Northwestern (150k) vs. THE FIELD Forum

[Micdiddy]

Why do you dislike the idea of attending NU with a 150K scholarship so much that you have to discuss the concept of passing it up on at least three different threads, two of which you started?

He's being safe. I did the same thing with an almost as good scholarship while I was already 90% sure I would take it. Nothing wrong with it.

[BigZuck]

Why do you dislike the idea of attending NU with a 150K scholarship so much that you have to discuss the concept of passing it up on at least three different threads, two of which you started?

He's being safe. I did the same thing with an almost as good scholarship while I was already 90% sure I would take it. Nothing wrong with it.

At least you kept it to one thread and didn't ask the proles in the NU thread whether you should bother taking 150K from NU.

[FlowBro]

Why do you dislike the idea of attending NU with a 150K scholarship so much that you have to discuss the concept of passing it up on at least three different threads, two of which you started?

Not sure if it is the best fit for me. ASW was nice, however I think I might enjoy a uva/Duke environment more. Living in a big city for another 3 years isn't very appealing to me.

[BigZuck]

Why do you dislike the idea of attending NU with a 150K scholarship so much that you have to discuss the concept of passing it up on at least three different threads, two of which you started?

Not sure if it is the best fit for me. ASW was nice, however I think I might enjoy a uva/Duke environment more. Living in a big city for another 3 years isn't very appealing to me.

The fact that you are grasping for hypos in multiple internet message board threads that you have started to get complete strangers to tell you it's ok not to go shows that you really don't want to go. So don't. YOLO bro, go whereever makes you happy.

[jbagelboy]

As someone else said, how did you save $100,000? Or was this family money?

Edit: this is relevant because if you earned it working over 10 yrs, do not blow it on law school tuition and take the NU offer. If your parents/grandparents gave it to you or left it to you, go to cls/chicago for $75k if you get it.

It's a combination of the two. But why does that matter? Money is money IMO

Why in the world should how you came into money dictate how you spend it?

It's incredibly relevant. If your parents generously give you tens of thousands of dollars to fund your legal education, first, you take that money and use it on the best damn law school you can. OP can go to NU with full scholly and buy himself a porsche to boot, sure, but that's sure as hell not what his family intended when they gave it to him. Also, by spending the money on LS, you aren't increasing your risk from a time/value perspective, but only increasing opportunity at very little cost relative to peers (Since most people don't have that money to start with anyway.)

Secondly, earning that much money would take years, and if you are already late 20's/early 30's, you don't want to put yourself back into debt after ls and be forced back to that maturity level; you've probably already established a life, a home mortgage or equivalent property, you're bound to have kids and other financial responsibilities. Then, the delta between an NU and CLS degree is less important than maintaining other elements of your life. Furthermore, the risk is much higher from an opportunity cost point of view here, you're losing literally years of your life spent saving as opposed to resources past down to you for free. How you "came into money" informs where you are in life, it tells everything about your priorities and what you can risk or gain.

Lastly, unless your parents are true ascetics and give you everything they own, there's probably more in storage where the initial $ came from, so you aren't looking down the gun barrel at bankruptcy if all goes to hell.

[TripTrip]

It's incredibly relevant. If your parents generously give you tens of thousands of dollars to fund your legal education

If OP's parents handed him $200k and said "this is for law school" then yes, this would be relevant. If his parents gave him anything less than $75k for law school though, that money would still be best served at NU paying COL.

The rest of your remarks are wild speculation about OP's family situation that I don't think are really justified.

[untar614]

It's incredibly relevant. If your parents generously give you tens of thousands of dollars to fund your legal education

If OP's parents handed him $200k and said "this is for law school" then yes, this would be relevant. If his parents gave him anything less than $75k for law school though, that money would still be best served at NU paying COL.

The rest of your remarks are wild speculation about OP's family situation that I don't think are really justified.

Idk I can kinda see his point. For instance, I know if my parents were very wealthy, they would likely offer to pay any school and col costs during law school, but they wouldn't just hand me 200k. That means any scholarship money is, from your perspective, wasted ( though not from your parents' perspective). In this case you would be best served going to the best school you could get into regardless of cost. If otoh you hada fixed amount of money to work with that isnt several hundreds of thousands or more, then scholarships should be well considered

[TripTrip]

It's incredibly relevant. If your parents generously give you tens of thousands of dollars to fund your legal education

If OP's parents handed him $200k and said "this is for law school" then yes, this would be relevant. If his parents gave him anything less than $75k for law school though, that money would still be best served at NU paying COL.

The rest of your remarks are wild speculation about OP's family situation that I don't think are really justified.

Idk I can kinda see his point. For instance, I know if my parents were very wealthy, they would likely offer to pay any school and col costs during law school, but they wouldn't just hand me 200k. That means any scholarship money is, from your perspective, wasted ( though not from your parents' perspective). In this case you would be best served going to the best school you could get into regardless of cost. If otoh you hada fixed amount of money to work with that isnt several hundreds of thousands or more, then scholarships should be well considered

Yes... and OP has specifically stated that it is the latter! Thus, scholarships.

