. Forum

[cotiger]

Ditto. What is TCR?

The credited response.

[BigZuck]

Retake the LSAT and put the money to a better use than law school tuition. Buy a nice car with it or put it toward a house or something.

[Informative]

GW if you want to work in DC.
BC/BU (visit and pick based on preference) if you want to work in Boston/NYC.

Retake otherwise.

[kimkardashian]

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[Winston1984]

If you are getting school paid for, it gives you an even bigger reason to retake. A few more points and you can get one of a waitlist.

[kimkardashian]

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[iskim88]

Thanks for the replies! They've been helpful.

Some things have changed in the last few days. It turns out my relative wants to finance pretty much all of my law school expenses (she said up to $200,000 is fine), which is awesome! My parents can pick up whatever is left over if it's less than $15,000 max and I can pay them back later. Should I just attend the highest ranked school then, knowing now that the cost is going to be covered by my family (which I'm very grateful for)?

These are the schools I got into/got waitlisted to and the estimated cost of attendance per year, including fees, room and board. I'm assuming that waitlisted schools don't give out any scholarships so I'm listing them at sticker price.

UPenn (waitlist) - sticker $68,994
Cornell (waitlist) - sticker $68,520
Georgetown (priority waitlist) - sticker $66,970
Duke (priority reserve) - sticker $64,536
William & Mary - $25,150 (including $28,000 scholarship)
GW - $52,740 (including $16,000 scholarship)
BU - $41,790 (including $15,000 scholarship)
BC - $57,645 (no scholarship info yet)

I have no idea where I want to live or work. My family doesn't live in this country so I don't need to be in any particular location. My partner is in the military and moves around every 2 years, and he advised me to just choose the highest ranked school in hopes that it will give me the connections I need to possibly work in more than one state, should that become necessary. The current plan is for me to stay put in one state and for him to live with me when he's not deployed.

So is choosing based on ranking a stupid idea knowing all this? I'm going to visit BU, BC, and GW within the next few weeks. I'm trying to avoid visiting William and Mary because it's 8 hours away from me and I have classes/work Mon-Fri so it would be very inconvenient. I'm leaning towards GW because of its ranking.

If you are that much into rankings, please follow this one:

http://abovethelaw.com/careers/law-school-rankings/

Rather than the meaningless USN ranks.

If I were you, and assuming that I ride those waitlists and get in, and assuming I were in your fortunate financial situation, I would take

Penn > Duke > Cornell > G-town for the top 14 (based on ATL & LST),
and personally would take BC=BU > GW (GW has too many students and I believe has somewhat of a IP-inflated employment prospects)

[jbagelboy]

Thanks for the replies! They've been helpful.

Some things have changed in the last few days. It turns out my relative wants to finance pretty much all of my law school expenses (she said up to $200,000 is fine), which is awesome! My parents can pick up whatever is left over if it's less than $15,000 max and I can pay them back later. Should I just attend the highest ranked school then, knowing now that the cost is going to be covered by my family (which I'm very grateful for)?

These are the schools I got into/got waitlisted to and the estimated cost of attendance per year, including fees, room and board. I'm assuming that waitlisted schools don't give out any scholarships so I'm listing them at sticker price.

UPenn (waitlist) - sticker $68,994
Cornell (waitlist) - sticker $68,520
Georgetown (priority waitlist) - sticker $66,970
Duke (priority reserve) - sticker $64,536
William & Mary - $25,150 (including $28,000 scholarship)
GW - $52,740 (including $16,000 scholarship)
BU - $41,790 (including $15,000 scholarship)
BC - $57,645 (no scholarship info yet)

I have no idea where I want to live or work. My family doesn't live in this country so I don't need to be in any particular location. My partner is in the military and moves around every 2 years, and he advised me to just choose the highest ranked school in hopes that it will give me the connections I need to possibly work in more than one state, should that become necessary. The current plan is for me to stay put in one state and for him to live with me when he's not deployed.

So is choosing based on ranking a stupid idea knowing all this? I'm going to visit BU, BC, and GW within the next few weeks. I'm trying to avoid visiting William and Mary because it's 8 hours away from me and I have classes/work Mon-Fri so it would be very inconvenient. I'm leaning towards GW because of its ranking.

If you are that much into rankings, please follow this one:

http://abovethelaw.com/careers/law-school-rankings/

Rather than the meaningless USN ranks.

