Stanford vs. Duke $$$ vs. UVA $$$ Interesting case Forum

ub3r · Post by **ub3r** » Thu Apr 02, 2015 11:26 pm

pancakes3 wrote:Also, I don't think the OP conclusively said he was Asian.

He(?) did say "I also really want to be in california because I have spent my entire life in highly white areas and would like to experience more asian culture."

OP: As a white guy from San Jose, I can attest that we have a lot more asians than does the south (or most anywhere). But I can also tell you that I don't really feel "asian culture" is a thing here so much as a blanket "northern california culture". I find the whites, asians, latinos, etc. in the south bay are more alike than different with respect to other parts of the country. I really enjoy seeing a diversity of faces at the mall, but if you want to come here for the culture, do it for the "northern california culture" more than the "asian culture".

That said, the TLS response is to do what's best for your longterm goals, law school quality of life be damned.

twenty · Post by **twenty** » Thu Apr 02, 2015 11:29 pm

I'd take Duke/UVA just to put a middle finger to your parents.

nlee10 · Post by **nlee10** » Thu Apr 02, 2015 11:39 pm

ub3r wrote:
pancakes3 wrote:Also, I don't think the OP conclusively said he was Asian.
He(?) did say "I also really want to be in california because I have spent my entire life in highly white areas and would like to experience more asian culture."

OP: As a white guy from San Jose, I can attest that we have a lot more asians than does the south (or most anywhere). But I can also tell you that I don't really feel "asian culture" is a thing here so much as a blanket "northern california culture". I find the whites, asians, latinos, etc. in the south bay are more alike than different with respect to other parts of the country. I really enjoy seeing a diversity of faces at the mall, but if you want to come here for the culture, do it for the "northern california culture" more than the "asian culture".

That said, the TLS response is to do what's best for your longterm goals, law school quality of life be damned.

I live in Orange County and some areas are super Asian (i.e Irvine/Garden Grove/Cerritos).

Clyde Frog · Post by **Clyde Frog** » Thu Apr 02, 2015 11:41 pm

My parents did not think Stanford was a top law school, granted my dad drives a semi and my mom takes care of elderly people, they thought it was a good school but not among the top.

Clyde Frog · Post by **Clyde Frog** » Thu Apr 02, 2015 11:42 pm

twenty wrote:I'd take Duke/UVA just to put a middle finger to your parents.

I'd take it simply because you could cut off ties from them and take care of yourself.

RubyRod · Post by **RubyRod** » Thu Apr 02, 2015 11:49 pm

So about loans... 1 file your taxes, if you made no money and paid no loans, file your taxes as 0 so you have the information. Then submit fafsa. If this is confusing CALL THE FINANCIAL AID OFFICE AT STANFORD!!! This is not a difficult thing to do. I assume they are pretty used to guiding people through this sort of thing. They have LRAP no? So if you are doing government educational work I would guess that would be covered under LRAP. Again ASK THE FINANCIAL AID OFFICE. They say you need to send parental info again CALL THE FINANCIAL AID OFFICE AND SAY PARENTS ARE REFUSING!

If Stanford is your dream, don't let your parents taking away their money stop you from your dream. Everyone on this thread thinks your only option of ridding yourself of your parents is a full ride, it's not. You can take loans like the hundreds of thousands of grad and undergrad students who do it every year. You won't die, you'll have a debt to pay, but you will not die.

Consider your long term career goals. Honestly, do you think either of these full rides can give you the same results as Stanford? If so then you just have to decide where you will be happiest.

Not having a ton of money laying around is a big fat scary thing for the people who have had it their whole lives, but don't let money, or your parents, make decisions for you. It's time to be a grown up if you're going to pursue a law degree.

You also have to decide to work on the relationship you have with your family, but TLS is not a place for family counseling so I will leave that to you to figure out.

MistakenGenius · Post by **MistakenGenius** » Thu Apr 02, 2015 11:56 pm

Post removed.

Tiago Splitter · Post by **Tiago Splitter** » Fri Apr 03, 2015 12:04 pm

mec896 wrote: If Stanford is your dream, don't let your parents taking away their money stop you from your dream. Everyone on this thread thinks your only option of ridding yourself of your parents is a full ride, it's not. You can take loans like the hundreds of thousands of grad and undergrad students who do it every year. You won't die, you'll have a debt to pay, but you will not die.

Who said he would die?

mec896 wrote:Consider your long term career goals. Honestly, do you think either of these full rides can give you the same results as Stanford? If so then you just have to decide where you will be happiest.

Wouldn't the tiebreaker be cost, i.e. 50k debt vs. 300k debt, rather than happiness?

