I first heard of them, and I’m so grateful that they loved me back.
Don’t hesitate to say hi to me when you see a girl with a name you can’t pronounce. I can’t wait to see you all.
<edit>
BTW, I finished the first draft of my ‘why UCI law’ essay in 10 minutes because I didn’t have enough time, but later I realized it was the best among all why essays since there was no BSing. I don't have a religion but I thank God that I found UCI.

So glad things worked out for you!!!

poslhs wrote:After a series of solicitation, persuasion, and some number crunching, I finally found a way to attend and submitted my SIR. I fell in love with UCI law when I first heard of them, and I’m so grateful that they loved me back.
Don’t hesitate to say hi to me when you see a girl with a name you can’t pronounce. I can’t wait to see you all.
<edit>
BTW, I finished the first draft of my ‘why UCI law’ essay in 10 minutes because I didn’t have enough time, but later I realized it was the best among all why essays since there was no BSing. I don't have a religion but I thank God that I found UCI.

Awesome! So glad you found a way to make it work. Looking forward to meeting you in person in August

DoctorNick189 wrote: I've been reading this board since I started it and I've spoken with other people who are in the class of 2012 and who will be joining me in the class of 2013, and the sense that I get is that if you're on the fence about UCI, you probably shouldn't pull the trigger. But if you're on the fence about it, why did you apply? Perhaps you'd do well to re-read your "Why UCI?" statement and sleep on it.

If I were on the fence I have to say hearing stuff like this would make me change my mind about attending UCI. UCI isn't for everyone but being on the fence is not unreasonable. I applied to a number of schools I wasn't certain about and figured if I got in, I'd visit and reevaluate. Some schools I thought I wanted to attend, once I visited - I changed my mind. I was definitely on the fence when I applied to UCI. I wasn't convinced. But conversations with Dean Ortiz and Dean Chemerinsky, meeting the 1L students, meeting the students committed at ASD all strengthened my thoughts about UCI. So did talking to the legal community.

DarkwingDick wrote:I can't quite bring myself to submit.

Can students that submitted walk me through your reasoning?

Here's mine up to this point:

I know there are incredible opportunities at Irvine. First off the scholarship, second the incredible amount of individualized attention and care we’ll receive both in the classroom and in professional endeavors, third the chance to be part of creating a new law school ethos and fourth, but relatively inconsequential, a much more pleasant three years than law school will probably be anywhere else.

I guess what I perceive to be the biggest risk is mediocrity. I don’t want to go to a school with mediocre students and graduate with a degree from a mediocre institution. My friend and I were discussing this, and everytime I’m about to submit, I hear him saying, “Your law school will be on your resume FOREVER.” And he’s right. Regardless of how promising a start the school gets, or even our class is (but I have some doubts about that, too), it will be harder and harder each subsequent year to attract quality candidates, as the money, the press and the novelty fade. After graduation though, your school is often shorthand for your quality. There are exceptions, but I don’t know if I’m willing to take that risk in this market. Further, even a quick glance through this cycle's accepted dots at UCI on LSN shows that most of the upper third of admits will not be attending.

Concerning US News, this year's class will be the first to feel the effects. The school cannot be ranked until it has employment statistics, and those will come out right before we potentially graduate. There's been a lot of talk about how UCI's numbers are on par with top 20, but I'd honestly be surprised if those numbers even managed to stay at that level, much less rise, considering that scholarships are only half this year, a drastic drop in applications despite still being free to apply, and a larger projected class. Furthermore, the numbers that will have a much more significant impact on the rankings and job prospects are the assessment ranking from peers and from lawyers & judges. From my personal experience, speaking with recent graduates from T14 schools, these numbers will not be kind to Irvine.

Thoughts?

I actually agonized over whether to respond to your post because of the tone you took with it. I can't say I am certain I want to convince you to attend UCI. On the other hand, tone in writing can be misinterpreted. I am wondering if you attended ASD. If you attended ASD and still feel the way you do, then I think maybe you should follow your gut and maybe UCI isn't right for you. And if you've been accepted into a very prestigious school and if others knowing that is important to you then I think maybe UCI isn't the right place for you either. There is some risk. But when evaluating the risk I think the potential for it to payoff is greater than the chance it won't.

