UT Austin vs. Vanderbilt Forum

[pollaclc]

Thanks for all of the info. What about East Coast (NY/DC/Philly) job placement stats for Austin/Vandy grads?

Vandy sends a higher proportion of each class to those areas

likely due to self-selection because so many people want to stay in tx but not many at all want to stay in/around tn

[sdv]

as I understand it, UT is the best if you want to practice in Texas. Vandy is pretty committed to maintaining a national, rather than a regional, reach.

Also, the early comment that UT is better if you like sports, while joking, is also misleading. Vandy is among the very very best for Entertainment/Sports law outside of california or new york.

And, while anecdotal, Vandy really prides itself on having the least competitive atmosphere among the T20.

[observationalist]

We need a good troll-off between Observationalist and somebody from Texas, ITT, stat.

[Apologies (not really) for the lack of brevity. Law of Entertainment Industries was cancelled so I'm writing this before heading home to cook up some sweet potatoes and keep working on a neverending paper.]

I actually like a lot of the TLS posters from UT and worked with a bunch of the 3Ls last summer who were all a lot of fun to hang out with, so I will not engage in some sort of rank warfare. But the two schools are very different socially. The similarities between Austin and Nashville (cheap, good weather, lots of music, tendency to bump into famous musicians at coffee shops) don't translate into what it's like to attend the schools themselves because the makeup of the student body is too different. Vandy Law puts together about 190 students from around the country and sends them back off around the country (with about 30-35% staying anywhere in the south, including TX*). UT has double the number of students per class and keeps 75% of them in the state after graduating. I'm not pointing this out to raise a self-selection argument about which school places better or could place better in some other market; I'm saying that this translates into a big difference in culture. There are more Texans at UT Law than there are U.S. law students and international LLMs at Vanderbilt. And if you believe (as I do) that TX at least somewhat resembles an autonomous region with its own unique culture, then the difference is even more pronounced. (You can say the same thing about the south, although I've had a woman in Oxford, Mississippi tell me to "go back up to my Yank school in Nashville," so take broad generalizations about the south with a grain of salt.) For culture questions, just go visit both and see which one suits you better. You Texans out there are incredibly friendly and I've very much enjoyed my 3 years living down south between here and Houston, so take my trolling FWIW.

Also, ask the schools for some current employment info. If I've observed anything from talking to the 1Ls this year and comparing them to my class or the class before ours, it's that decreased job prospects directly translates into a more stressful environment. It helps to know what you're getting into and prepare accordingly, but schools need to do a better job at conveying this to prospectives. Our call for better transparency in employment reporting is definitely not a criticism unique to UT. Every school is more stressful to attend this year than the year before, which is why anyone considering law school should try and get current employment stats on Class of 2010 and 2011 job placement. Once you've got acceptances in hand you can leverage for information on how the 2Ls and 3Ls are holding up. Reports from UT, Cornell, Duke, GULC and Vandy are all coming out differently right now, and some of them are unfortunately less inclined to tell you the reality than others. G'luck finding the right fit and asking the hard questions.

One comment on transitioning to Nashville from the northeast: We got 4 inches of snow a few weeks ago and the city was shut down for as many days... over 90 people were admitted to the ER that weekend with sledding-related injuries. Maybe southerners aren't less educated than people in other parts of the country, but they definitely don't know how to drive or sled in the snow.

I think observationalist is correct that the schools are too different to make an easy comparison. Dean Sager has consistently said at orientations, meet + greets, etc., that UT views the other big elite public schools (UVA/Mich/UCLA) as its peers, but that the small elite schools offer a completely different style of education. I believe (might be misremembering here) that he has analogized the big school/small school difference to the difference between a ritzy department store and a fancy boutique shop. One has a lot of everything, the other is very good in certain areas but has less diversification.

Just one correction: the % of Texas residents here hovers in the 65-70% range, not around 75%. Also, while the class sizes are still approximately double Vandy's, they are smaller than they used to be. My year has ~375 students, while the class that graduated last spring had 420.

