uci v. usc Forum

[socalorbust]

At the very least, if i choose uci, i wonder if i can squeeze more money out of them

[Bwana]

These people definitely had little to zero scholarships at the T14/UCLA/USC vs a substantial to fullride at UCI. If they say otherwise, they're lying.

This is undoubtedly the case. However, how many schools can pull a person away from a T14 even with a substantial/fullride scholarship?

It is more a reflection of UCI's superb marketing efforts.

Chemerinsky has committed to being at UCI for 10 years. With what he has accomplished so far I think we can expect excellent employment numbers. I would expect UCI's employment numbers to far exceed USC's and likely even UCLA's. Take into account the clerkships, the faculty, and the high median LSAT/GPA of their students and I don't think their marketing is hard to believe.

[Fark-o-vision]

These people definitely had little to zero scholarships at the T14/UCLA/USC vs a substantial to fullride at UCI. If they say otherwise, they're lying.

This is undoubtedly the case. However, how many schools can pull a person away from a T14 even with a substantial/fullride scholarship?

It is more a reflection of UCI's superb marketing efforts.

Chemerinsky has committed to being at UCI for 10 years. With what he has accomplished so far I think we can expect excellent employment numbers. I would expect UCI's employment numbers to far exceed USC's and likely even UCLA's. Take into account the clerkships, the faculty, and the high median LSAT/GPA of their students and I don't think their marketing is hard to believe.

UCLA and USC are the definition of peer schools, with USC having slightly better employment numbers (though UCLA may have claim to better employers). Your comment is wrong on a basic level.

On a different level, though, I wouldn't doubt UCI's ability to place. They have a graduated class, right? Anyone have their numbers? Also, it isn't unheard of for a prominent public school to make a fantastic push up the rankings and start right away with fairly elite placement. I believe UCLA did this not so, so long ago.

75K is a lot of extra debt, don't let anyone talk you out of believing that. that could possibly be more than a year's salary coming out of either school. That might be worth consideration.

[shoeshine]

Chemerinsky has committed to being at UCI for 10 years. With what he has accomplished so far I think we can expect excellent employment numbers. I would expect UCI's employment numbers to far exceed USC's and likely even UCLA's. Take into account the clerkships, the faculty, and the high median LSAT/GPA of their students and I don't think their marketing is hard to believe.

I want to bookmark all the threads and keep track of all the usernames of UCI students that make these claims.

1. Clerkships mean nothing unless they are Article III. The fact that UCI throws around the word "clerkship" without disclosing that they are including State and Magistrate clerkships is extremely misleading.

2. Chemerminsky is great. Literally the best in many areas. But even he can't personally get every UCI student a job (although I think he isat least pushing for some right now).

3. When the push for ranking dies down and UCI has officially missed the T25 then the lack of prestige and alumni will definitely be felt by UCI students.

[bk1]

Chemerinsky has committed to being at UCI for 10 years. With what he has accomplished so far I think we can expect excellent employment numbers. I would expect UCI's employment numbers to far exceed USC's and likely even UCLA's. Take into account the clerkships, the faculty, and the high median LSAT/GPA of their students and I don't think their marketing is hard to believe.

No.

There is some data and it's promising. For example, a surprising amount of UCI students have managed to snag A3 clerkships. But it's stupid to think that UCI will be on par with UCLA/USC. UCLA/USC have entrenched alumni networks and connections to firms that expect to hire a certain number of grads each year from those schools, UCI does not have this. UCLA/USC have a history of being the prestigious local schools in SoCal, UCI does not have this and it is something that would take a while to build considering the legal field is a prestige-obsessed industry that is resistant to change. UCI being a peer of UCLA/USC in terms of prestige would be pretty unprecedented and it doesn't make sense to believe that it will happen without any proof.

As for job placement, it is in the realm of possibility that UCI's first class puts up job placement numbers on par with UCLA/USC. But UCI's first class was 60 people. The fewer people the school has to place the easier it is to put up good numbers. The school increased its class size by 50% in its second year and will likely increase it more as time goes on. Furthermore Chemerinsky and other faculty are calling favors to help their students. Those favors are going to run out some time and aren't going to extend indefinitely into the future. That makes it pretty much impossible for them to sustain their placement. The school will also have to be self-sustainable in terms of cost and will have trouble pulling in the same level of talent in its student body due to the fact that they are basically hemorrhaging money for the moment (their first class paid 0 in tuition) on top of the increase in size. This drop in student quality likely will also hurt their placement. UCLA/USC have established pipelines to firms/judges that UCI does not.

I think the most important thing to look at UCI's A3 placement for the first class is to consider the increase in class size that happened (50%) and that there were likely many favors called in by the faculty and there is no guarantee that those will continue.