But anyway here are my thoughts:

The 1Ls I met and the 0Ls I met at ASD did not strike me as mediocre at all. I was very impressed by what they were doing, what they had accomplished, and by their energy and intelligence. The 1Ls were doing things I've only heard students from Yale getting to do as a 1L. There may be other schools where 1Ls get to be so involved in real case, but I am not aware of that aspect of those schools. For example, two students are helping an Iraqi man who will probably be killed if deported back to Iraq get asylum. They have done interviews, written memos and briefs and have in general done a lot of substantial work on the case. If the students were not competent, they would not have been able to do so much on this case. Personally, I am offended to be called mediocre as well. And I don't consider myself to be superior to those I've met either. So I certainly don't feel like I will be surrounded by mediocrity. I believe I will be surrounded by people I will be happy to have as colleagues and as resources to draw from in the future, as well as to have as friends. And it's more than just numbers. I didn't ask those I met about their LSAT or their GPA. I don't really care. As far as I can see they were smart and articulate and capable. And that's really what matters in the end.

Regarding your resume, after your first few years on the job, where you went to school matter a lot less unless you have you are pursuing academia, high level federal judiciary positions, or perhaps partnerships at the top firms in the country. What will matter is your performance on the job. Employers in OC seem very anxious to hire Irvine grads, and some of these firms do have a national presence.

Lastly, regarding rankings - these things tend to feed on themselves. I saw the quality of students that were admitted last year, and when deciding where to apply, felt the caliber of students, as well as of the faculty, were definitely high enough for me. If this class is equally or more accomplished, then the applicant pool will continue to get stronger. If UCI has a high ranking off the top (even breaking top 50 for a new school is pretty amazing, forget top 20 or 25) then the buzz will be there and again, strong applicants will apply. If the employment numbers remain high, then also, strong candidates will continue to apply.

And of course, there are all the good things you mentioned.

Now is there risk - yes. But there is always risk. If you prefer the security of an established school, that is understandable. If you like having organizations and traditions in place, then maybe UCI isn't the right school for you. But if you like the energy of an entrepreneurial experience and see the opportunities they potentially create, and want to help create a successful law school, then please come to UCI and join us next year.

Good luck with your decision process.

I also feel that it's totally fine to be on the fence. Why not? UCI is not your typical school. No, it's not an established school with a nationwide repution. No, it's not a powerhouse with a widespread network of alumni. No it's not a school with dozens of established programs and activities to participate in. And no, it's not a T14 (yet ).

But it is a school with a top-10 faculty. It is a school with top-20 students, at the very least. It is a school with the nation's best student-faculty ratio. It is a school with a very different sort of philosophy that emphasizes real-world skills in every course. It is a school that allows its students (inevitably) to help build the program from the ground up. It is a school led by arguably the hottest full-time law professor in the country, and it is a school that has already made a name for itself in the local region.

Oh yeah, and it is a school that offers half-tuition for the this fall's entire class.

As amazing as UCI sounds (and truly is), it's still totally fine to be on the fence. We're comparing an unconventional school to many respected, established legal institutions. UCI offers a very, very different sort of experience, and it takes serious consideration to determine whether or not you think you're willing to tackle that sort of experience.

And I just wanted to say something about the fear of "mediocre students."

No. I recently attended a T20 ASD, and the students at UCI were seriously far smarter and far more accomplished.

A few things to consider:

The first class (and the second class as well) are not a statistically significant sample. There are also some BIG changes in the admission dynamic between our year and last.

Also, rankings are what they are. They are not the ultimate descriptor of a school's value or worth, but you can't decide to just not play ball.

I'm pretty confident that Irvine will do just fine in rankings, but I don't think that really matters to the first few incoming classes, who will already have found jobs by the time they do release Irvine's rankings. As lt stated, after a few years, the rank/prestige of your law school becomes less important than your demonstrated abilities as a lawyer. (Although there is no doubt in my mind that Irvine won't fail in that regard, either.)

I think people who are overly preoccupied with rankings (and I'm talking the neurotic ones) aren't as confident in their abilities to succeed and are hoping that the school's high ranking will provide a safety net for their job hunt in the future. I'm in no way pointing fingers at anyone here, but that's just the general vibe I got from browsing TLS forums in the past few months. Of course, rankings do matter to a degree, but I don't think it's fair to judge Irvine presently on the basis of their projected rankings 4-5 years down the road (although..I confess I was quite excited to see them estimated in the T30 on the TLS rankings ) I think applicants this cycle and the next need to focus more on the unique opportunities they are given the privilege of sharing with other innovative students and assessing whether this type of building-from-the-ground-up environment is right for them or not. I agree wholeheartedly with ruleser's post that Irvine is the one being shaped by its students - not the other way around.

I've just seen a lot of Irvine bashing (both on the school and people considering the school) on other forums based on the speculation that they won't debut as high in the rankings as some speculate, it's too big of a risk to take, money will dry up, etc etc....just venting some frustration here

msch0i wrote:I'm pretty confident that Irvine will do just fine in rankings, but I don't think that really matters to the first few incoming classes, who will already have found jobs by the time they do release Irvine's rankings. As lt stated, after a few years, the rank/prestige of your law school becomes less important than your demonstrated abilities as a lawyer. (Although there is no doubt in my mind that Irvine won't fail in that regard, either.)