[FlowBro]

It's incredibly relevant. If your parents generously give you tens of thousands of dollars to fund your legal education

If OP's parents handed him $200k and said "this is for law school" then yes, this would be relevant. If his parents gave him anything less than $75k for law school though, that money would still be best served at NU paying COL.

The rest of your remarks are wild speculation about OP's family situation that I don't think are really justified.

Idk I can kinda see his point. For instance, I know if my parents were very wealthy, they would likely offer to pay any school and col costs during law school, but they wouldn't just hand me 200k. That means any scholarship money is, from your perspective, wasted ( though not from your parents' perspective). In this case you would be best served going to the best school you could get into regardless of cost. If otoh you hada fixed amount of money to work with that isnt several hundreds of thousands or more, then scholarships should be well considered

Exactly correct, my dad isn't Warren Buffet, actually far from it!

[jbagelboy]

Idk I can kinda see his point. For instance, I know if my parents were very wealthy, they would likely offer to pay any school and col costs during law school, but they wouldn't just hand me 200k. That means any scholarship money is, from your perspective, wasted ( though not from your parents' perspective). In this case you would be best served going to the best school you could get into regardless of cost. If otoh you hada fixed amount of money to work with that isnt several hundreds of thousands or more, then scholarships should be well considered

Exactly correct, my dad isn't Warren Buffet, actually far from it!

I did not intend to make any implications regarding someone's private family circumstances. I speak only to information provided here publicly. No offense should be taken.

OP created this thread because he was second guessing a full tuition scholarship. This is a question of how to spend money; that is the fundamental purpose of the thread and the "sole" reason he created it. I'm assuming thus that OP didn't just want to be told to take the money with no alternative, and he knows the relative ranking and placement power of each institution. FlowBro is a smart and active TLS'er and he would also know the "relative value" of each school as well for his purposes.

This is about monetary choices and opportunity cost. You have $100,000+ dollars, some of which was given to you without a time cost to fund your education. This is not wildly speculative, its the key point; "wild speculation" is saying, 'oh, a degree from university of virginia is worth approximately $10K per year more than one from Duke'. That's the self-masturbatory garbage people spill too often here which contributes nothing since its so based on personal preference -- everyone is really only speaking to their opinion with these arbitrary value judgments or regurgitation of an opinion they saw quoted by someone with feigned authority on the subject.

So it comes down to the purpose and genesis of these "savings". and that's all I was suggesting the OP consider

[NoodleyOne]

How can something be self-masturbatory? Isn't that redundant?

For the rest of your post, I'll just point out that you don't know what you're talking about. The value placed by many on TLS aren't random opinions, but rather based on regional placement and employment numbers, with personal preference pretty far down on the list of criteria. Your sunshine and rainbows schtick can lead to people being left with no jobs and a ton of debt, so please fucking stop. The legal market is shit, and in response tls has become very conservative. It isn't elitism, it's realism.

To the OP, you know how NU places vs. Other T14. It outperforms it's ranking by a bit. If you don't have offers that are in the wheelhouse cost wise, it would be silly to walk away when you can graduate debt free.

[20141023]

.

[jbagelboy]

For the rest of your post, I'll just point out that you don't know what you're talking about. The value placed by many on TLS aren't random opinions, but rather based on regional placement and employment numbers, with personal preference pretty far down on the list of criteria. Your sunshine and rainbows schtick can lead to people being left with no jobs and a ton of debt, so please fucking stop. The legal market is shit, and in response tls has become very conservative. It isn't elitism, it's realism.

To the OP, you know how NU places vs. Other T14. It outperforms it's ranking by a bit. If you don't have offers that are in the wheelhouse cost wise, it would be silly to walk away when you can graduate debt free.

Noodley, I'm not going to argue with you up and down all these Choosing a LS threads. I like you and I don't see why the conversation has to be so divisive. if this weren't the anonymous internet, I'm certain the dialogue would be much friendlier.

You really think you can put a strict UNIVERSAL monetary value on the difference between two peer or near-peer schools (like Duke and UVA? Duke and NU?) I'm not saying there's no difference, but by personal preference, I mean where and what you want to practice, which you just implied is a critical element of the decision.

And its not idealistic to look at T-10 employment figures and draw the conclusion that despite the weakness of the market, you can still get a good job post-grad. I don't think either of us can state with any authority much beyond our anecdotal conversations/acquaintances and publicly available data.

truce?

[jbagelboy]

How can something be self-masturbatory? Isn't that redundant?

Maybe they just wanted to clarify that it isn't a circle-jerk.

Well on second thought, TLS feels more like a circle-jerk sometimes than solo, so maybe I should revise my initial phrasing

[toothbrush]

go to NU imo

[Cobretti]

How can something be self-masturbatory? Isn't that redundant?

Maybe they just wanted to clarify that it isn't a circle-jerk.

Well on second thought, TLS feels more like a circle-jerk sometimes than solo, so maybe I should revise my initial phrasing

+1

[untar614]

not sure what's happened in th past few posts but...

is 90k the general consensus for what it would take for Columbia to compete with 150k at NW as well?

[sinfiery]

not sure what's happened in th past few posts but...

is 90k the general consensus for what it would take for Columbia to compete with 150k at NW as well?

Give or take personal preferences swaying things one way or the other, about half tuition seems right.
I think that's 90k, not sure.