[socalorbust]

Would uci be worth it if they significantly increased their scholly money?

[shoeshine]

Would uci be worth it if they significantly increased their scholly money?

Yes but only if it was by over 50K(total). IMO

[Bwana]

UCLA and USC are the definition of peer schools, with USC having slightly better employment numbers (though UCLA may have claim to better employers). Your comment is wrong on a basic level.

I took my numbers from law school transparency for 2010.

Employment Score:

USC - 68.2%
UCLA - 81.2%

They are peer schools, but their employment numbers are dramatically different.

1. Clerkships mean nothing unless they are Article III. The fact that UCI throws around the word "clerkship" without disclosing that they are including State and Magistrate clerkships is extremely misleading.

This has been well disclosed. The first year numbers are superb by any measure. Can UCI repeat is the question. Chemerinsky says yes. We'll find out next year.

UCI has fewer grads to place, which will certainly inflate the numbers. That does not take away from the fact that if you attend UCI you will likely be employed.

[dingbat]

There's a big variable here...what kind of law do you want to practice? If you're not set on biglaw and USC comes out being considerably more expensive, UCI may not be as bad a choice as some here have made it out to be. It's small and they're really bending over backwards to help their grads be successful. Luckily for you, rankings don't come out until 2015 (when you're graduating) so the "let's bust our ass to place our grads well so we rank well" thing will be in full effect your entire time there.

Yeah but USC will have better job placement no matter how you look at it.

Yeah, but the extra debt might not be worth the placement power (particularly if not gunning for biglaw)
I'd say the bigger issue is that there's no way of knowing what that difference in placement power is.
If the school was more established, and one could estimate that UCI had , for example, about 80% of the placement of USC, then one can make a rational choice as to whether that (and a happy wife) is worth the cost difference.
At this point, there's no way of knowing if the placement power will only marginally worse, or if UCI will descend into Cooley territory.
Because one cannot make an objective decision about UCI, yuo'd have to be a gambler to go there

[Stupendous_Man]

I'm about to be in my last year of law school so my perspective is a bit jaded, but I feel like you should just do what you want to do, and it looks like what you want to do is UCI. You're trying to find a way to validate a decision that you know is professionally inferior because you value other things in your life that will be worse off if you choose 'SC, and you're resistant to it at the same time because you know it's the wrong choice from a purely professional perspective.

Are UCI's job prospects going to be the same as USC's? I really don't think so. I was choosing between these two schools, and looking back, my career is way, way better off for having gone to USC. I've met all the goals that I set without really understanding them as a 0L, and in large part due to the Trojan network. But I also gave up a lot of things in my personal life to get here, and I can't say with confidence that I wouldn't re-prioritize some things if I had the chance.

So if your heart is set on UCI and your family will be better off, don't let the idea that USC is a more prestigious school with better job prospects sway you. You will probably be fine from UCI, and even if you do end up slightly worse off by whatever metric in your career, it will be worth it if you're not worse off in your family life. All that said, 'SC may not be that bad for your family life. I know two people with families in OC who commuted to school every day by train, and they are both in the top of our class. (If you're interested in how that's possible, I can PM you a screen name). They are also both working at big firms in OC, so something to consider is that it's only temporary. But if you and your wife decide that your family will be negatively impacted by you going to USC, choose UCI and don't look back. Law school's not worth it.

[thelawyler]

If your wife doesn't know at least 80% of what u know about law schools, teach her. Then let her make a call again.

Show her the employment numbers. Show her the debt. Show her the RISK of going with an UNKNOWN. If she still thinks it is worth it after all that education on the legal market, then re-evaluate.

People are saying that you should go to UCI because of your family. I am the exact opposite. I think you should go to USC because of your family. Why? You are not helping your family out at all if the gamble at UCI does not pay off. And it is a gamble because nobody knows and nobody has full information. Are you willing to gamble your child's next 15 years on something you don't even have full information on? At least for USC you know what you are getting into, but you are literally going in blind at UCI. Is that a responsible move for a man with a family? I'd say no, but that's your call. I'd say UCI sounds more like a K-JDer's kind of risk.

Go to USC. For your family.

[lazarusl]

OP, you said you aren't all that interested in biglaw. Understand that many (most?) posters on TLS reject that premise, and routinely ignore it when offering their opinions. If you're not planning to try for a biglaw job, chances are your school's ranking isn't nearly as important as they would have you believe. In that case, the uncertainty over where UCI will be ranked should be much less of a factor while other issues, such as debt load and quality of life, ought to be emphasized.