I think people who are overly preoccupied with rankings (and I'm talking the neurotic ones) aren't as confident in their abilities to succeed and are hoping that the school's high ranking will provide a safety net for their job hunt in the future. I'm in no way pointing fingers at anyone here, but that's just the general vibe I got from browsing TLS forums in the past few months. Of course, rankings do matter to a degree, but I don't think it's fair to judge Irvine presently on the basis of their projected rankings 4-5 years down the road (although..I confess I was quite excited to see them estimated in the T30 on the TLS rankings ) I think applicants this cycle and the next need to focus more on the unique opportunities they are given the privilege of sharing with other innovative students and assessing whether this type of building-from-the-ground-up environment is right for them or not. I agree wholeheartedly with ruleser's post that Irvine is the one being shaped by its students - not the other way around.

I've just seen a lot of Irvine bashing (both on the school and people considering the school) on other forums based on the speculation that they won't debut as high in the rankings as some speculate, it's too big of a risk to take, money will dry up, etc etc....just venting some frustration here

It depends on what you do - sometimes there really is a pecking order based on school prestige.

Also, $115,000 and three years of your life should not be spent lightly. Think about this critically you must.

As far as my purposes go, I think UCI offers sufficient benefits to outweigh what it lacks in ranking and prestige.

On another note for those who haven't recieved a decision yet.....
I got a gracious e-mail (very polite and encouraging) from the assistant director of admissions that they are in the "final phase" of the application process and will be sending out decisions by the end of April. I bet they have a whole stack of Ding letters. -_-

Any word on wait-lists? (size? chances?)

msch0i wrote:As lt stated, after a few years, the rank/prestige of your law school becomes less important than your demonstrated abilities as a lawyer. (Although there is no doubt in my mind that Irvine won't fail in that regard, either.)

I think people who are overly preoccupied with rankings (and I'm talking the neurotic ones) aren't as confident in their abilities to succeed and are hoping that the school's high ranking will provide a safety net for their job hunt in the future. I'm in no way pointing fingers at anyone here, but that's just the general vibe I got from browsing TLS forums in the past few months. \\

The rank/prestige of one's law school can make the difference in helping one secure a prestigious clerkship or starting job, and that first job can make the difference in helping you obtain a prestigious job/position in the future (for instance, lateraling from a prestigious firm into something hard-to-get in the DOJ).

The prestige of your law school may become less important as time goes on, but it may still help, and some people value this.

The legal profession is prestige-oriented, and so a lot of law students want the highest ranked school they can get because it'll maximize their chances for a hard-to-get job they might want. It's just them being cautious. The economy's pretty bad atm, and that's definitely contributing to a lot of cynicism, though there seems to be more on xoxohth and such.

Reading the last couple pages makes me even more excited to be attending school with some of the commentators.

Sorry if I came off as trying to preach that rankings don't matter -of course they do. I was just trying to get across that, in Irvine's case, they don't matter as much because 1) it's not ranked yet and 2) by the time the school IS ranked, it will be ranked largely on the basis of the efforts of the staff/faculty AND the students currently enrolled and considering the school. So, in a way, we are privileged in being able to consider Irvine without worrying along the lines of "WILL IT DROP IN RANKINGS THIS YEAR?" (e.g., the Davis-Hastings changes in rankings are causing quite a ruckus...) The first few classes will have the advantage (IMHO, anyway) of being assessed for jobs based upon their OWN performance and the good reputation Irvine will surely have instead of being prescreened and evaluated based on a number USNWR assigned it.

Btw, I was really only talking about those people who troll threads and call those considering Irvine fools, etc just because they're considering an unranked school over a T14. No offense to any one of you guys, really.

Since rankings seem to be the topic, just a thought: one of the main criteria is peer assessment. Right now, peer assessments of UCI among lawyers and judges fall into 2 categories: no opinion, and think it's the greatest thing in a decade, with the latter mainly be those OCers we all met at ASD. I think that will be the case when rankings start - most of the country will choose not to answer, knowing too little, but the OC crowd will blow the school up, and if the first rounds of students actually are good, so will whoever they work for. So there will be a small pool answering and they likely will have high opinions and a stake in the school's rep. The other crew that counts for peer assessments is deans, and so far I'd imagine deans have heard/seen pretty decent things, know Dean C., the top 10 ranking of the faculty, etc.

