BU full ride or t14 sticker? Forum

[cinephile]

Not to hate on BU, but...

I run by the law school several times a week as part of my route. It's a little lacking, aesthetically. I know that's not the most important factor, but you do have to take into consideration the feel and environment of the particular building you'll be living in for three years.

I have to believe the law tower is nicer on the inside than the outside. At least I hope it is.

Not really. Although there are plans to renovate. Also, the elevators don't really work.

[Tadatsune]

Not to hate on BU, but...

I run by the law school several times a week as part of my route. It's a little lacking, aesthetically. I know that's not the most important factor, but you do have to take into consideration the feel and environment of the particular building you'll be living in for three years.

I have to believe the law tower is nicer on the inside than the outside. At least I hope it is.

Not really. Although there are plans to renovate. Also, the elevators don't really work.

Nice. Well, negates the need for a school gym I suppose.

[r6_philly]

I would suggest to attend Top-14 sticker, since you have a shot of big law, even if you are below the median.

This is just wrong.

In the dudes defense, he didn't say a meaningful shot?

you'd have an abysmal chance of making
biglaw at BU too, so he isn't making any sense

I read it to mean, if you are below median, BU has no shot, and T14 gives you a shot. Depends on which T14, maybe a decent shot.

[Cornellanister]

I would not take T14 at sticker, because even if you get big law its going to take you forever to repay the debt. Full ride at BU for sure.

[ze2151]

just some awful advice in this thread.

op, you take the full ride, and you never look back. i've not regretted my decision for one second.

if you get a full ride to a school, odds are you will have a named fellowship and be that school's darling. you'll have friends in admissions, friends in administration, more easy access to choice professors, better letters of recommendation and networking avenues, the whole bit.

take that added value, the ability to throw your fafsa paperwork in the trash, and a measure of financial peace of mind, and jettison it for 150k debt, a fancier name on a piece of paper, and a 50/50 (at best) shot of getting a very hard job with very long hours for which you will be paid handsomely, only to turn around and skim (at minimum) 1k off the top for Sallie Mae?

it's a simple choice. take the full ride at bu, enjoy being a terrier. it's a very good school for what it is, and the difference between what you can accomplish from, say, georgetown and what you can accomplish at bu is slimmer than you think.

[JoeMo]

Not to hate on BU, but...

I run by the law school several times a week as part of my route. It's a little lacking, aesthetically. I know that's not the most important factor, but you do have to take into consideration the feel and environment of the particular building you'll be living in for three years.

I have to believe the law tower is nicer on the inside than the outside. At least I hope it is.

Not really. Although there are plans to renovate. Also, the elevators don't really work.

I thought there were plans for a whole new law tower but that doesn't go up until 2015 which by then we'll all be graduating.

[JoeMo]

And no, as gross as the tower is, it's worse on the inside.

[r6_philly]

just some awful advice in this thread.

op, you take the full ride, and you never look back. i've not regretted my decision for one second.

if you get a full ride to a school, odds are you will have a named fellowship and be that school's darling. you'll have friends in admissions, friends in administration, more easy access to choice professors, better letters of recommendation and networking avenues, the whole bit.

I don't have a full-ride, but I have all these things you mentioned. It takes some work, but anyone is in position to get all this.

take that added value, the ability to throw your fafsa paperwork in the trash, and a measure of financial peace of mind, and jettison it for 150k debt, a fancier name on a piece of paper, and a 50/50 (at best) shot of getting a very hard job with very long hours for which you will be paid handsomely, only to turn around and skim (at minimum) 1k off the top for Sallie Mae?

it's a simple choice. take the full ride at bu, enjoy being a terrier. it's a very good school for what it is, and the difference between what you can accomplish from, say, georgetown and what you can accomplish at bu is slimmer than you think.

with a SA position over 2 summers, and a paying gig during the school year, that amounts to about $75-100k. Some T14 may open such doors. (I said may). Just because you have a full-ride doesn't stop you from finishing around median at BU and end up with nothing. Going to a T14 give you a bigger safety net on not end up top of the class.

