180k Northwestern vs 90k UChicago (vs HLS WL) Forum

[Necho2]

Co-sign everything above on UChi. Fed Soc-affiliated definitely dips down close to median for CoA. And yeah- flyover= columbus, cleveland, etc. not genuinely a small town. I think we give out honors to top 22-25% and I definitely recall plenty of non-honors folks clerking at the appellate level. I think top-third for CoA (assuming no geographic restrictions) is reasonable, and down to 40-45% for Fed Soc and similarly not choosy about location.

[beinghuman]

Ok. So we basically agree. I just didn't think "pretty deep" aptly described "top third," which is not easy to get. And yes, there are always exceptions as you mentioned.

But that was my whole point about relative placement power and not to bank on such outcome when one is making a choice such as this one, if the analysis involves cost and outcomes. But if one doesn't care about money and cares more about brand name, then the analysis would be different.

Sorry, I meant to write small cities and not small towns. My bad.

And that's fine, but can you tell us how deep they dig? Does a median student at Uchi typically get a CoA clerkship?
My point is that placement power is relative: they dig deeper than elsewhere but not necessarily pretty deep--depending how you define that term. I think it would be good info for OP to have some quantifiable estimate of what "pretty deep" means. And I am genuinely curious, not being sarcastic.

The (few) UChi appelate clerks I know are all in the top 25% and from my conversation with them, they seem to be under the impression that you'd still need to be at least in the top third. At NU, on the other hand, one would need to be in the top 10% or so.

I agree that the bottom 40% at NU can be rough and I'm not trying to defend NU here but one should be fair.

If you look at the 2018 numbers, NU had 229 students vs. 202 at UChi--that is not a MUCH smaller class. It would be interesting though to see how the 2019 numbers look like once they release them.

If you look at the 2011 numbers, NU placed about 10% more students in big firms than UChi, while both schools' clerkship percentages were pretty close. In 2012, UChi did better than NU in law firm placement. Etc.

I do agree that a firm would dip deeper in to UChi classes but I do not think the difference is that large. At a similar rank, a NU student will probably get into a firm that's ranked a little lower, depending on where they stand. But that NU student will likely still get a job at a firm.

And even for clerkships, UChi places a lot more in federal clerkships but it's not like a court of appeals will dig deep into UChi classes--they still want top students; and as was mentioned before, many students are placed in district courts in small towns.

Now, is that worth 90k plus interest? It could be if you end at the top of your class but if you end up around median, it's not so sure--if we're just talking employment vs.cost. Also, some people would be willing pay a premium for the brand and that's fine too.

Uchicago also has a much smaller class than northwestern, so the idea that dc or Chicago firms are dipping down to the same rank at both schools seems wrong to me.

OP, I would choose uchicago. The bottom 40 percent at a lower t14 can be rough even in a good economy. NU would make sense at a larger cost difference

Federal appellate judges go pretty deep into Chicago’s class; lots of students who don’t graduate with honors get them. The bulk of Chicago’s clerkships are actually appellate and virtually no students do district court clerkships in small towns (by “small cities in the Midwest” I believe the previous poster meant that we send good number of people to places like Cleveland, Columbus, Madison, etc. which is true).

Your friends’ guess of top third is about what I’d guess, lower if you’re conservative. Basically everyone in Fed Soc does an appellate clerkship. Once you get past the honors belts (top 25% or so) it’s really hard to tell what grades people have unless they tell you though. I do know people at median or below who’ve gotten district court clerkships in the smaller Midwestern cities or regions where they have ties.

[herbaria]

I think even the top-third cutoff is optimistic for COA at UChicago. For reference, I'm at HLS and have knowledge of our clerkship stats. Almost no one gets a COA clerkship right out of school here who does not have either top third grades or LR. For 2/9/DC both are practically required, with no LR you pretty much have to be magna (these stats come from my conversations with the clerkship office). Pretty much all of the exceptions to these rules of thumb are Fedsoc/students with insane connections. So the notion that anybody inside top third at UChi has a good shot at COA seems a stretch to me. The idea that you can get COA from median even with connections is, pardon my bluntness, absurd. I'm sure it happens, just like HLS sends some non-magna people to clerk on DC Circuit. But it's so rare that justifying paying double the US average yearly household income based on it is a very poor decision.

Put another way, either the above posters are wrong about the grades required for COA at UChicago, or HLS and UChicago have basically the exact same placement power with COA clerkships. Which doesn't seem likely to me, but maybe i'm wrong.

[The Lsat Airbender]

I think even the top-third cutoff is optimistic for COA at UChicago. For reference, I'm at HLS and have knowledge of our clerkship stats. Almost no one gets a COA clerkship right out of school here who does not have either top third grades or LR. For 2/9/DC both are practically required, with no LR you pretty much have to be magna (these stats come from my conversations with the clerkship office). Pretty much all of the exceptions to these rules of thumb are Fedsoc/students with insane connections. So the notion that anybody inside top third at UChi has a good shot at COA seems a stretch to me. The idea that you can get COA from median even with connections is, pardon my bluntness, absurd. I'm sure it happens, just like HLS sends some non-magna people to clerk on DC Circuit. But it's so rare that justifying paying double the US average yearly household income based on it is a very poor decision.