LSAT and GPA should be pretty solid as well. If they can place the 60/80 students in the first couple of classes, lots of the rankings criteria should be well met I'd think.

Just speculation of course, but that's what I'd imagine...

Yeah. I don't know how many of those US News assessments end up in Orange County, but we can certainly count on good numbers from the ones that do.

HungryHippo wrote:On another note for those who haven't recieved a decision yet.....
I got a gracious e-mail (very polite and encouraging) from the assistant director of admissions that they are in the "final phase" of the application process and will be sending out decisions by the end of April. I bet they have a whole stack of Ding letters. -_-

Any word on wait-lists? (size? chances?)

Very true, but I really hope there are still some admits! Wonder how many of the spots filled up after today...

msch0i wrote:

HungryHippo wrote:On another note for those who haven't recieved a decision yet.....
I got a gracious e-mail (very polite and encouraging) from the assistant director of admissions that they are in the "final phase" of the application process and will be sending out decisions by the end of April. I bet they have a whole stack of Ding letters. -_-

Any word on wait-lists? (size? chances?)

Very true, but I really hope there are still some admits! Wonder how many of the spots filled up after today...

I hope so too..... but I didn't see anybody getting admitted last year on LSN after April. Hopeful, the half-tuition offer will defer more students than last year.

DarkwingDick wrote:I can't quite bring myself to submit.

Can students that submitted walk me through your reasoning?

Here's mine up to this point:

I know there are incredible opportunities at Irvine. First off the scholarship, second the incredible amount of individualized attention and care we’ll receive both in the classroom and in professional endeavors, third the chance to be part of creating a new law school ethos and fourth, but relatively inconsequential, a much more pleasant three years than law school will probably be anywhere else.

I guess what I perceive to be the biggest risk is mediocrity. I don’t want to go to a school with mediocre students and graduate with a degree from a mediocre institution. My friend and I were discussing this, and everytime I’m about to submit, I hear him saying, “Your law school will be on your resume FOREVER.” And he’s right. Regardless of how promising a start the school gets, or even our class is (but I have some doubts about that, too), it will be harder and harder each subsequent year to attract quality candidates, as the money, the press and the novelty fade. After graduation though, your school is often shorthand for your quality. There are exceptions, but I don’t know if I’m willing to take that risk in this market. Further, even a quick glance through this cycle's accepted dots at UCI on LSN shows that most of the upper third of admits will not be attending.

Concerning US News, this year's class will be the first to feel the effects. The school cannot be ranked until it has employment statistics, and those will come out right before we potentially graduate. There's been a lot of talk about how UCI's numbers are on par with top 20, but I'd honestly be surprised if those numbers even managed to stay at that level, much less rise, considering that scholarships are only half this year, a drastic drop in applications despite still being free to apply, and a larger projected class. Furthermore, the numbers that will have a much more significant impact on the rankings and job prospects are the assessment ranking from peers and from lawyers & judges. From my personal experience, speaking with recent graduates from T14 schools, these numbers will not be kind to Irvine.

Thoughts?

Ok.

Simmer down, y'all

There's a rejection on LSN Wonder if this one's real...

msch0i wrote:There's a rejection on LSN Wonder if this one's real...

uh oh.... we better be checking our mails...

I have still heard nothing from UCI or received the e-mail from the dean of admissions a previous poster spoke about. I just want to make a decision with all my cards in my hand and it is so hard to do w/ UCI and ICD not responding. . Maybe there will be something in the mail today.

amacqueen wrote:I have still heard nothing from UCI or received the e-mail from the dean of admissions a previous poster spoke about. I just want to make a decision with all my cards in my hand and it is so hard to do w/ UCI and ICD not responding. . Maybe there will be something in the mail today.

I think that e-mail was just for that individual...I don't think UCI has sent out any notices or anything like that other than the automatic e-mail you got right after you submitted your app. But that e-mail said they'd have decisions out by the end of April...so I guess we wait. We've all waited this long, what's 2-3 more weeks?

msch0i wrote:

amacqueen wrote:I have still heard nothing from UCI or received the e-mail from the dean of admissions a previous poster spoke about. I just want to make a decision with all my cards in my hand and it is so hard to do w/ UCI and ICD not responding. . Maybe there will be something in the mail today.

I think that e-mail was just for that individual...I don't think UCI has sent out any notices or anything like that other than the automatic e-mail you got right after you submitted your app. But that e-mail said they'd have decisions out by the end of April...so I guess we wait. We've all waited this long, what's 2-3 more weeks?

To clear things up, that e-mail I got was a response to an e-mail I sent them asking for a status update.
Seriously, what's 2-3 more weeks? I would wait another month if it translates to an acceptance!