Great summaries above of ASW. Like everyone else, I was blown away. Irvine is an unparalleled opportunity that cannot be compared to ANY other law school in the country, and I just can't justify going anywhere else.

care to elaborate?

In a nutshell:

Con: the O.C. is like its own red state.
Pros: Everything looks pretty.

REDACTED:

See comment below

I'm a liberal, and I've lived in OC most of my life. A few thoughts.

1) There is basically no nightlife here. You can find little pockets of nightlife in Orange/Fullerton, or you can go to Los Angeles (which is roughly an hour drive). Neither are automatically bad options.
2) You really, really need a car.
3) As far as racism goes, OC is pretty diverse. Laguna has a thriving LGBT community, Irvine itself is mostly heavily Asian communities, and there's a huge Mexican-American population. However, that's where the racism starts. At first glance, it seems like there's a significant anti-Chicano sentiment, but it's actually aimed at illegal immigrants. Being a native English-speaking Mexican-American, I virtually never experience racism.
4) I've never had problems with safety. I think the "least safe" area would be Santa Ana -- I've been working there for two years, park my occasionally-unlocked car in a very poor residential neighborhood, and end up walking about half a mile in the dark each way from my car to the office. I've never once felt threatened. The most intimidating thing I've witnessed was a bunch of highschoolers playing soccer. ;)

I've also visited the UCI campus on any number of occasions. If the legal market wasn't the way it is, and/or I didn't have access to T14, I would be going to UCI in a heartbeat. Frankly, I'd might even take UCI over USC.

REMOVED.

Post served its purpose.