[ze2151]

i find it amusing that you use the term "safety net" in reference to taking out 100 thousand extra dollars in tuition loan money.

the point is that the school will work FOR you to get all the stuff you got with your hard work and ingenuity. named fellowship recipients are the people the school wants representing it. this is a wonderful "safety net."

it is also a little deceptive to talk as though going to the t14 is the safer alternative and then in the next breath gamble on the extremely unlikely scenario that op will get high-paying sa positions for both 1L and 2L summer. if op manages to rake in 60k over the course of those two summers, hey, big victory. but you cannot, CANNOT, do a cost-benefit analysis and assume that.

no one is denying that there are opportunities further down the curve at t-14s that aren't available to similarly situated terriers. i said the difference is slimmer than one would think once all this stuff is accounted for. if bu weren't a good school, that would tip the scale significantly, but it is a good school. and the op specifically said s/he wants to stay in boston.

further, what if op decides s/he can't stand the law after a few years in the field? if op went to bu, then s/he'd be out opportunity cost for those three years and little else. if op went to the lower t14, then even assuming op won the curve lotto and landed that cherry job, op would be miserably stuck in that job or risk defaulting on loans and being effectively an unemployed, unemployable, individual who likely cannot buy a house, a car, or even sign a lease.

remember, 150k in loans is like a mortgage for a house, only with a worse interest rate. also, you can't live inside a piece of paper, no matter how fancy the name on it is.

op, please listen to your wallet and your future self screaming at you from the beyond. take the full ride.

[r6_philly]

i find it amusing that you use the term "safety net" in reference to taking out 100 thousand extra dollars in tuition loan money.

How much more earning power over a career, then discount to present value and times the percentages based on NLJ percentage. Tell me the results. see if it's more than 100k. You want cost/benefit analysis, at least do the math.

the point is that the school will work FOR you to get all the stuff you got with your hard work and ingenuity. named fellowship recipients are the people the school wants representing it. this is a wonderful "safety net."

it is also a little deceptive to talk as though going to the t14 is the safer alternative and then in the next breath gamble on the extremely unlikely scenario that op will get high-paying sa positions for both 1L and 2L summer. if op manages to rake in 60k over the course of those two summers, hey, big victory. but you cannot, CANNOT, do a cost-benefit analysis and assume that.

You can't even assume to be able to get a job going to outside of the T14. So 3 years of living expenses in loans is still sizable if you end up unemployed.

no one is denying that there are opportunities further down the curve at t-14s that aren't available to similarly situated terriers. i said the difference is slimmer than one would think once all this stuff is accounted for. if bu weren't a good school, that would tip the scale significantly, but it is a good school. and the op specifically said s/he wants to stay in boston.

How good? How likely is OP going to end up in the grade band of employability? It's up to the OP to weigh and decide, it's not a bright line rule here.

further, what if op decides s/he can't stand the law after a few years in the field? if op went to bu, then s/he'd be out opportunity cost for those three years and little else. if op went to the lower t14, then even assuming op won the curve lotto and landed that cherry job, op would be miserably stuck in that job or risk defaulting on loans and being effectively an unemployed, unemployable, individual who likely cannot buy a house, a car, or even sign a lease.

you will have $60-75k loans still with a degree you can't use. T14 biglaw for a few years pay off the loans. Maybe you do LRAP and PI. $60-75k with no job is worse place to be.

remember, 150k in loans is like a mortgage for a house, only with a worse interest rate. also, you can't live inside a piece of paper, no matter how fancy the name on it is.

op, please listen to your wallet and your future self screaming at you from the beyond. take the full ride.

I have a mortgage right now, and I turned down full-ride/near fullrides. I don't have to take out PLUS loans for the next 2 years. It could work out. Yes, maybe there is only a 10-20% chance to land a 1L SA (it seem about right this year). But there is only a 20% chance of landing in the top 1/5 at BU. Same odds, what benefit?

[Cornellanister]

just some awful advice in this thread.

op, you take the full ride, and you never look back. i've not regretted my decision for one second.

if you get a full ride to a school, odds are you will have a named fellowship and be that school's darling. you'll have friends in admissions, friends in administration, more easy access to choice professors, better letters of recommendation and networking avenues, the whole bit.

