Villanova for free vs. Georgetown $99k (for PI) Forum

[timbs4339]

For the love of god, retake. With enough of a score increase your career path is wildly different.

GTown would be a good deal...if they didn't have like 1,000 students in each class, but unfortunately the profs gots to get paid.

[JCougar]

Like JCouger said, it depends on the program. For DOJ, SEC, State, etc. you better have great grades + law review at HYSCCN and some pretty solid resume stuff for more than an arbitrary shot at these agencies. For HUD, DOT, IRS, etc. you better be seriously dedicated throughout law school and gunning for that specific agency the whole time. Cross your fingers and hope they don't have a hiring freeze by the time 3L comes around.

The thing is, you're not gunning for 20~ slots (depending on the agency) you're gunning for one of, like, 5. The remainder of the slots will go to guys like TheSpanishMain, who will get veteran's preference and will blow your application out of the water before anyone even looks at it, or myself, who has tenure with the federal government, and will blow your application out of the water before anyone looks at it. Granted, there aren't a lot of status candidates or veterans, but understand that it's a rough, rough road to get into PI/govt. So much so that from Day 1 of law school, you better be gunning like nobody's business.

Example: (T14) buddy wanted JAG Corps, so during his first semester of 1L, he was volunteering for a non-profit that helped veterans with USERRA claims. 1L summer he went to Army. He threw stuff into OCI, but he spent most of his 2L time volunteering at a local base. 2L summer was split between AF and Army. 3L he basically skipped all his classes to go volunteer/extern for the military. When all was said and done, Army saw his resume and a recruiter told him "Wow, this is impressive... I'd give you a 50/50 chance of getting in [to active], man." The moral of the story is, for all his gunning he did, he should have done more.

But I digress. Retake the LSAT and go to a T14 school for a huge discount/free.

Yeah, this is such a good summary for those trying to get into Fed/PI. Unless you want to be stuck volunteering for two years in legal aid before even getting a paid job, you need to gun extremely hard for these positions from day 1. It's just not a fallback plan for those that miss Biglaw or get no-offered.