Take the money and Run; YS - CCNH? Forum

[jbagelboy]

Harvard has grades.


Harvard --> Normal conversion

DS ->A+

H -> A, A-
P -> B+,B
LP -> B-, c+

And you're comparing it to a pretty rigorous scale already. For example, for systems that have only A, A-, B+, and B, with the rest discretionary, it's kind of like:

DS -> A
H -> A-
P -> B+/B
LP -> B/discretionary B-
F-> F

[patogordo]

don't listen to the haters, emu. everyone here at harvard loves the law (one dude married it) and nobody worries about grades, jobs, or debt. what non-HYS people don't seem to understand is that if you enjoy your studies enough and really steep yourself in the law, the work becomes its own reward. i actually wouldn't take a salary if i didn't have to. i'm not sure how much debt i have, though i understand it's a lot. i figure i'll just let the interest add up until it ticks over from 999999 to 0000000 like an odometer and then i'll be good to go.

another thing people always forget about HYS is that it's not just about your legal education, it's about your classmates. even if i only end up as partner at a large law firm, one of my friends is sure to be on the senate banking committee or CEO of nelnet so worst case scenario i can just call in a favor and get my loans forgiven.

[IAFG]

Had I followed the advice of this thread, I may have ended up less happy for three of the most important years of my life.

Sucking up a little "unhappiness" during LS (oh! the tragedy of not racking up 6 figure debt! the agony of attending UVA!) has the potential to lead to the boundless joy of buying a house, starting a family, having the flexibility to take that perfect-fit job when it becomes available. You know, decades of happiness.

[emu42]

don't listen to the haters, emu. everyone here at harvard loves the law (one dude married it) and nobody worries about grades, jobs, or debt. what non-HYS people don't seem to understand is that if you enjoy your studies enough and really steep yourself in the law, the work becomes its own reward. i actually wouldn't take a salary if i didn't have to. i'm not sure how much debt i have, though i understand it's a lot. i figure i'll just let the interest add up until it ticks over from 999999 to 0000000 like an odometer and then i'll be good to go.

another thing people always forget about HYS is that it's not just about your legal education, it's about your classmates. even if i only end up as partner at a large law firm, one of my friends is sure to be on the senate banking committee or CEO of nelnet so worst case scenario i can just call in a favor and get my loans forgiven.

Yeah, that too.

[unc0mm0n1]

Lol at people like emu who decline all the advice in here by making the standards for giving advice either impossible or incredibly vague.

I'm not a special case. I'm a naive little K-JD. I'll probably end up in biglaw for a few years. I definitely blundered in this thread (by taking up arguments I couldn't win on things that didn't matter). I never denied any of this.

But I'll tell you something about how I decided on a law school. I had the option of one of HYS for a less than half scholly (need based), and full rides at three other top 10 schools. I researched all four of these schools. Harvard won out in location, clerking opportunities, and academia opportunities. It also had an amazing program in something I'm very interested in. But I was STILL going to take a full ride at one of the other three schools, until I visited. The reason I'm choosing Harvard is because the people were just more diverse in their interests, they cared about their studies more, they seemed happier. At the other schools most people seemed to have a Desert Fox mentality of "this blows, but I'll tough it out until I get my biglaw job." I had a wonderful time at Harvard's ASW and, although ASW is certainly not representative of actual law school experience, I spoke to countless current students and they all genuinely seemed like the type of people I wanted to be around.

Had I followed the advice of this thread, I may have ended up less happy for three of the most important years of my life.

I know I'll be endlessly bashed for it, but it's honestly how my visiting experience went. Different people prefer different things. Sorry.

Or you could have ended up more happy. I like Harvard a lot and I'm glad I went but I'm pretty sure I'd have enjoyed NU just as much. My favorite ASW was at Berkeley but it didn't make a bit of difference to me. You never know how things are going to turn out as far as whether you'll have more fun at this place vs another place but you will know how much money you'll owe. I worked for 6 years before law school so maybe that's why I view the world different. I really only care about the numbers. What are my chances of getting the type of gainful employment I want versus how much this school is going to cost me.

[09042014]

I forget who said it, but give the 0Ls enough time and their argument always falls to "But the PRESTIGE!"

[Holly Golightly]

Lol at people like emu who decline all the advice in here by making the standards for giving advice either impossible or incredibly vague.

I'm not a special case. I'm a naive little K-JD. I'll probably end up in biglaw for a few years. I definitely blundered in this thread (by taking up arguments I couldn't win on things that didn't matter). I never denied any of this.

