Golden Gate University: Underrated or TTTToilet? Forum

[jacketman03]

I thought it was pretty obvious sarcasm, but the internet does obscure that sort of thing.

Somebody really needs to come up with a sarcasm font.

[Hank Chill]

TTTT.

[Capitol hillbilly]

Still curious if anyone is interested in posting their valuations of this school.. I assume that at least some of us applied here as the extreme/last ditch/ back up- anyone getting full ride scholarship offers?

[mths]

How has no one noticed that this is a flame?

[crossarmant]

I know someone who went to Golden Gate in the 90s, granted, they've moved all the way to VA. They worked as a paralegal for years at a decent sized firm, then as a placement director at a legal staffing company. Not exactly ever working as an attorney. Can't speak for their debt or income, but if you're looking to be a lawyer, maybe not the best bet.

[EstboundNDwn]

GGU did in fact find itself on probation regarding its ABA approval due to a pattern of low Bar passage rates. The California Bar Exam is notoriously difficult but several California schools always do well (the UC schools, Stanford, USC, Pepperdine, and the like). GGU had pass rates that looked more like those of the better CBE schools, like Empire and (at the time) U. LaVerne. The school has succeeded in bring its pass rate up and is off probation.

Whittier, Richard Nixon's school, wasn't it? got into trouble at the same time for the same reason. It too has since improved to the ABA's apparent satisfaction and is off probation.

A little later, I think it was, Western State University actually LOST its provisional ABA approval due to poor Bar exam performance and went back briefly to being the CBE school it used to be and ought, in my opinion, to have remained except that its owners had sunk a few million dollars into upgrading the facilities and such and so couldn't afford to cut tuition by two-thirds. WSU sued and the ABA settled, granting WSU an unheard-of second bite at provisional approval. WSU still doesn't seem to be blowing the doors of the California Bar Exam so I don't know what the future may hold for that school.

If I were faced with attending any of these schools at sticker, I admit that I'd make a run for the nearest CBE school and do the part-time program for one-third the tuition. Or become a CPA instead.

Is this the Western State in Fullerton or Thomas Jefferson in SD back when they were called Western State?

[Capitol hillbilly]

How has no one noticed that this is a flame?

Classic. It's hilarious to me that this thread seems like it could only be a flame... earlier, when a poster wrote "underrated for sure" as a response to my initial questions, none of us could tell if the poster was being serious or sarcastic. This site IS called TOP law schools, but I still think that a conversation about Golden Gate is appropriate. Now that we are further down the cycle, I might be faced with an interesting hypothetical: Lewis and Clark with no money, or full ride/big money at Golden Gate? I prefer to live in the bay area, and have family there to help COL. I have a friend who works a PD in the bay area and says that there are actually GGU grads working in public interest.
Once again, hoping to hear from someone on here that is actually attending or seriously considering it, scholarship info, etc.

Edit: my original post actually does sound kind of flamey, reading it again. My first post after joining this site that day, I was pretty uninformed and I had not learned the subtleties of irony that are the norm here..

[ilovesf]

Now that we are further down the cycle, I might be faced with an interesting hypothetical: Lewis and Clark with no money, or full ride/big money at Golden Gate? I prefer to live in the bay area, and have family there to help COL. I have a friend who works a PD in the bay area and says that there are actually GGU grads working in public interest.

Did you apply to USF? Santa Clara?

[Capitol hillbilly]

Now that we are further down the cycle, I might be faced with an interesting hypothetical: Lewis and Clark with no money, or full ride/big money at Golden Gate? I prefer to live in the bay area, and have family there to help COL. I have a friend who works a PD in the bay area and says that there are actually GGU grads working in public interest.

Did you apply to USF? Santa Clara?

Yes, I have applied at USF, Santa Clara, even Hastings (I swear I was made for the LEOP!). I haven't heard from any of them yet. I just had lunch with my lawyer friend, she is at biglaw in Seattle now but has practiced in the bay area for a few years.. She thinks highly of GGU and her exact words were "the whole tier thing is bullshit."
The reason I refuse to leave this thread alone is that I rarely hear any "substantive" criticism of schools like GGU, or at least about GGU in particular. Most criticism seems to stem from murky employment data and the USN rating/tier system, and the perception that TTTT simply cannot be good because..... it's fourth tier, and fourth tier obviously sucks, right? Kind of a closed feedback loop. With all the schools gaming their employment data, and a school like Santa Clara supposedly having 23% of its graduates actually able to work as full time attorneys 9 months after grad, who do you trust? I trust my lawyer friend's opinion more than I (necessarily) trust 0Ls on TLS forums... not that she's right or that they aren't, and not that concern about job prospects in a competitive legal market is unwarranted.
Anyway, I really appreciate the folks that have contributed something helpful to my understanding of this school, whether its positive or negative. good luck to us all-