If I were you, and assuming that I ride those waitlists and get in, and assuming I were in your fortunate financial situation, I would take

Penn > Duke > Cornell > G-town for the top 14 (based on ATL & LST),
and personally would take BC=BU > GW (GW has too many students and I believe has somewhat of a IP-inflated employment prospects)

No - ATL and USNWR are equally useless, except people care about ATL less.

The WL breakdown is accurate; Bc and BU won't spread beyond New England/New York.. At all really, the only advantage of GW would be "potentially" greater reach, but the ridiculously high school funded positions and large class size suggest a lot of grads are struggling.

[iskim88]

Thanks for the replies! They've been helpful.

Some things have changed in the last few days. It turns out my relative wants to finance pretty much all of my law school expenses (she said up to $200,000 is fine), which is awesome! My parents can pick up whatever is left over if it's less than $15,000 max and I can pay them back later. Should I just attend the highest ranked school then, knowing now that the cost is going to be covered by my family (which I'm very grateful for)?

These are the schools I got into/got waitlisted to and the estimated cost of attendance per year, including fees, room and board. I'm assuming that waitlisted schools don't give out any scholarships so I'm listing them at sticker price.

UPenn (waitlist) - sticker $68,994
Cornell (waitlist) - sticker $68,520
Georgetown (priority waitlist) - sticker $66,970
Duke (priority reserve) - sticker $64,536
William & Mary - $25,150 (including $28,000 scholarship)
GW - $52,740 (including $16,000 scholarship)
BU - $41,790 (including $15,000 scholarship)
BC - $57,645 (no scholarship info yet)

I have no idea where I want to live or work. My family doesn't live in this country so I don't need to be in any particular location. My partner is in the military and moves around every 2 years, and he advised me to just choose the highest ranked school in hopes that it will give me the connections I need to possibly work in more than one state, should that become necessary. The current plan is for me to stay put in one state and for him to live with me when he's not deployed.

So is choosing based on ranking a stupid idea knowing all this? I'm going to visit BU, BC, and GW within the next few weeks. I'm trying to avoid visiting William and Mary because it's 8 hours away from me and I have classes/work Mon-Fri so it would be very inconvenient. I'm leaning towards GW because of its ranking.

If you are that much into rankings, please follow this one:

http://abovethelaw.com/careers/law-school-rankings/

Rather than the meaningless USN ranks.

If I were you, and assuming that I ride those waitlists and get in, and assuming I were in your fortunate financial situation, I would take

Penn > Duke > Cornell > G-town for the top 14 (based on ATL & LST),
and personally would take BC=BU > GW (GW has too many students and I believe has somewhat of a IP-inflated employment prospects)

No - ATL and USNWR are equally useless, except people care about ATL less.

The WL breakdown is accurate; Bc and BU won't spread beyond New England/New York.. At all really, the only advantage of GW would be "potentially" greater reach, but the ridiculously high school funded positions and large class size suggest a lot of grads are struggling.

I don't follow rankings either, but if the OP cares about it, I thought ATL would at least give a better picture of what employment prospects look like - as their methodology is based on employment prospects and pretty much nothing else.

[jbagelboy]

Thanks for the replies! They've been helpful.

Some things have changed in the last few days. It turns out my relative wants to finance pretty much all of my law school expenses (she said up to $200,000 is fine), which is awesome! My parents can pick up whatever is left over if it's less than $15,000 max and I can pay them back later. Should I just attend the highest ranked school then, knowing now that the cost is going to be covered by my family (which I'm very grateful for)?

These are the schools I got into/got waitlisted to and the estimated cost of attendance per year, including fees, room and board. I'm assuming that waitlisted schools don't give out any scholarships so I'm listing them at sticker price.

UPenn (waitlist) - sticker $68,994
Cornell (waitlist) - sticker $68,520
Georgetown (priority waitlist) - sticker $66,970
Duke (priority reserve) - sticker $64,536
William & Mary - $25,150 (including $28,000 scholarship)
GW - $52,740 (including $16,000 scholarship)
BU - $41,790 (including $15,000 scholarship)
BC - $57,645 (no scholarship info yet)

I have no idea where I want to live or work. My family doesn't live in this country so I don't need to be in any particular location. My partner is in the military and moves around every 2 years, and he advised me to just choose the highest ranked school in hopes that it will give me the connections I need to possibly work in more than one state, should that become necessary. The current plan is for me to stay put in one state and for him to live with me when he's not deployed.

So is choosing based on ranking a stupid idea knowing all this? I'm going to visit BU, BC, and GW within the next few weeks. I'm trying to avoid visiting William and Mary because it's 8 hours away from me and I have classes/work Mon-Fri so it would be very inconvenient. I'm leaning towards GW because of its ranking.

