SMU (63k COA) vs. University of Colorado (35k COA) Forum

[kalvano]

Don't go to Colorado. You have no ties, and it may be the most insular market there is. Ask all the Harvard kids who want to work there and can't get a job. You'll have basically zero chance. Even if you ended up top 10%, you'd probably struggle to get a job. Also, Coloradoans are not fond of Texans, so double blow.

This is 100% untrue. Colorado is probably the least "insular" state in the country. Hardly anyone here in actually from here. Over half the law school is out of state. Kalvano is only correct in terms of big law ( which barely exists in this state ). Big law, in Colorado or anywhere, is very tie conscious. Some Harvard kid who has only vacationed in Colorado has little chance. Though, someone that has been three years at CU Law developing a tie will certainly have a crack. You probably won't get it though-- again, the large firm market is minuscule, especially compared to Texas.

Finally, the schools are peers, they just have different students. SMU will have far more students who want private side work. In fact, I perused that ATL ranking everyone's been talking about and the student questionare at CU Law showed that only 33% of students wanted private work when they showed up. As a student here, I can personally back that up. The point is these job placement stats are helpful, but they do not make apples to apples comparisons across the board. The real credited response is CU for Colorado, SMU for Texas.

-3L at CU, no ties beyond school, average grades, job in Texas lined up when I graduate.

This is not my expericence, or basically anyone else's expericence. The Employment Forum is full of people with top-tier credentials and plenty of ties to Colorado who couldn't get a damn thing.

[Lord Randolph McDuff]

This is not my expericence, or basically anyone else's expericence. The Employment Forum is full of people with top-tier credentials and plenty of ties to Colorado who couldn't get a damn thing.

You don't have an experience; you've missed the point.

The difference between going to CU and trying to get a job in Colorado and going to Harvard (or SMU) and trying to get a job in Colorado is night and day. Harvard students shooting for one of the few SAs look like flight risks, SMU students look confused.

Local schools are a tie.

OP this whole conversation is about where you want to live. If you value money much more than where you make it, the correct response is re-take. These two schools are peers. The private sector is much stronger in Dallas than Colorado: that is one reason SMU has better employment stats, not because their students are brighter or their curriculum is better. The other reason for the different stats is the difference between the cultures of the two student bodies. If you go to CU and gun for private firm work, you'll be competing with less than half the class. At SMU, you'll be competing with more than half the class. To ignore this fact and focus only on the LST employment scores is idiocy.

[kalvano]

Local schools aren't that much of a tie, but whatever. OP can search for info about how hard it is to break into the Colorado market without significant ties, it's well-documented.

[BigZuck]

This is not my expericence, or basically anyone else's expericence. The Employment Forum is full of people with top-tier credentials and plenty of ties to Colorado who couldn't get a damn thing.

You don't have an experience; you've missed the point.

The difference between going to CU and trying to get a job in Colorado and going to Harvard (or SMU) and trying to get a job in Colorado is night and day. Harvard students shooting for one of the few SAs look like flight risks, SMU students look confused.

Local schools are a tie.

OP this whole conversation is about where you want to live. If you value money much more than where you make it, the correct response is re-take. These two schools are peers. The private sector is much stronger in Dallas than Colorado: that is one reason SMU has better employment stats, not because their students are brighter or their curriculum is better. The other reason for the different stats is the difference between the cultures of the two student bodies. If you go to CU and gun for private firm work, you'll be competing with less than half the class. At SMU, you'll be competing with more than half the class. To ignore this fact and focus only on the LST employment scores is idiocy.

These schools are not peers. SMU is pretty solid when it comes to employment outcomes. Colorado is mediocre at very best.

[Lord Randolph McDuff]

This is not my expericence, or basically anyone else's expericence. The Employment Forum is full of people with top-tier credentials and plenty of ties to Colorado who couldn't get a damn thing.

You don't have an experience; you've missed the point.

The difference between going to CU and trying to get a job in Colorado and going to Harvard (or SMU) and trying to get a job in Colorado is night and day. Harvard students shooting for one of the few SAs look like flight risks, SMU students look confused.

Local schools are a tie.

OP this whole conversation is about where you want to live. If you value money much more than where you make it, the correct response is re-take. These two schools are peers. The private sector is much stronger in Dallas than Colorado: that is one reason SMU has better employment stats, not because their students are brighter or their curriculum is better. The other reason for the different stats is the difference between the cultures of the two student bodies. If you go to CU and gun for private firm work, you'll be competing with less than half the class. At SMU, you'll be competing with more than half the class. To ignore this fact and focus only on the LST employment scores is idiocy.

These schools are not peers. SMU is pretty solid when it comes to employment outcomes. Colorado is mediocre at very best.

Yeah you're just sort of not responsive to my point. Glad to see you can type things twice though. Neat.

[Lord Randolph McDuff]

Local schools aren't that much of a tie, but whatever. OP can search for info about how hard it is to break into the Colorado market without significant ties, it's well-documented.

No, it isn't well documented. What is allegedly well documented is that it is hard to get Colorado big law from out of state law schools. I don't really know much about that-- not my thing. It is probably very hard to get Colorado big law without ties or from T-14 even with ties. You are probably right about that.

If you want data on whether out of state students can attend CU Law and get jobs in Colorado, that is an entirely different conversation. I get that you aren't seeing that point. The point is still out there. Seeings how I actually attend CU, have gotten competitive internships in the state, and personally know fifteen or twenty graduating 3Ls who came to this law school with no ties to the state and are leaving law school with jobs in Colorado, please excuse me if I have a different opinion than you do. Also feel free to ignore what you've heard from the CU student and continue echoing your current position. No worries.

[kalvano]

You misunderstand. I see your point. But I choose to believe the massive amount of data on this site over your singular anecdotal evidence.

[A. Nony Mouse]

LST is data. Individual comments about difficulty breaking into the Colorado market are not a massive amount of data, they're other anecdotes.

[tripn324]

Thanks everyone for weighing in on my dilemma. I've already sat out a year after my first LSAT attempt and I didn't do any better (and my 3.0 GPA is really what's keeping me from better options not my LSAT necessarily). I got in touch with a few prominent lawyers in Denver so I'm going to meet with them and visit the campus sometime in the next few weeks. Knowing that a majority of the students at CU are trying to work for the government seems a little strange to me, but I guess that's just my Texas outlook. This does explain why SMU students are making more money despite being slightly lower ranked (in addition to being in a better legal market). My dad used to be a hiring partner at Dallas biglaw though (Fulbright) and swears that as long as you make the effort to network, they will not care about region as much as ranking of the school you graduated from and your class rank. I still have not made a decision yet, as I think CU is a steal for the tuition I'll be paying (esp. since I have below median LSAT and GPA) but SMU seems like the better fit for what kind of law I want to practice and where the majority of my legal ties are. It's good to know though that there are people out there that are getting jobs in Texas after CU in case I decide to go there and decide Colorado isn't the place for me long term.

[utlaw2007]

Out of curiosity- how come SMU is rated so poorly by USNWR compared to their employment numbers? It seems like everybody that talks about SMU mentions its "underrated". Were they caught inflating their numbers? Speaking of which, what school was it that got caught recently inflating their numbers? Was it Illinois?

Because USNWR cares about some stuff that isn't nearly as important as employment stats.

Both SMU and Houston are terribly underrated when it comes to US News. US News doesn't seem to understand the advantage of backyard big employment markets. I think either choice would be a far superior option to Colorado if you don't mind living and working in Dallas or Houston as opposed to Colorado.