[lisjjen]

"underated" doesn't really matter that much ITT. I'm sure there's tons of schools that don't get the credit they deserve out there. Whereas that is a shame (no sarcasm), it doesn't affect your career prospects coming out of such institutions. Hopefully, in 5-10 years when the economy is rosy again, they will get the respect they should.

[Capitol hillbilly]

"underated" doesn't really matter that much ITT. I'm sure there's tons of schools that don't get the credit they deserve out there. Whereas that is a shame (no sarcasm), it doesn't affect your career prospects coming out of such institutions. Hopefully, in 5-10 years when the economy is rosy again, they will get the respect they should.

Well put, I appreciate that. Just noticed that this thread is one of the most viewed in the "choosing a law school" category.... kind of interesting.

[HeavenWood]

If you have to ask...

[tallboone]

Take the LSAT again and do better. If you can't do better, find some other line of work, unless you are independently wealthy and having nothing better to piss money away on. Not everyone should be in law school, and nobody should be going to a school like golden gate. There are a few lucky winners there who get jobs. For everyone else, it is a disaster. You will not be one of the lucky ones.

[drdolittle]

I think this is a reasonable topic, especially considering your dilemma. I'm not too sure that in today's econ, attending USF or SCU at full price, and hoping for a high class rank still, would be much better than going to GGU on a full, or nearly full tuition scholarship. If you do well at GGU, you'll almost certainly be able to transfer to USF and SCU anyway, and maybe even to Cal, Hastings, Davis if you do very well (don't count on this though)...

But as others have posted I do think it's probably true that in today's legal hiring scheme, many if not most firms/employers won't even look at you out of GGU no matter what thanks to the glut of grads from much higher ranked schools desperately in need of employment.

[Mick Haller]

IMO GGU has the best location of any of the Bay Area law schools. Unfortunately, everyone I know who went there ended up working as an ADA in Sonoma county or something similar.

This would be hilarious if it were not so tragic. Here we have a 0L turning their nose up at an ADA job in Sonoma County, when most Bay Area students at better schools than GGU would kill for that kind of job. See the unemployed Hastings 3L thread.

I remember someone a couple of years ago remarking to me that they could "always just work for the SF Public Defenders if nothing else worked out. they make 90k after all." If only that were true...

[Grizz]

Now that we are further down the cycle, I might be faced with an interesting hypothetical: Lewis and Clark with no money, or full ride/big money at Golden Gate? I prefer to live in the bay area, and have family there to help COL. I have a friend who works a PD in the bay area and says that there are actually GGU grads working in public interest.

Did you apply to USF? Santa Clara?

Yes, I have applied at USF, Santa Clara, even Hastings (I swear I was made for the LEOP!). I haven't heard from any of them yet. I just had lunch with my lawyer friend, she is at biglaw in Seattle now but has practiced in the bay area for a few years.. She thinks highly of GGU and her exact words were "the whole tier thing is bullshit."
The reason I refuse to leave this thread alone is that I rarely hear any "substantive" criticism of schools like GGU, or at least about GGU in particular. Most criticism seems to stem from murky employment data and the USN rating/tier system, and the perception that TTTT simply cannot be good because..... it's fourth tier, and fourth tier obviously sucks, right? Kind of a closed feedback loop. With all the schools gaming their employment data, and a school like Santa Clara supposedly having 23% of its graduates actually able to work as full time attorneys 9 months after grad, who do you trust? I trust my lawyer friend's opinion more than I (necessarily) trust 0Ls on TLS forums... not that she's right or that they aren't, and not that concern about job prospects in a competitive legal market is unwarranted.
Anyway, I really appreciate the folks that have contributed something helpful to my understanding of this school, whether its positive or negative. good luck to us all-

This is not promising

[url]http://www.lawschooltransparency.com/cl ... goldengate[/url

[Capitol hillbilly]

Take the LSAT again and do better. If you can't do better, find some other line of work, unless you are independently wealthy and having nothing better to piss money away on. Not everyone should be in law school, and nobody should be going to a school like golden gate. There are a few lucky winners there who get jobs. For everyone else, it is a disaster. You will not be one of the lucky ones.