I don't have a full-ride, but I have all these things you mentioned. It takes some work, but anyone is in position to get all this.

take that added value, the ability to throw your fafsa paperwork in the trash, and a measure of financial peace of mind, and jettison it for 150k debt, a fancier name on a piece of paper, and a 50/50 (at best) shot of getting a very hard job with very long hours for which you will be paid handsomely, only to turn around and skim (at minimum) 1k off the top for Sallie Mae?

it's a simple choice. take the full ride at bu, enjoy being a terrier. it's a very good school for what it is, and the difference between what you can accomplish from, say, georgetown and what you can accomplish at bu is slimmer than you think.

with a SA position over 2 summers, and a paying gig during the school year, that amounts to about $75-100k. Some T14 may open such doors. (I said may). Just because you have a full-ride doesn't stop you from finishing around median at BU and end up with nothing. Going to a T14 give you a bigger safety net on not end up top of the class.

75k-100k for a paid gig and an SA? Could you eleborate on that? How many students do you think stand to land something like that? We are not talking possibility here, only probobility.

In addition to the financial burden, I shudder to think what the psychological strain from a 250k debt from a non-T3 school must feel like. I can tell you that I got accepted to CCN last cycle and as happy as I was with breaking into T6, I could not sign my life over for a fancy name on my diploma.

If you get a full ride, you won't ever have to worry about making big law, and if you make it you can quit anytime you want because you won't have huge debt to worry about.


I completely agree with this:

just some awful advice in this thread.

op, you take the full ride, and you never look back. i've not regretted my decision for one second.

if you get a full ride to a school, odds are you will have a named fellowship and be that school's darling. you'll have friends in admissions, friends in administration, more easy access to choice professors, better letters of recommendation and networking avenues, the whole bit.

take that added value, the ability to throw your fafsa paperwork in the trash, and a measure of financial peace of mind, and jettison it for 150k debt, a fancier name on a piece of paper, and a 50/50 (at best) shot of getting a very hard job with very long hours for which you will be paid handsomely, only to turn around and skim (at minimum) 1k off the top for Sallie Mae?

it's a simple choice. take the full ride at bu, enjoy being a terrier. it's a very good school for what it is, and the difference between what you can accomplish from, say, georgetown and what you can accomplish at bu is slimmer than you think.

[r6_philly]

Here I will do the numbers

5 year biglaw career @160k start. I will assume NO raises.

160 x 5 x (.9)^4 = 525k present value (assume a huge 10% discount rate)

GULC 31%
BU 18%

525*31% = 162.75
525*18% = 94.5
difference = 69k

at P, it's
525*57% = 298k

Personally, I am more comfortable with the extra present cost than my ability to finish in the top 18%.

[ze2151]

look, i'm assuming you are at a t14 and paying full freight. i'm assuming you're happy with that decision. that's great. i'm happy with mine.

all your points come back to the idea that op wants/needs biglaw. i didn't see that in the op. with the t14, it's biglaw or poorhouse. yes there are other avenues, but they are quite lightly traveled compared to the former two.

with a named fellowship @ bu, op isn't consigned to biglaw. s/he can peruse and pursue other options. past fellowship alumni will shepherd op through the process. grades will not be as all-important as you are claiming.

all this taken into consideration, the bu fellowship would give the op much greater flexibility, financially and vocationally. op can exit law with minimal hardship, also.

yes, you are right, t14s place more frequently into biglaw. but i think you are inflating the 1L sa numbers a bit, to be honest.

lastly, in the legal world, as in life, a lot has to do with who you know. once you get that diploma or that sa position, no one cares what your grades are. law school, the rat race, it's all about finding your way in the door. once there, it's your job to stay in the room. grades are the most common way to get in the room. but named fellowships are another, in my opinion safer, method. if you get the named fellowship AND get good grades? so much the better.

[col.faith]

Here I will do the numbers

5 year biglaw career @160k start. I will assume NO raises.