If you are that much into rankings, please follow this one:

http://abovethelaw.com/careers/law-school-rankings/

Rather than the meaningless USN ranks.

If I were you, and assuming that I ride those waitlists and get in, and assuming I were in your fortunate financial situation, I would take

Penn > Duke > Cornell > G-town for the top 14 (based on ATL & LST),
and personally would take BC=BU > GW (GW has too many students and I believe has somewhat of a IP-inflated employment prospects)

No - ATL and USNWR are equally useless, except people care about ATL less.

The WL breakdown is accurate; Bc and BU won't spread beyond New England/New York.. At all really, the only advantage of GW would be "potentially" greater reach, but the ridiculously high school funded positions and large class size suggest a lot of grads are struggling.

I don't follow rankings either, but if the OP cares about it, I thought ATL would at least give a better picture of what employment prospects look like - as their methodology is based on employment prospects and pretty much nothing else.

Not really: take a closer look. They talk the talk but don't walk the walk. 17.5% of the rating is the opinions of federal judges and alumni. (Remind you of any other major rankings you know of?) 7.5% is based on an entirely remote and asinine category for 99.9% of law grads that has no bearing on a school's employability since it varies completely year to year. So toss out 25% of the ranking right there.

The nod to education cost (15%) is appreciated and valued in theory, but as far as the survey goes, even the writers acknowledge its significant limitation. We should be concerned with how much debt students are taking on, not the abstract tuition cost of the school. If you attend on full tuition scholarship, how does the sticker price of tuition matter when choosing between schools? Cost should ALWAYS be a factor, specifically personal cost and debt, not someone else's.

Of the remaining 60%, half is the school produced "employment score"... And we all know what those are worth.

So really 30% of the survey could be of value, but of course, even that figure is inaccurately calculated - certain firms and clerkships omitted that prejudice some schools and hurt others, ect.

If you want to "rank" schools, place Yale at 1, then take a 3-year average (and in April, 4-year average with new ABA/NLJ) of 250+ attorneys (100 might be fair if we could parse out litigation boutiques from large shitlaw)/Federal Clerkships with some float for PI and business at schools with those emphases and line them up.

[iskim88]

jbagelboy,

Okay, you have a point and I agree. But wouldn't you still say ATL > USNWR? USNWR's "Quality Assessment" as 40% makes me sniff

[jbagelboy]

jbagelboy,

Okay, you have a point and I agree. But wouldn't you still say ATL > USNWR? USNWR's "Quality Assessment" as 40% makes me sniff

It's a lesser of two evils, yes, but no more "accurate", for whatever accuracy in this context might be worth. Both are better than the Business Insider rankings, which are basically entirely prestige junk.

I wouldn't suggest 0Ls look to any of the three for guidance, although of course they inevitably will.

[kimkardashian]

.

[iskim88]

Thanks for the replies! They've been helpful.

Some things have changed in the last few days. It turns out my relative wants to finance pretty much all of my law school expenses (she said up to $200,000 is fine), which is awesome! My parents can pick up whatever is left over if it's less than $15,000 max and I can pay them back later. Should I just attend the highest ranked school then, knowing now that the cost is going to be covered by my family (which I'm very grateful for)?

These are the schools I got into/got waitlisted to and the estimated cost of attendance per year, including fees, room and board. I'm assuming that waitlisted schools don't give out any scholarships so I'm listing them at sticker price.

UPenn (waitlist) - sticker $68,994
Cornell (waitlist) - sticker $68,520
Georgetown (priority waitlist) - sticker $66,970
Duke (priority reserve) - sticker $64,536
William & Mary - $25,150 (including $28,000 scholarship)
GW - $52,740 (including $16,000 scholarship)
BU - $41,790 (including $15,000 scholarship)
BC - $57,645 (no scholarship info yet)

I have no idea where I want to live or work. My family doesn't live in this country so I don't need to be in any particular location. My partner is in the military and moves around every 2 years, and he advised me to just choose the highest ranked school in hopes that it will give me the connections I need to possibly work in more than one state, should that become necessary. The current plan is for me to stay put in one state and for him to live with me when he's not deployed.

So is choosing based on ranking a stupid idea knowing all this? I'm going to visit BU, BC, and GW within the next few weeks. I'm trying to avoid visiting William and Mary because it's 8 hours away from me and I have classes/work Mon-Fri so it would be very inconvenient. I'm leaning towards GW because of its ranking.

