Vanderbilt or WashU? Forum

[Otunga]

K good to know - so how much do you all think the 12% difference in elite-employment outcomes is worth between Vanderbilt and Washington University? I'm thinking 30-40k but 75k seems difficult to justify. Likewise the difference of some 35% between WashU's (33%) and Cornell (68.4%) is substantial but i'm guessing it's worth no more than 75-90k not 129k (scholarship wise + interest is even more). So I'm guessing WashU is probably best and based upon responses that I should 1) Not bank on a transfer (must be top 10% which is unpredictable) 2) Have contentment with mid-law or else a PhD thereafter (poll obviously is ambivalent between Cornell and WashU) - but do these conclusions sound about right?

It's not close to me. If you wanted biglaw then academia as a secondary thing, I'd possibly vote Cornell, but since academia is your main priority, I can't see going into such tremendous debt as reasonable. Indeed, the relative affordability of WUSTL keeps the opportunity to pursue a PhD plausible. The other choices don't.

[McAvoy]

If you don't have Midwestern ties or career goals in the Midwest, then Vandy at an extra 75K sounds a little more tenable (but not really). Vandy places people all around the country -- not because they're really a "national" school, but because they don't have a big home market. In other words, they seem to be pretty good at helping you get a good job in whatever market you came from, granted you can hustle. Wash doesn't disperse people to the same degree.

I really don't think I'd go to Vandy for more than 100K in debt, though. If you have a median outcome and end with 140K in debt, you're going to be in a pretty shitty situation.

Edit: Cornell at that price, even if you get biglaw, it will take you at minimum half a decade to pay that off (considering NYC taxes & COL (and if you can stay in Biglaw). 230K in loans and you take home maybe 95K your first year? Median rent is what, 2500k? You're accruing interest at like 7%. With PSLF possibly on the fritz, I don't think this is a reasonable situation to put yourself in. It sounds really cool to say you went to Cornell, but Vanderbilt will still impress your friends at cocktail parties. But def. go to Wash.

[McAvoy]

Yeah, the PhD ain't gonna help you if you don't have the right law school. Legal academia might be the most prestige-whorish of pretty much any type of legal job aside from SCOTUS clerk. And I definitely wouldn't count on it in the current environment- applications have cratered and schools are laying off tenure-track faculty, not hiring.

I was saying not to go into "legal academia," as in don't go to law school. I meant OP could try to be a history professor who specializes in legal history. But if OP takes this route, if they're really lucky, they'll end up an adjunct or teaching at a community college, which is probably what the PhD history student was alluding to. Still, they'd have a better chance of ending up in "academia," but that's only because the chance they have of being an academic via these law schools is probably less than 1%.

OP, if you're seriously considering Cornell or Vanderbilt, getting a humanities PhD is going to be a lot cheaper (assuming state school), and if you don't get a job (which is by far the most likely scenario), you still got to live "the life of the mind" for five years, and law school would still be there for you at that time. I'm not saying it is a "good" path, because it's really not, but it's definitely a less bad path than Cornell at that price.

Go to Wash.

[Tuxedo]

But if OP takes this route, if they're really lucky, they'll end up an adjunct or teaching at a community college, which is probably what the PhD history student was alluding to. Still, they'd have a better chance of ending up in "academia," but that's only because the chance they have of being an academic via these law schools is probably less than 1%.

I ended up pushing the eject button after the M.A. and have been teaching high school since then.

@ OP, if academia is really your goal you probably need to push to get into some better schools that will help you do that with a JD. Otherwise, the alternative plan looks like the following:

1. Get JD.
2. Destroy the GRE.
3. Gain admission to a great history program at HYS, Berkeley, UMich, or other Ivy Leagues.
4. Enjoy your modest teaching assistant stipend—although you could probably defer some of those payments for you continuing education.
5. Send out resumes to every job posting you see related to your field.

There's not nearly the kind of turnover necessary to guarantee that there will be jobs available for you were you to take the JD/PhD route, and in some ways grad school in the humanities (at least in my experience) is more unpredictable and stressful than what I imagine law school to be (I'm a 0L like you).

Again, not meaning to be discouraging. If you want to do legal academia and you have retakes available you might want to consider whether devoting a year to the LSAT and improving your options might be improve your long term chances. Otherwise you're looking at 8 years of schooling minimum for some risky odds.

Just be careful, OP. Best of luck.