But I'll tell you something about how I decided on a law school. I had the option of one of HYS for a less than half scholly (need based), and full rides at three other top 10 schools. I researched all four of these schools. Harvard won out in location, clerking opportunities, and academia opportunities. It also had an amazing program in something I'm very interested in. But I was STILL going to take a full ride at one of the other three schools, until I visited. The reason I'm choosing Harvard is because the people were just more diverse in their interests, they cared about their studies more, they seemed happier. At the other schools most people seemed to have a Desert Fox mentality of "this blows, but I'll tough it out until I get my biglaw job." I had a wonderful time at Harvard's ASW and, although ASW is certainly not representative of actual law school experience, I spoke to countless current students and they all genuinely seemed like the type of people I wanted to be around.

Had I followed the advice of this thread, I may have ended up less happy for three of the most important years of my life.

I know I'll be endlessly bashed for it, but it's honestly how my visiting experience went. Different people prefer different things. Sorry.

I loved law school and I don't regret my decision to go or my decision to take out lots of debt to go to the school I went to. But deciding as a 0L that your'e going to be happy in law school because of ASW...

[jbagelboy]

Lol at people like emu who decline all the advice in here by making the standards for giving advice either impossible or incredibly vague.

I'm not a special case. I'm a naive little K-JD. I'll probably end up in biglaw for a few years. I definitely blundered in this thread (by taking up arguments I couldn't win on things that didn't matter). I never denied any of this.

It's nice that you are coming around. But you've repeatedly denied all of this for the past seven or so pages of this thread. You have this remarkable tendency to completely change each of your claims and allegations from post to post.. the lack of internal consistency is downright impressive. Just pro-tip, don't do that on your law school exams, or you might not even make it to big law if you wanted it.

But I'll tell you something about how I decided on a law school. I had the option of one of HYS for a less than half scholly (need based), and full rides at three other top 10 schools. I researched all four of these schools. Harvard won out in location, clerking opportunities, and academia opportunities. It also had an amazing program in something I'm very interested in. But I was STILL going to take a full ride at one of the other three schools, until I visited. The reason I'm choosing Harvard is because the people were just more diverse in their interests, they cared about their studies more, they seemed happier. At the other schools most people seemed to have a Desert Fox mentality of "this blows, but I'll tough it out until I get my biglaw job." I had a wonderful time at Harvard's ASW and, although ASW is certainly not representative of actual law school experience, I spoke to countless current students and they all genuinely seemed like the type of people I wanted to be around.

I mean, you can get plastered on kool-aid all day and that's fine. In absolute sincerity, I and most others in this thread think it's fine that you're headed to Harvard - it's a great school, with a lot of fascinating people, and hopefully you'll find some happiness there. There are a lot of reasons to attend. But that's not what this is about. You started shit in this thread reflexively throwing up defenses to a straw man. It's not that Harvard is never the right choice or that it's a bad school or anything. The basic advice is that for the vast majority of students in the vast majority of career trajectories, a school a few spots higher (or even one spot higher) in any given year on the US News Survey is not worth hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt - and this applies universally, not just to Harvard but to every top school.

Had I followed the advice of this thread, I may have ended up less happy for three of the most important years of my life.

if you already feel like characterizing law school as the three most important years of your life, then I suddenly have more pity for you than anything else.

[patogordo]

the three most important years of your life were the three years before you were conceived

[emu42]

It's nice that you are coming around. But you've repeatedly denied all of this for the past seven or so pages of this thread.

What internal inconsistency? I have like ten people I need to respond to at all times, I can't even remember what we were discussing at various points. I have never wavered on my ultimate argument. I should have just stuck to that.

The basic advice is that for the vast majority of students in the vast majority of career trajectories, a school a few spots higher (or even one spot higher) in any given year on the US News Survey is not worth hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt - and this applies universally, not just to Harvard but to every top school.

Yeah, but there are soooo many other considerations that the OP completely ignores (whether they override the money or not). If his premise is that law school is going to suck, his conclusion should not be to choose the cheapest option but rather to not go to law school at all.

if you already feel like characterizing law school as the three most important years of your life, then I suddenly have more pity for you than anything else.

I said "three of the." But okay, cool.

I reallllllllly don't care enough about this to keep responding

[emu42]

Lol at people like emu who decline all the advice in here by making the standards for giving advice either impossible or incredibly vague.

I'm not a special case. I'm a naive little K-JD. I'll probably end up in biglaw for a few years. I definitely blundered in this thread (by taking up arguments I couldn't win on things that didn't matter). I never denied any of this.

But I'll tell you something about how I decided on a law school. I had the option of one of HYS for a less than half scholly (need based), and full rides at three other top 10 schools. I researched all four of these schools. Harvard won out in location, clerking opportunities, and academia opportunities. It also had an amazing program in something I'm very interested in. But I was STILL going to take a full ride at one of the other three schools, until I visited. The reason I'm choosing Harvard is because the people were just more diverse in their interests, they cared about their studies more, they seemed happier. At the other schools most people seemed to have a Desert Fox mentality of "this blows, but I'll tough it out until I get my biglaw job." I had a wonderful time at Harvard's ASW and, although ASW is certainly not representative of actual law school experience, I spoke to countless current students and they all genuinely seemed like the type of people I wanted to be around.