If you are that much into rankings, please follow this one:

http://abovethelaw.com/careers/law-school-rankings/

Rather than the meaningless USN ranks.

If I were you, and assuming that I ride those waitlists and get in, and assuming I were in your fortunate financial situation, I would take

Penn > Duke > Cornell > G-town for the top 14 (based on ATL & LST),
and personally would take BC=BU > GW (GW has too many students and I believe has somewhat of a IP-inflated employment prospects)

Thanks very much for this breakdown! I have two questions if you don't mind.

Do you happen to know why GW has a 81.7% employment rate on USNWR, but higher ranked schools on the same list have much lower employment rates (e.g. Duke 72.9%, Cornell 69.7%, Georgetown 63.7%)? The employment rate listed "Represents the percentage of all 2011 graduates who had a full-time job lasting at least a year for which bar passage was required or a J.D. degree was an advantage. These employment rates are part of the data on placement success used to determine a school’s ranking." I read somewhere on ATL that this employment rate can be manipulated by hiring the law school's own graduates, as someone else on this board mentioned, but does that really count as a job in which a J.D. degree is an advantage? Also I was alarmed that BU and BC have employment rates of 44% and 51.9% on USNWR, respectively, but ATL favors both of those schools over GW and I don't know which list to trust more.

Secondly, do you really think I can get off any waitlist? I was under the impression that waitlists were pretty much impossible to get off of. I plan on staying on all the waitlists anyway and losing the deposit for BU/BC/GW if I happen to get into any of those waitlisted schools.

http://www.lstscorereports.com/?school=gw

=> take a look at this, and you will see that GW's school-funded rate is 22.6%
Basically subtract that from the 80.9% Employment Score and you will have a better perspective.



http://www.lstscorereports.com/?school=duke

=> now look at Duke, and you will see that 51.5% had Large Firms, 12.9% had Federal Clerkships and only 5.3% had school-funded jobs.

There's a difference in the quality of the jobs the students acquire.



http://spiveyconsulting.com/services/la ... admissions

=> visit here,
and you will see that Mike Spivey, the most prominent figure in the current Admissions Consulting market for law school, says

"Disturbingly, advice from many so called "experts" on law school admissions is rife with critical errors. We are dismayed by how often these errors arise and how frequently they are perpetuated by people who have never had admissions file reading responsibilities. Sadly, it is impossible to go to any of the popular law school admissions message boards without being bombarded with misinformation. Consider a common theme expressed in statements like “you have no chance of getting off a waitlist." Guess what? Even at some of the highest ranked law schools upwards of 50% of the matriculating class is comprised of applicants who were waitlisted. And there are definitive and successful strategies you can employ that will greatly increase your chance of being admitted from the waitlist."


Good luck OP!

[kimkardashian]

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[iskim88]

No problem!
We are in a similar boat, with similar numbers. I'm considering BC over other options, but still haven't heard from them regarding $$. Hopefully I'll get some :p

[iskim88]

Oh and I have exhausted all three of my chances for the LSAT; but if I were in your position, I would still take the June LSAT to get off the waitlist. Even a point increase could lead to a different result.

[HP5450]

Get off a T-14 waitlist, then contact the schools which have offered a scholarship & request more money.

Get off a T-14 waitlist and go to a T-14 or don't go at all.

[TTRansfer]

GW if you want to work in DC.
BC/BU (visit and pick based on preference) if you want to work in Boston/NYC.

Retake otherwise.

GW, BU, and BC are pretty much peer schools in NYC. 9% for GW, 8.5% for BC, 12% for BU.

[Nomo]

Don't waste your relatives' money on these schools.

[sumner]

I chose BU over BC because I like the location better (more city than suburbs), the new law school building is opening in the fall so you won't have to deal with the old uncomfortable building. Employment prospects are pretty much the same.

[kimkardashian]

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[kimkardashian]

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[BigZuck]

Get off a T-14 waitlist, then contact the schools which have offered a scholarship & request more money.

Get off a T-14 waitlist and go to a T-14 or don't go at all.

Why? I want to go to law school this fall and it's not going to cost me any loans. My relative is wealthy and she set aside this money to pay for my law school years ago. You really think I'm literally not going to get any job if I don't go to a T-14 school?

Your career goals are open, you want a portable law degree, and you don't have ties to any of these cities. That makes all of these pretty much nonstarters. Plus, you have a benefactor willing to give you law school for free! Don't waste that opportunity on schools like these.

[kimkardashian]

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