Copy that. Yours is a widely held opinion on here, you're probably totally correct. Can't take the LSAT and wait another year, I am a working-class older dude (35) and time's a'wastin. I've got a few options (OK, one option- Lewis and Clark at sticker), for a career in lowly-paid PI work, scrambling for the crumbs of some LRAP. I get all that, I'm OK with it, it's the kind of work I want to do anyway.

Just curious about why Golden Gate is so bad... other than that it's, you know, fourth tier.

What did someone just post? "if you have to ask.." Huh.

[DwightSchruteFarms]

Normally, I hate it when people on TLS verbally wreck schools, no matter how low their ranking is. I have friends at Tier 4s who have been able to secure employment at decent firms because they all finished near the top of their class. However, I'm not the biggest fan of GGU given their high attrition rate. If you don't mind doing public interest work in SF (which doesn't make sense given the high COL in the city) than go for it. But if you can get into a better school, I would HIGHLY recc that. A 158 should get you into Gozaga, USF, U of P and maybe a waitlist/accept at SCU. Try those schools!

[Mick Haller]

Normally, I hate it when people on TLS verbally wreck schools, no matter how low their ranking is. I have friends at Tier 4s who have been able to secure employment at decent firms because they all finished near the top of their class. However, I'm not the biggest fan of GGU given their high attrition rate. If you don't mind doing public interest work in SF (which doesn't make sense given the high COL in the city) than go for it. But if you can get into a better school, I would HIGHLY recc that. A 158 should get you into Gozaga, USF, U of P and maybe a waitlist/accept at SCU. Try those schools!

GGU is okay if it is free or close to free. Truth be told, Hastings and USF are not that much better yet cost significantly more.

[Capitol hillbilly]

[quote="rad law"
This is not promising

[url]http://www.lawschooltransparency.com/cl ... goldengate[/url[/quote]

Wow, thanks! That was definitely substantive (I'm a 0L!) I had not really seen that yet, and it is frightening. So basically Golden Gate is at a 18 percentile for the average salary for all law school grads? OUCH

[bk1]

Wow, thanks! That was definitely substantive (I'm a 0L!) I had not really seen that yet, and it is frightening. So basically Golden Gate is at a 18 percentile for the average salary for all law school grads? OUCH

18th percentile on LST means that 82% of schools have salary info for a higher percentage of their grads than GGU.

What I would read about that graph is that 85% of GGU grads make less than 60k/year and that was before the economy took a nosedive.

[Capitol hillbilly]

Wow, thanks! That was definitely substantive (I'm a 0L!) I had not really seen that yet, and it is frightening. So basically Golden Gate is at a 18 percentile for the average salary for all law school grads? OUCH

18th percentile on LST means that 82% of schools have salary info for a higher percentage of their grads than GGU.

What I would read about that graph is that 85% of GGU grads make less than 60k/year and that was before the economy took a nosedive.

Got it. Why would so many GGU grads not report their salary....

[bk1]

Got it. Why would so many GGU grads not report their salary....

It's pretty obvious.

[XxSpyKEx]

Wow, thanks! That was definitely substantive (I'm a 0L!) I had not really seen that yet, and it is frightening. So basically Golden Gate is at a 18 percentile for the average salary for all law school grads? OUCH

18th percentile on LST means that 82% of schools have salary info for a higher percentage of their grads than GGU.

What I would read about that graph is that 85% of GGU grads make less than 60k/year and that was before the economy took a nosedive.

Got it. Why would so many GGU grads not report their salary....

Law schools really fudge salary information. Pretty much every law school reports a $160k median salary. It’s really kind of ridiculous because pretty much all seeing a $160k median at any law school tells you is that at least 1 grad from that class year made $160k. Law schools seem to have a way of acquiring salary information from the grads who do well, and avoiding the rest of the students from reporting.

With respect to the OP- check out JDUnderground. I haven’t read on there for a while, but I recall reading a ton of posts about GGU there (which is not a good sign considering JDU is a place where miserable TTT attorneys go to bitch and whine about how they got scammed into paying $150k+ for their TTT education and now can’t find a job – this pretty much sums up every single post in that place).

[BeautifulSW]

TJLS was, pre-ABA approval, a campus of Western State. TJLS has never been on ABA probation nor has it ever lost its ABA approval AFAIK. But both schools are terrifyingly expensive for what you get.