Had I followed the advice of this thread, I may have ended up less happy for three of the most important years of my life.

I know I'll be endlessly bashed for it, but it's honestly how my visiting experience went. Different people prefer different things. Sorry.

I loved law school and I don't regret my decision to go or my decision to take out lots of debt to go to the school I went to. But deciding as a 0L that your'e going to be happy in law school because of ASW...

Yeah, never said that.

[neprep]

Lol at people like emu who decline all the advice in here by making the standards for giving advice either impossible or incredibly vague.

I'm not a special case. I'm a naive little K-JD. I'll probably end up in biglaw for a few years. I definitely blundered in this thread (by taking up arguments I couldn't win on things that didn't matter). I never denied any of this.

But I'll tell you something about how I decided on a law school. I had the option of one of HYS for a less than half scholly (need based), and full rides at three other top 10 schools. I researched all four of these schools. Harvard won out in location, clerking opportunities, and academia opportunities. It also had an amazing program in something I'm very interested in. But I was STILL going to take a full ride at one of the other three schools, until I visited. The reason I'm choosing Harvard is because the people were just more diverse in their interests, they cared about their studies more, they seemed happier. At the other schools most people seemed to have a Desert Fox mentality of "this blows, but I'll tough it out until I get my biglaw job." I had a wonderful time at Harvard's ASW and, although ASW is certainly not representative of actual law school experience, I spoke to countless current students and they all genuinely seemed like the type of people I wanted to be around.

Had I followed the advice of this thread, I may have ended up less happy for three of the most important years of my life.

I know I'll be endlessly bashed for it, but it's honestly how my visiting experience went. Different people prefer different things. Sorry.

I loved law school and I don't regret my decision to go or my decision to take out lots of debt to go to the school I went to. But deciding as a 0L that your'e going to be happy in law school because of ASW...

Yeah, never said that.

[emu42]

^That was a dealbreaker when I was on the margins. I chose Harvard because of that and many other things. I would be happy wherever I go to law school, I just felt I'd be more so at Harvard.

Alright, I'm done. If you make important life decisions based solely on short term cost benefit analysis, you're going to be unhappy in the long run. And the long run is a lot longer than five years.

Lastly, total LOL at the people telling me whether I'll be happy or not

[nouseforaname123]

Lol at people like emu who decline all the advice in here by making the standards for giving advice either impossible or incredibly vague.

I'm not a special case. I'm a naive little K-JD. I'll probably end up in biglaw for a few years. I definitely blundered in this thread (by taking up arguments I couldn't win on things that didn't matter). I never denied any of this.

But I'll tell you something about how I decided on a law school. I had the option of one of HYS for a less than half scholly (need based), and full rides at three other top 10 schools. I researched all four of these schools. Harvard won out in location, clerking opportunities, and academia opportunities. It also had an amazing program in something I'm very interested in. But I was STILL going to take a full ride at one of the other three schools, until I visited. The reason I'm choosing Harvard is because the people were just more diverse in their interests, they cared about their studies more, they seemed happier. At the other schools most people seemed to have a Desert Fox mentality of "this blows, but I'll tough it out until I get my biglaw job." I had a wonderful time at Harvard's ASW and, although ASW is certainly not representative of actual law school experience, I spoke to countless current students and they all genuinely seemed like the type of people I wanted to be around.

Had I followed the advice of this thread, I may have ended up less happy for three of the most important years of my life.

I know I'll be endlessly bashed for it, but it's honestly how my visiting experience went. Different people prefer different things. Sorry.

You're going to have to experience a lot of things for yourself. And that's fine. I get that ASW made a huge impact on your decision. In roughly 16 months you're going to have to make a decision about your summer firm. I mean this as sincerely as possible. I hope you can come up with a better decision-making process when you go through OCI (or whatever HLS calls it).

[sublime]

..

[Holly Golightly]

^That was a dealbreaker when I was on the margins. I chose Harvard because of that and many other things. I would be happy wherever I go to law school, I just felt I'd be more so at Harvard.

Alright, I'm done. If you make important life decisions based solely on short term cost benefit analysis, you're going to be unhappy in the long run. And the long run is a lot longer than five years.

Lastly, total LOL at the people telling me whether I'll be happy or not

LOL @ thinking you know whether you'll be happy in law school before you've gotten there.

[EquallyWrong]

For future reference, you wouldn't have to respond to ten different people each time if you actually would say something substantive that ten different people couldn't pick apart in ten different ways.