Clyde Frog · Post by **Clyde Frog** » Fri Apr 03, 2015 12:18 pm

mec896 wrote:So about loans... 1 file your taxes, if you made no money and paid no loans, file your taxes as 0 so you have the information. Then submit fafsa. If this is confusing CALL THE FINANCIAL AID OFFICE AT STANFORD!!! This is not a difficult thing to do. I assume they are pretty used to guiding people through this sort of thing. They have LRAP no? So if you are doing government educational work I would guess that would be covered under LRAP. Again ASK THE FINANCIAL AID OFFICE. They say you need to send parental info again CALL THE FINANCIAL AID OFFICE AND SAY PARENTS ARE REFUSING!

If Stanford is your dream, don't let your parents taking away their money stop you from your dream. Everyone on this thread thinks your only option of ridding yourself of your parents is a full ride, it's not. You can take loans like the hundreds of thousands of grad and undergrad students who do it every year. You won't die, you'll have a debt to pay, but you will not die.

Consider your long term career goals. Honestly, do you think either of these full rides can give you the same results as Stanford? If so then you just have to decide where you will be happiest.

Not having a ton of money laying around is a big fat scary thing for the people who have had it their whole lives, but don't let money, or your parents, make decisions for you. It's time to be a grown up if you're going to pursue a law degree.

You also have to decide to work on the relationship you have with your family, but TLS is not a place for family counseling so I will leave that to you to figure out.

Thanks Satan

radio1nowhere · Post by **radio1nowhere** » Sat Apr 04, 2015 1:57 am

Not super highly relevant to OP's question(s), but the commentary on prestige bias ITT is really interesting, and I thought I'd add my experience as a kid from the deep south.

Harvard and Yale have BY FAR the most prestige down here, followed distantly by schools like Duke (location, obvs), Cornell (?), and maybe Stanford. Stanford has a good reputation for sure, but it's just so far away that no one ever comes in contact with Stanford grads, or knows people who apply/go there, which leads to undervaluing. I think UPenn is pretty undervalued too; in fact, I'd guess the majority of people in the deep south would mistake the University of Pennsylvania for some run-of-the-mill state school! The Cornell upward bias is kinda unexplainable, unless it really is The Office after all..

P.S. I bet more people would pick Princeton Law School over Stanford if I did a survey.

Clearly · Post by **Clearly** » Sat Apr 04, 2015 2:45 am

radio1nowhere wrote:Not super highly relevant to OP's question(s), but the commentary on prestige bias ITT is really interesting, and I thought I'd add my experience as a kid from the deep south.

Harvard and Yale have BY FAR the most prestige down here, followed distantly by schools like Duke (location, obvs), Cornell (?), and maybe Stanford. Stanford has a good reputation for sure, but it's just so far away that no one ever comes in contact with Stanford grads, or knows people who apply/go there, which leads to undervaluing. I think UPenn is pretty undervalued too; in fact, I'd guess the majority of people in the deep south would mistake the University of Pennsylvania for some run-of-the-mill state school! The Cornell upward bias is kinda unexplainable, unless it really is The Office after all..

P.S. I bet more people would pick Princeton Law School over Stanford if I did a survey.

People in Pennsylvania mistake Penn for a run of the mill state school...

Mack.Hambleton · Post by **Mack.Hambleton** » Sat Apr 04, 2015 3:01 am

This is now a lay prestige thread

BiglawAssociate · Post by **BiglawAssociate** » Sat Apr 04, 2015 11:01 am

Clearly wrote:
radio1nowhere wrote:Not super highly relevant to OP's question(s), but the commentary on prestige bias ITT is really interesting, and I thought I'd add my experience as a kid from the deep south.

Harvard and Yale have BY FAR the most prestige down here, followed distantly by schools like Duke (location, obvs), Cornell (?), and maybe Stanford. Stanford has a good reputation for sure, but it's just so far away that no one ever comes in contact with Stanford grads, or knows people who apply/go there, which leads to undervaluing. I think UPenn is pretty undervalued too; in fact, I'd guess the majority of people in the deep south would mistake the University of Pennsylvania for some run-of-the-mill state school! The Cornell upward bias is kinda unexplainable, unless it really is The Office after all..

P.S. I bet more people would pick Princeton Law School over Stanford if I did a survey.
People in Pennsylvania mistake Penn for a run of the mill state school...

People in Philadelphia mistake UPenn for Penn State.....

As for the other stuff, Westerners and East Coasters don't give a shit what Southerners think. And Californians especially don't give a shit about what non-Californians think because they already live in the best state in the country, why would you ever leave.

Winter is Coming · Post by **Winter is Coming** » Sat Apr 04, 2015 11:03 am

I interned with a girl during undergrad on the Hill who went crazy any time people mistook Penn State and Penn (which happened a lot). Normally if it was another intern, she'd go off on them.

We met Biden at a fundraiser and he did the standard walk by politician thing, just asking us about our schools and making a quick comment.

When he got to her, she said UPenn, Biden answers: "Heard Coach Paterno has those guys roaring to go this year" and just continues down the line.

It was awesome at the time, and given the subsequent events at the university even funnier (in a morbid kind of way.)