160 x 5 x (.9)^4 = 525k present value (assume a huge 10% discount rate)

GULC 31%
BU 18%

525*31% = 162.75
525*18% = 94.5
difference = 69k

at P, it's
525*57% = 298k

Personally, I am more comfortable with the extra present cost than my ability to finish in the top 18%.

One would think that you would want to take the risk of ruin into account when dealing with risky investments:

162k is when things go the way you wanted it to go, you have to take into account of the other half when calculating "Expected Value".
At GULC: 69% = $40,000 assuming bimodal distribution IF you can even land a job.
Debt = $150,000 excluding living expenses assuming they are comparable.
For the next 5 years 40,000 x 5 x (.9)^5 = 118k
NPV = -150k + 118k x 69% + 162.5k = 94

At BU: 82% = $40,000
Debt = $0
For the next 5 years 40,000 x 5 x (.9)^5 = 118k
NPV = -0 + 118 x 82% + 94.5k = 191

Remember, you'd have a much higher chance of ending up in the "no big-law" quadrant ITE. As a commerce grad, I just couldn't watch the incomplete analysis posted above, but these are just numbers, people have difference risk tolerances, and if OP is a risk-taker, then by all means go for the T14 at sticker.

Just something for the OP to think about when making the decision.

[r6_philly]

I was only comparing values. If you want to account for risk of ruins, by all means don't go to law school period because it's risky either way.

ETA, debt is not 0. It's $6=50-60k for BU. Sticker doesn't cover living expenses. Also you might then want to account for opportunity cost of foregone wages.

[col.faith]

I was only comparing values. If you want to account for risk of ruins, by all means don't go to law school period because it's risky either way.

ETA, debt is not 0. It's $6=50-60k for BU. Sticker doesn't cover living expenses. Also you might then want to account for opportunity cost of foregone wages.

I said assuming the living expenses are comparable, they cancel out, otherwise, the debt for GULC wouldn't be $150, it's already accounted for.

Cost of foregone wages and such opportunity costs are the same for both, unless you can state why chosing not to go to GULC would yield you a better job than chosing not go to go BU.

And if you only consider values we should all rob a bank, because the value is just pure good.

[r6_philly]

yes, you are right, t14s place more frequently into biglaw. but i think you are inflating the 1L sa numbers a bit, to be honest.

We have spreadsheet of last 2 years' summer employment SA is 10-15% and in-house paid another 10% or so. This year sounds higher because I know a handful already, and everywhere I interviewed, hiring was up general for 1L SA. And there were about 10 paid employers that interviewed on campus, more than last year.

lastly, in the legal world, as in life, a lot has to do with who you know. once you get that diploma or that sa position, no one cares what your grades are. law school, the rat race, it's all about finding your way in the door. once there, it's your job to stay in the room. grades are the most common way to get in the room. but named fellowships are another, in my opinion safer, method. if you get the named fellowship AND get good grades? so much the better.

[/quote][/quote]

Do you think you will have more connections with 60-75% of your classmates going into biglaw and the firm you summering at have full pages full of alums? If you want to play connections, it helps to go to a T14.

[r6_philly]

I said assuming the living expenses are comparable, they cancel out, otherwise, the debt for GULC wouldn't be $150, it's already accounted for.

Cost of foregone wages and such opportunity costs are the same for both, unless you can state why chosing not to go to GULC would yield you a better job than chosing not go to go BU.

And if you only consider values we should all rob a bank, because the value is just pure good.

The odds of getting ANY job is still different at the schools. It's not 69% at G and 82% at B, you have to account for not getting a job. So account for unemployment there and reduce the % of 40k jobs.

ETA: also add in value of LRAP for the 40K jobs on both sides, account for additional debt, and account for the lateral ability of biglaw career. then add in salary increases, bonus. If you want to do a complete financial model, I am all for it.

[ze2151]

i think you have lots of potential fellow alumni "in the room" to use the earlier analogy, should you go to a t14.

but i'm talking about getting in the room. the fellows who are alumni have skin in the game with regard to your success as a fellow. like i said, they shepherd you through the process. and bu is a school that is very good in its region. it isn't as though we're talking about a fourth tier school.

a couple questions, for illustration.
1. how many alumni, working in the field you want to work in, know your name right now?
2. how many of those alumni who know your name are in a position to help you get an interview?
3. how many of them have offered to get you an interview?

you don't have to answer, i'm not trying to put you on the spot personally. i'm just putting that position on the spot, you know?