[snagglepuss]

Let's turn the focus from emu since s/he's already admitted taking a few missteps ITT. I hope emu returns to update TLS on how the law school decision works out over the years (I imagine fairly fine.)


Someone else will be along to run this gauntlet soon enough if it's to ridicule that you all want. I think the good intentions of this thread wore down into a jdunderground-esque atmosphere pages ago, and perhaps this horse is beaten for now.

Some of us really do listen to level-headed advice and guidance on law school, but the jadedness that leads to heckling all the stubborn and naïve posters who enter the recent deluge of DF threads is getting tired. Many of the lawyers/megaposters ITT made stupid posts when they were in the 0L/1L shoes, but they still got sincere answers from those ahead of them. So while I appreciate you all paying it forward and warning us of what to look out for from the otherside, your methods/attitude could use some adjusting if you're serious about helping us.

[IAFG]

Let's turn the focus from emu since s/he's already admitted taking a few missteps ITT. I hope emu returns to update TLS on how the law school decision works out over the years (I imagine fairly fine.)


Someone else will be along to run this gauntlet soon enough if it's to ridicule that you all want. I think the good intentions of this thread wore down into a jdunderground-esque atmosphere pages ago, and perhaps this horse is beaten for now.

Some of us really do listen to level-headed advice and guidance on law school, but the jadedness that leads to heckling all the stubborn and naïve posters who enter the recent deluge of DF threads is getting tired. Many of the lawyers/megaposters ITT made stupid posts when they were in the 0L/1L shoes, but they still got sincere answers from those ahead of them. So while I appreciate you all paying it forward and warning us of what to look out for from the otherside, your methods/attitude could use some adjusting if you're serious about helping us.

Pretty sure we attack bad 0L assumptions in a rainbow of ways, from bitchy to rayiner. Don't tone troll.

[snagglepuss]

Let's turn the focus from emu since s/he's already admitted taking a few missteps ITT. I hope emu returns to update TLS on how the law school decision works out over the years (I imagine fairly fine.)


Someone else will be along to run this gauntlet soon enough if it's to ridicule that you all want. I think the good intentions of this thread wore down into a jdunderground-esque atmosphere pages ago, and perhaps this horse is beaten for now.

Some of us really do listen to level-headed advice and guidance on law school, but the jadedness that leads to heckling all the stubborn and naïve posters who enter the recent deluge of DF threads is getting tired. Many of the lawyers/megaposters ITT made stupid posts when they were in the 0L/1L shoes, but they still got sincere answers from those ahead of them. So while I appreciate you all paying it forward and warning us of what to look out for from the otherside, your methods/attitude could use some adjusting if you're serious about helping us.

Pretty sure we attack bad 0L assumptions in a rainbow of ways, from bitchy to rayiner. Don't tone troll.

I enjoy the whole spectrum but I think others would like a little more rayiner.

[patogordo]

Pretty sure we attack bad 0L assumptions in a rainbow of ways, from bitchy to rayiner. Don't tone troll.

I enjoy the whole spectrum but I think others would like a little more rayiner.

if there's one thing tls has plenty of it's spectrum

[IAFG]

Alright. I understand and I hear you. But saying the same thing over and over nicely is super fucking boring. So with the wisdom often comes the bitchy.

[worldtraveler]

Let's turn the focus from emu since s/he's already admitted taking a few missteps ITT. I hope emu returns to update TLS on how the law school decision works out over the years (I imagine fairly fine.)


Someone else will be along to run this gauntlet soon enough if it's to ridicule that you all want. I think the good intentions of this thread wore down into a jdunderground-esque atmosphere pages ago, and perhaps this horse is beaten for now.

Some of us really do listen to level-headed advice and guidance on law school, but the jadedness that leads to heckling all the stubborn and naïve posters who enter the recent deluge of DF threads is getting tired. Many of the lawyers/megaposters ITT made stupid posts when they were in the 0L/1L shoes, but they still got sincere answers from those ahead of them. So while I appreciate you all paying it forward and warning us of what to look out for from the otherside, your methods/attitude could use some adjusting if you're serious about helping us.

Part of the point is that when we applied, that weren't people giving us this advice. Law grads didn't post on TLS, and it wasn't like many of us knew friends family who went to law school in very recent years. LST didn't exist either.

People applying now have way more resources yet insist on snowflaking all the way. And people even bitch about nony mouse not being helpful or nice enough about these threads, which is a sign that the problem isn't the deliver as much as people not listening.

[sublime]

..

[snagglepuss]

I don't disagree with any of you. I just think the incivility problem is like 95% 0L stupidity and 5% advice-givers stooping to their level. I can see from the lounge that letting things go, ending shitty exchanges, and ignoring stupidity has always been a challenge here at TLS (for all of us.)

I've said what I felt like saying here. PM me if you think I'm missing something. I've found the thread overall helpful so thank you.