I'm a member of the first UCI graduating class. I have a biglaw job waiting for me, as do many of my classmates. None of this is a guarantee for future classes, but you should understand that the TLS cynics have been saying UCI was going to fail since before I started applying to law schools. We continue to attract top applicants and that will continue to result in UCI seeing excellent employment placement.

If you're hoping for a clerkship, UCI is a great choice; Chem has unparalleled connections with judges around the country and he enthusiastically helps applicants land clerkships. If you're interested in public interest, I know of no better choice, again thanks to our faculty members' deep relationships with that community and the school's commitment to supporting that area of the law.

I turned down a T14 school in favor of UCI and I'm thrilled that I did. I won't try to tell you the scholarship wasn't a major factor in my choice, but I will tell you that there's no way I could be more satisfied with my law school experience if I had gone the other way.

[Tiago Splitter]

OP, you said you aren't all that interested in biglaw. Understand that many (most?) posters on TLS reject that premise, and routinely ignore it when offering their opinions.

No one is ignoring it. 75K in scholarships from UCI will leave most students six figures in debt, the kind of debt that makes BigLaw attractive, if not necessary.

[flem]

OP, you said you aren't all that interested in biglaw. Understand that many (most?) posters on TLS reject that premise, and routinely ignore it when offering their opinions.

That's because most people are still going to be 150-200K in the hole, chief.

[Ludo!]

USC. If your wife loves Irvine that much tell her you can move there after law school. The increased job prospects from going to USC will pay for a lot of Cheesecake Factory dinners in OC

[socalorbust]

Thanks for the input folks

[twenty]

Look at it this way, USC is going to give you significantly better job prospects, biglaw or not, over UCI. If you really want to live in Irvine, it's just under an hour to commute to USC. I live in OC, and I know how awful this commute is at rush hour, but personally, I would commute every day from Mission Viejo to USC rather than do UCI if you're not looking at almost a full ride from UCI.

This is coming from someone that hates USC, loves UCI, and loves Irvine/OC in general.

EDIT> Also, living in LA is not the worst thing ever. Culver City (or if you can afford it, Santa Monica) are nice areas and about 20 minutes away from USC. Rent for three years -- it's not the end of the world.

[jck4487]

Many outspoken critics of UCI (on TLS and generally) are future/current/past law students at UCLA and USC who are bent out of shape that there is another competitive school in Southern California. (I'm just calling it like I see it, I don't mean to point fingers or anything. Obviously I'm defending UCI because I go there, so my conflict is clear.) I faced the choice between UCLA and UCI last year, with similar scholarship offers from both (though UCI's scholarship was a set percentage of tuition and fees while UCLA was a fixed dollar amount, the scholarship offer to UCI will ultimately be more since tuition will increase substantially for my 2L and 3L years -- dang budget crisis). I had the same fears about job prospects, but I couldn't be happier with my choice to go to UCI. I originally planned on doing a judicial externship this summer between 1L and 2L, but I ended up getting two offers at BigLaw firms as part of diversity fellowships. Those opportunities fell into my lap after staff at UCI's CDO encouraged me to apply. While I do work hard in law school, have good work experience, and interview well, I really think that being from UCI set me apart in the intense interview process and many interviewers even wanted to know why I chose UCI. I came here because I felt the school was committed to a higher quality of education, building a formidable institution, and doing this while maintaining the least-douchey environment possible (for a law school). This made me different from some USC and UCLA students, whose honest answers apparently would be something like, "I wanted to capitalize on the awesome alumni network of USC and someone on TLS told me I'd be dumb to go to another school over it."

But beyond that, the administration is committed to our success because if we succeed, the school succeeds. Potential job prospects isn't really a huge concern for me anymore. Professors know your name and take special interest in helping you. My biggest concern now is maintaining the collegial culture -- that's why I chose to come here and that's why I legitimately enjoyed my first year of law school. I moved to Irvine with my fiance, and that played a huge part of my decision as well. Divorce rates and alcohol abuse rates are embarrassingly high in the legal profession. So while choosing USC (or any other school) "for your family" might make sense if you're only trying to maximize the possibility of getting a 160k firm job, that assumes getting that job would actually be best for your family. I would maintain that inherently puts them second. (Don't let a 22 year-old potential law student tell you what's right for your family -- that's ridiculous.)

Also, I realize that people come here to get advice from other potential/current law students, but realize that most people here can only provide advice from their limited personal experiences or from secondhand information. You're really getting what you pay for in terms of advice here. People make radical oversimplifications with little actual experience. While most people here can't seem to comprehend why you're considering the quality of life of your wife and kid, because everything to people on TLS can be reduced to a job placement number, the quality of life makes a big difference. The fact that you asked this question shows you have a different set of priorities than most potential law students. Quality of life matters and home life obviously affects performance in law school.