[col.faith]

I said assuming the living expenses are comparable, they cancel out, otherwise, the debt for GULC wouldn't be $150, it's already accounted for.

Cost of foregone wages and such opportunity costs are the same for both, unless you can state why chosing not to go to GULC would yield you a better job than chosing not go to go BU.

And if you only consider values we should all rob a bank, because the value is just pure good.

The odds of getting ANY job is still different at the schools. It's not 69% at G and 82% at B, you have to account for not getting a job. So account for unemployment there and reduce the % of 40k jobs.

Although I do agree with you that GULC clearly can place more students into big law than BU, but you honestly think that the difference between BU and GULC in finding a 40k job is that significant so that the 100k difference in NPV can be justified? Egregious anti-BU troll =) But that's okay, let say I were to concede your point, and I even strech it to the extreme, that none of the 82% at BU have ANY job, and ALL of GULC's 69% have jobs; You can probably still see that BU's NPV beat GULC's by 0.5 even in this utterly impossible situation.

To be sure, the intangible things you mentioned(e.g. connections etc) could be very valuable, and it's not taken into account in this calculation, because it's impossible; an arbitrary number representing the intangible elements can hardly be justified. But as far as the hard numbers go, there is no dispute given the two school's capacity in placing their students.

[20130312]

NPV calculations? Risk analysis? Ran here.

[r6_philly]

But the following would reduce the difference.

1L Summer: %*31000 (sa) + 1L summer in-house*10000 (assuming about 30/hr) + %*funded PI (almost everyone gets funded here for 4-5000)

2L summer: %*31000 (sa) + %*10000 (in house) + %*funded PI

If you work in biglaw for more than 5 years. Or if you lateral out to midlaw/smalllaw that pay 60-100.

My point is the difference is not the scholarship amount. FWIW I probably wouldn't pick GULC over BU full, but there are other T14s out there.

[20130312]

OP said they got into Cornell.

[col.faith]

But the following would reduce the difference.

1L Summer: %*31000 (sa) + 1L summer in-house*10000 (assuming about 30/hr) + %*funded PI (almost everyone gets funded here for 4-5000)

2L summer: %*31000 (sa) + %*10000 (in house) + %*funded PI

If you work in biglaw for more than 5 years. Or if you lateral out to midlaw/smalllaw that pay 60-100.

My point is the difference is not the scholarship amount. FWIW I probably wouldn't pick GULC over BU full, but there are other T14s out there.

I will stop trading numbers with you -- that's unfair, I did it for 4 years in my undergrad =)

The truth is, I would go to Harvard sticker over BU full, because I personally would put so much more value on the name, and the people I would get to know. But OP said T14, which included anywhere from Yale to GULC(or maybe Cornell should be used as the new lower boundary now after the new ranking lol?) And I wouldn't recommend him doing anything like an NPV analysis or IRR analysis because that's what you use when you want to purchase a company, not a law degree. But a full scholarship does reduce your risk to an almost absolute minimum, and for most of us, those who are not willing to take great risks, this would be very desirable.

Other T14s does shrink the difference, and make the situation more difficult to gauge by naked eye, but if OP has certain fetish for the "T14", then just go. If you can get a full-ride at BU, chances are, you can probably get some money at some of the lower T14s, and it would make your decision easier in that respect.

[JoeMo]

I think if OP can put up with the tower of doom and can see him/herself going there for 3 years then OP should go to the tower of doom. OP wants to stay in Boston and aside from Harvard it's hard to think of another school that's better regarded in Boston (BC sometimes but it depends on who you ask). So as someone else pointed out, unless the choice lies between Harvard or Yale and BU... OP should go to BU.

This coming from someone that was accepted to BU with a decent enough scholarship and chose Michigan but I really just didn't feel "at home" when I toured BU.

Also, I always hope that these threads are a bit more than an OP looking for reassurance that they're making the right decision and not that they're relying on TLS to make their decision.