Apologies for the bad stat... was relying on old data (which is slightly ironic). That percentage may also be changing as the total class size shrinks and the employers in other markets who hire UT grads stays the same. Reduction in total class size is the main reason Vandy's NLJ250 placement went up in 2009 on a percentage basis while every other law school's placement went down. Class size scaled back from 222 to 189, while at the same time I think like one more graduate secured an NLJ250 job prior to the year before. Either way the old stats aren't really useful in seeing how schools did this year (or in trying to predict how they might do next year).

[observationalist]

I'd just like to throw in that Nashville is a great town. I've never been to Austin so I can't compare, but I have really liked Nashville. It's got a lot to do, and (I think) because of the music industry and the money that comes with it, it's a very clean city. I don't know why people rag on it.

My recommendation would be to visit both, even if it costs you some cash. I didn't visit schools before accepting and I really, really wish I had. I essentially transferred because of that.

Oh and the profs are awesome here too. They are very accessible and the school places a huge emphasis on good teaching, friendliness, etc. The int'l law program is cool too. Professor Newton, one of the main guys, has tons of connections in the federal govt and various international organizations and hooks students up with sweet internships.

amped did you hit up the Gen. Petraeus talk yesterday? I was told he was inspirational. Also, the most recent posting Newton sent looks pretty interesting.

[amped]

I'd just like to throw in that Nashville is a great town. I've never been to Austin so I can't compare, but I have really liked Nashville. It's got a lot to do, and (I think) because of the music industry and the money that comes with it, it's a very clean city. I don't know why people rag on it.

My recommendation would be to visit both, even if it costs you some cash. I didn't visit schools before accepting and I really, really wish I had. I essentially transferred because of that.

Oh and the profs are awesome here too. They are very accessible and the school places a huge emphasis on good teaching, friendliness, etc. The int'l law program is cool too. Professor Newton, one of the main guys, has tons of connections in the federal govt and various international organizations and hooks students up with sweet internships.

amped did you hit up the Gen. Petraeus talk yesterday? I was told he was inspirational. Also, the most recent posting Newton sent looks pretty interesting.

Yeah, I did. It was way cool. Petraeus is a very smart guy, and clearly an exceptional military leader. A 3L I know put it well: he's like Eisenhower meet Obama---military and political genius all in one. The only thing I didn't like was that it all seemed a bit scripted, but that's to be expected.

And yeah that internship would be fascinating. I wish my personal situation allowed me to pursue it.

[observationalist]

I'd just like to throw in that Nashville is a great town. I've never been to Austin so I can't compare, but I have really liked Nashville. It's got a lot to do, and (I think) because of the music industry and the money that comes with it, it's a very clean city. I don't know why people rag on it.

My recommendation would be to visit both, even if it costs you some cash. I didn't visit schools before accepting and I really, really wish I had. I essentially transferred because of that.

Oh and the profs are awesome here too. They are very accessible and the school places a huge emphasis on good teaching, friendliness, etc. The int'l law program is cool too. Professor Newton, one of the main guys, has tons of connections in the federal govt and various international organizations and hooks students up with sweet internships.

amped did you hit up the Gen. Petraeus talk yesterday? I was told he was inspirational. Also, the most recent posting Newton sent looks pretty interesting.

Yeah, I did. It was way cool. Petraeus is a very smart guy, and clearly an exceptional military leader. A 3L I know put it well: he's like Eisenhower meet Obama---military and political genius all in one. The only thing I didn't like was that it all seemed a bit scripted, but that's to be expected.

And yeah that internship would be fascinating. I wish my personal situation allowed me to pursue it.

Haha... what's funny is that the same 3L you mentioned just got back from the honkytonks downtown and told me that both Kenny Chesney and Steve Miller were at Tootsies after their show at the Ryman. Bumping into Steve Miller at the bar on a Tuesday night = Nashville.*

[Edit with a pic from tonight, Chesney on the left and Steve Miller being his bad self... this was a random event after a sold-out concert at the Ryman]:

[jh60405]

It looks like tuition at UT is a little less your second and third year (the tuition rate is based on number of hours and you take less hours your second and third year).