Put another way, either the above posters are wrong about the grades required for COA at UChicago, or HLS and UChicago have basically the exact same placement power with COA clerkships. Which doesn't seem likely to me, but maybe i'm wrong.

Chicago is much smaller, which in turn amplifies factors like FedSoc, and has a big hinterland in the Midwest where HYS grads don't apply as often. Ceteris paribus, any given GPA at Harvard is probably stronger for clerkship applications than its equivalent at Chicago, especially on the coasts (including SCOTUS). That doesn't necessarily mean that, in the aggregate, HLS students are going to outperform. To the contrary, we know that Chicago has a higher overall clerkship %age as of late.

I'm sure we'll continue to have a TLS holy war about whether the real cutoff is 30% or 33.33% or 40% or 25%, even though there aren't enough data to know for sure, we only have a slice the data that do exist, and people mean different things when they say "cutoff."

[cheaptilts]

I think even the top-third cutoff is optimistic for COA at UChicago. For reference, I'm at HLS and have knowledge of our clerkship stats. Almost no one gets a COA clerkship right out of school here who does not have either top third grades or LR. For 2/9/DC both are practically required, with no LR you pretty much have to be magna (these stats come from my conversations with the clerkship office). Pretty much all of the exceptions to these rules of thumb are Fedsoc/students with insane connections. So the notion that anybody inside top third at UChi has a good shot at COA seems a stretch to me. The idea that you can get COA from median even with connections is, pardon my bluntness, absurd. I'm sure it happens, just like HLS sends some non-magna people to clerk on DC Circuit. But it's so rare that justifying paying double the US average yearly household income based on it is a very poor decision.

Put another way, either the above posters are wrong about the grades required for COA at UChicago, or HLS and UChicago have basically the exact same placement power with COA clerkships. Which doesn't seem likely to me, but maybe i'm wrong.

Chicago is much smaller, which in turn amplifies factors like FedSoc, and has a big hinterland in the Midwest where HYS grads don't apply as often. Ceteris paribus, any given GPA at Harvard is probably stronger for clerkship applications than its equivalent at Chicago, especially on the coasts (including SCOTUS). That doesn't necessarily mean that, in the aggregate, HLS students are going to outperform. To the contrary, we know that Chicago has a higher overall clerkship %age as of late.

I'm sure we'll continue to have a TLS holy war about whether the real cutoff is 30% or 33.33% or 40% or 25%, even though there aren't enough data to know for sure, we only have a slice the data that do exist, and people mean different things when they say "cutoff."

“Ceteris paribus” lol. UChi grad confirmed

[ribbit16]

I think even the top-third cutoff is optimistic for COA at UChicago. For reference, I'm at HLS and have knowledge of our clerkship stats. Almost no one gets a COA clerkship right out of school here who does not have either top third grades or LR. For 2/9/DC both are practically required, with no LR you pretty much have to be magna (these stats come from my conversations with the clerkship office). Pretty much all of the exceptions to these rules of thumb are Fedsoc/students with insane connections. So the notion that anybody inside top third at UChi has a good shot at COA seems a stretch to me. The idea that you can get COA from median even with connections is, pardon my bluntness, absurd. I'm sure it happens, just like HLS sends some non-magna people to clerk on DC Circuit. But it's so rare that justifying paying double the US average yearly household income based on it is a very poor decision.

Put another way, either the above posters are wrong about the grades required for COA at UChicago, or HLS and UChicago have basically the exact same placement power with COA clerkships. Which doesn't seem likely to me, but maybe i'm wrong.

Chicago is much smaller, which in turn amplifies factors like FedSoc, and has a big hinterland in the Midwest where HYS grads don't apply as often. Ceteris paribus, any given GPA at Harvard is probably stronger for clerkship applications than its equivalent at Chicago, especially on the coasts (including SCOTUS). That doesn't necessarily mean that, in the aggregate, HLS students are going to outperform. To the contrary, we know that Chicago has a higher overall clerkship %age as of late.

I'm sure we'll continue to have a TLS holy war about whether the real cutoff is 30% or 33.33% or 40% or 25%, even though there aren't enough data to know for sure, we only have a slice the data that do exist, and people mean different things when they say "cutoff."

It’s not exactly a secret that Chicago has better clerkship placement per capita than Harvard, so the comparison isn’t helpful. Other factors behind it might just be the competence of the clerkship people, that Chicago probably has a bigger proportion of its class in Fed Soc than Harvard, and that Chicago’s Fed Soc connections also help moderate liberal students (a good chunk of whom clerk for conservatives).

[Sackboy]

Fam,

OP posted Apr 3
It is now May 27

I think we can stop beating the horse.