UCLA or UT ? based on these preferences Forum

[dancinginseptember]

seems like UT ftw on this poll.

i hope to be able to do admitted student weekends at both. i'm also waiting on several other schools, which could make the decision tougher!
more on that later.

thanks for all the feedback!

[kittenmittons]

Given your career goals, I say UT.

Given your aversion to Texas outside of Austin, I say UCLA.

[lawduder]

^nothing on south Florida

[catharsis]

you said "yall".. you belong in Texas HOOK 'EM!!!

[dancinginseptember]

you said "yall".. you belong in Texas HOOK 'EM!!!

hahaha of course i said yall. it's quicker than some of the other alternatives. and it's gender neutral. aaaaaand i'm a native texan.

i do think i am leaning more heavily towards UT. since i am still in undergrad, it's hard for me to say where i want to ultimately settle. (i realize that the undergrad bit may not seem like the best explanatory factor to some. i do attend a very liberal artsy [ivory tower?] type school. it's a bubble. it's hard to think conclusively about life outside and post bubble.)
i most prefer DC but have an interest in a few west coast cities, boulder (/denver), and maybe austin. i'm undecided about the rest of the east coast.

two inquiries:
1. i'm under the impression that UT and UCLA are about tied in terms of the young/social/collegial atmosphere. is that the case?
2. any knowledge of placement in colorado? comparative, that is.

thanks again, yall ( @ catharsis)

[imisscollege]

you said "yall".. you belong in Texas HOOK 'EM!!!

hahaha of course i said yall. it's quicker than some of the other alternatives. and it's gender neutral. aaaaaand i'm a native texan.

i do think i am leaning more heavily towards UT. since i am still in undergrad, it's hard for me to say where i want to ultimately settle. (i realize that the undergrad bit may not seem like the best explanatory factor to some. i do attend a very liberal artsy [ivory tower?] type school. it's a bubble. it's hard to think conclusively about life outside and post bubble.)
i most prefer DC but have an interest in a few west coast cities, boulder (/denver), and maybe austin. i'm undecided about the rest of the east coast.

two inquiries:
1. i'm under the impression that UT and UCLA are about tied in terms of the young/social/collegial atmosphere. is that the case?
2. any knowledge of placement in colorado? comparative, that is.

thanks again, yall ( @ catharsis)

I have done a good bit of research on #1 and it seems that UCLA is a little bit less young/social, etc than UT. The median age is 25 I believe and like somebody else said, it's much more expensive to live nearby the campus which makes people commute more and is bad for the things you said you are looking for in #1. Just my two cents from a 0L who is strongly cosnidering UT and waiting on UCLA

[dancinginseptember]

thanks!

any more thoughts?

(this point = a subtle "bump")

[Snooker]

UCLA is a fine school, but it exists in the shadow of Stanford, Berkeley, and USC. I imagine that in California's elite law practices, those three schools are brought up quite a lot. UT generally has a better academic/professional reputation than UCLA (despite similar entry stats), and is located in a region where the only competition is from schools like Houston, Baylor, and SMU. Imagine if graduating UCLA students only had to compete against Hastings and UC-Davis. That's a big difference.

According to Leiter's studies of the schools, Texas is in the top 10 or 12 (I forget exactly) rankings for "national" law schools.

The Texas economy is a lot stronger than California's. If you decide to stay, we're rock-solid compared to the chaos that the west coast economy seems to be in.

[Snooker]

you said "yall".. you belong in Texas HOOK 'EM!!!

hahaha of course i said yall. it's quicker than some of the other alternatives. and it's gender neutral. aaaaaand i'm a native texan.

i do think i am leaning more heavily towards UT. since i am still in undergrad, it's hard for me to say where i want to ultimately settle. (i realize that the undergrad bit may not seem like the best explanatory factor to some. i do attend a very liberal artsy [ivory tower?] type school. it's a bubble. it's hard to think conclusively about life outside and post bubble.)
i most prefer DC but have an interest in a few west coast cities, boulder (/denver), and maybe austin. i'm undecided about the rest of the east coast.

two inquiries:
1. i'm under the impression that UT and UCLA are about tied in terms of the young/social/collegial atmosphere. is that the case?
2. any knowledge of placement in colorado? comparative, that is.

thanks again, yall ( @ catharsis)

I think you should also give Texas more consideration. When I was in the out-of-state ivory tower bubble of undergrad, the whole theoretical perspective of those schools divided the world into red america / blue america, with Texas being very red, and therefore, very bad. But in reality, the trial judges in Houston, Dallas, and Austin are all democrats, Houston has a gay mayor, and people in general are as open minded and tolerant as in California.

Being a native of Texas also gives you a BIG advantage for finding jobs. Legal employers tend to rank your position in the class. For biglaw in a good economy, this meant big law firms would go as low as 70th percentile for UT Texas natives and 40th percentile for UCLA students. I don't know UCLA's stats, but native Texans in UT now have better chances than UCLA students had when the economy was good. The same applies for a variety of employers.

I would also think twice about practicing law in the northeast. There's tons of horror stories about practicing law there. Lawyers in Texas are still lawyers, but they are generally nice people who are easy to get along with. My least favorite professors in law school so far have been the ones from New York (lawyers from over there are just mean and inconsiderate!), but the best I've had are from Texas / Louisiana.

[niederbomb]

you said "yall".. you belong in Texas HOOK 'EM!!!

hahaha of course i said yall. it's quicker than some of the other alternatives. and it's gender neutral. aaaaaand i'm a native texan.

i do think i am leaning more heavily towards UT. since i am still in undergrad, it's hard for me to say where i want to ultimately settle. (i realize that the undergrad bit may not seem like the best explanatory factor to some. i do attend a very liberal artsy [ivory tower?] type school. it's a bubble. it's hard to think conclusively about life outside and post bubble.)
i most prefer DC but have an interest in a few west coast cities, boulder (/denver), and maybe austin. i'm undecided about the rest of the east coast.

two inquiries:
1. i'm under the impression that UT and UCLA are about tied in terms of the young/social/collegial atmosphere. is that the case?
2. any knowledge of placement in colorado? comparative, that is.

thanks again, yall ( @ catharsis)

I think you should also give Texas more consideration. When I was in the out-of-state ivory tower bubble of undergrad, the whole theoretical perspective of those schools divided the world into red america / blue america, with Texas being very red, and therefore, very bad. But in reality, the trial judges in Houston, Dallas, and Austin are all democrats, Houston has a gay mayor, and people in general are as open minded and tolerant as in California.

Being a native of Texas also gives you a BIG advantage for finding jobs. Legal employers tend to rank your position in the class. For biglaw in a good economy, this meant big law firms would go as low as 70th percentile for UT Texas natives and 40th percentile for UCLA students. I don't know UCLA's stats, but native Texans in UT now have better chances than UCLA students had when the economy was good. The same applies for a variety of employers.

I would also think twice about practicing law in the northeast. There's tons of horror stories about practicing law there. Lawyers in Texas are still lawyers, but they are generally nice people who are easy to get along with. My least favorite professors in law school so far have been the ones from New York (lawyers from over there are just mean and inconsiderate!), but the best I've had are from Texas / Louisiana.

Does this only go for native Texans at UT, or are native Texans at T10 even better situated?