BiglawAssociate · Post by **BiglawAssociate** » Sat Apr 04, 2015 11:04 am

Winter is Coming wrote:I interned with a girl during undergrad on the Hill who went crazy any time people mistook Penn State and Penn (which happened a lot). Normally if it was another intern, she'd go off on them.

We met Biden at a fundraiser and he did the standard walk by politician thing, just asking us about our schools and making a quick comment.

When he got to her, she said UPenn, Biden answers: "Heard Coach Paterno has those guys roaring to go this year" and just continues down the line.

It was awesome at the time, and given the subsequent events at the university even funnier (in a morbid kind of way.)

hahaha, sounds like she deserved it

If she cared that much about lay prestige, don't go to fucking UPenn

Did she cuss him out afterward?

Winter is Coming · Post by **Winter is Coming** » Sat Apr 04, 2015 11:10 am

Haha nope she kept her shit together. She possessed a lot of the near-sociopathic qualities necessary for national politics, wouldn't be surprised to see her name up there someday.

jbagelboy · Post by **jbagelboy** » Sat Apr 04, 2015 1:58 pm

Mack.Hambleton wrote:This is now a lay prestige thread

What is it with TLS on topics and this "lay prestige" fetishism recently? There didn't use to be quite so much rubbish, or maybe it's just selective memory on my part

Mack.Hambleton · Post by **Mack.Hambleton** » Sat Apr 04, 2015 4:29 pm

jbagelboy wrote:
Mack.Hambleton wrote:This is now a lay prestige thread
What is it with TLS on topics and this "lay prestige" fetishism recently? There didn't use to be quite so much rubbish, or maybe it's just selective memory on my part

Do u go to Columbia college in Chicago

BigZuck · Post by **BigZuck** » Sat Apr 04, 2015 4:39 pm

jbagelboy wrote:
Mack.Hambleton wrote:This is now a lay prestige thread
What is it with TLS on topics and this "lay prestige" fetishism recently? There didn't use to be quite so much rubbish, or maybe it's just selective memory on my part

Not sure if srs

I really hope the OP takes a fully to UVA or Duke. Nothing says "Screw you, elitist parents" quite like accepting a named scholarship to a top law school.

ub3r · Post by **ub3r** » Sat Apr 04, 2015 4:43 pm

Mack.Hambleton wrote:
jbagelboy wrote:
Mack.Hambleton wrote:This is now a lay prestige thread
What is it with TLS on topics and this "lay prestige" fetishism recently? There didn't use to be quite so much rubbish, or maybe it's just selective memory on my part

Do u go to Columbia college in Chicago

Are you seriously telling me you've never heard of Colombia University

Auxilio · Post by **Auxilio** » Sun Apr 05, 2015 2:16 am

I thought for fun I would post my impression about lay prestige views on top schools from a West Coast Canadian perspective:

HS are definitely the top, Yale seen as great but not compared to those two. After that some people knew about Columbia and Cornell as good schools. NO ONE I talked to (even professors who might be familiar with it as a significant source of research. Even one prof who got his PHD at Cornell seemed unaware of Chicago) had any idea that Chicago was anything more than a regional random university. The rest of the top 14 were usually mostly ignored - Duke was known as a sports place and UVA had been in the news.

pancakes3 · Post by **pancakes3** » Sun Apr 05, 2015 9:58 am

GULC is T5, possibly T3 in lay prestige. I know [many] people who didn't know that Berkeley was a UC school, or that it's the same school that plays as "Cal" in world of sports.

Nathanael · Post by **Nathanael** » Sun Apr 05, 2015 10:34 am

Auxilio wrote:I thought for fun I would post my impression about lay prestige views on top schools from a West Coast Canadian perspective:

HS are definitely the top, Yale seen as great but not compared to those two. After that some people knew about Columbia and Cornell as good schools. NO ONE I talked to (even professors who might be familiar with it as a significant source of research. Even one prof who got his PHD at Cornell seemed unaware of Chicago) had any idea that Chicago was anything more than a regional random university. The rest of the top 14 were usually mostly ignored - Duke was known as a sports place and UVA had been in the news.

Somehow, UChicago doesn't even seem to carry lay prestige in the Midwest. I guess it might in Illinois, but growing up 2 states away, I'd never even heard of it.

Duke is definitely seen as a very strong school here, though. Probably about on the same tier as Michigan, which is very highly regarded. I'd say it roughly goes H>Y>the other ivies>Duke, Michigan>Stanford>Notre Dame>UVA>Cal Berkeley in terms of lay prestige where I'm at.

90convoy · Post by **90convoy** » Sun Apr 05, 2015 1:42 pm

I live 45 min from Uchicago. Most regular people here know it's a good school but they would never put it on the same level as HYP. Notre dame is def considered more prestigious

MistakenGenius · Post by **MistakenGenius** » Sun Apr 05, 2015 4:31 pm

Post removed.