I'll just disclose up front (before make oversimplified one-sentence responses pointing it out) that I'm an optimistic person, probably did have a better experience than some of my classmates, and am one of the people who "markets" UCI well. Of course I want it to succeed, but I also want to continue to enjoy law school, and the next class will be a big part of maintaining the culture.

[Danteshek]

but I ended up getting two offers at BigLaw firms as part of diversity fellowships. Those opportunities fell into my lap

Congrats, I guess. Not sure whether this is relevant to OP.

[jck4487]

but I ended up getting two offers at BigLaw firms as part of diversity fellowships. Those opportunities fell into my lap

Congrats, I guess. Not sure whether this is relevant to OP.

Just trying to prove it's not "stupid" to choose UCI (even if you only care about getting a 160k job at a firm downtown). So many people are quick to tell OP how job prospects compare to USC or UCLA without having any idea how job prospects actually are at UCI. After all, we're not ranked and our first class just graduated. I realize that sounds terribly douchey out of context. Sorry.

[thelawyler]

but I ended up getting two offers at BigLaw firms as part of diversity fellowships. Those opportunities fell into my lap

Congrats, I guess. Not sure whether this is relevant to OP.

Just trying to prove it's not "stupid" to choose UCI (even if you only care about getting a 160k job at a firm downtown). So many people are quick to tell OP how job prospects compare to USC or UCLA without having any idea how job prospects actually are at UCI. After all, we're not ranked and our first class just graduated. I realize that sounds terribly douchey out of context. Sorry.

The fact is that nobody knows how OCI's stats will be in 2 years when OP does OCI. Nobody. That's why its a gamble. A risk. Why? Because if it pays off, you're happy. If it doesn't and UCI underperforms for you, then you're sad. With UCLA/USC you know what you are getting. With UCI it is a greater risk, no matter how you put it.

[jck4487]

but I ended up getting two offers at BigLaw firms as part of diversity fellowships. Those opportunities fell into my lap

Congrats, I guess. Not sure whether this is relevant to OP.

Just trying to prove it's not "stupid" to choose UCI (even if you only care about getting a 160k job at a firm downtown). So many people are quick to tell OP how job prospects compare to USC or UCLA without having any idea how job prospects actually are at UCI. After all, we're not ranked and our first class just graduated. I realize that sounds terribly douchey out of context. Sorry.

The fact is that nobody knows how OCI's stats will be in 2 years when OP does OCI. Nobody. That's why its a gamble. A risk. Why? Because if it pays off, you're happy. If it doesn't and UCI underperforms for you, then you're sad. With UCLA/USC you know what you are getting. With UCI it is a greater risk, no matter how you put it.

Again, because you are unaware of OCI results doesn't mean "nobody knows." http://law.uci.edu/career_dev/offers_an ... yment.html

[bk1]

Again, because you are unaware of OCI results doesn't mean "nobody knows." http://law.uci.edu/career_dev/offers_an ... yment.html

He obviously didn't literally mean "nobody knows." If only people at UCI's CSO have a complete picture then functionally everyone who is trying to make an informed decision is in the dark.

[PDaddy]

25k a year at both. loved uci and so did the wife and kid. housing and daycare ready at uci whereas usc will be a hassle and more money as well. My head says usc because of alumni network and rank but my gut says that uci is the right fit. would i be stupid to take uci over usc?

Yes it would be very stupid to take UCI USC over USC UCI if you felt more comfortable at UCI.

Go to USC is obviously more established, but you would be far from the first person to take UCI over USC or UCLA, or even Berkeley in at least one case.

Either choice can be reasoned. Go with your gut. Your job prospects will be about the same either way, and may be better at UCI because of the personal attention you will receive. Every student is assigned a mentor, and the CSO is going to work extra hard for you because the life of the school depends on it. I would expect USC's CSO to be somewhat lazy precisely because the school is well established. UCI is the new hot school, is credible, and has fewer students with which to compete for jobs and clerkships.

[dingbat]

Your job prospects will be about the same either way, and may be better at UCI because of the personal attention you will receive. Every student is assigned a mentor, and the CSO is going to work extra hard for you because the life of the school depends on it. I would expect USC's CSO to be somewhat lazy precisely because the school is well established. UCI is the new hot school, is credible, and has fewer students with which to compete for jobs and clerkships.

I'm going to ignore the bolded.

The job search will be very different at UCI vs USC.
USC has an established alumni network you can mine, and OCI is a regular fixture for a large number of firms.
UCI does not have this, but instead has a CSO that will work its butt off for you and try to find you something (anything)

Which method of finding work do you think would work better for you?