USC vs. WUSTL Forum

[romothesavior]

WHICHEVER PLACE YOU WOULD RATHER WORK OR HAVE EXISTING TIES THAT WILL HELP YOU NETWORK.

I DONT KNOW WHAT WE'RE YELLING FOR BUT THIS IS THE CREDITED RESPONSE!

In all seriousness, both schools are about the same. Mostly regional unless you're in the top third. Both schools also feed into markets that have had serious problems ITE (California and Chicago). Go wherever you want to work.

Also, as someone above mentioned, keep in mind the much lower COL in St. Louis. Your COA at WUSTL will probably be cheaper than your COA at USC.

[DerrickRose]

By "a good job" I assume you mean Biglaw.

USC is demonstrably better at placing students in Biglaw. Like, 10-15% better. They've outperformed every non-T14 not named Vandy for the past 3 years. I don't care about US News raw scores, USC absolutely belongs among if not above Vandy, UCLA, and Texas.

Meanwhile WUSTL games their USNWR stats to hold onto that #19 spot, but they are no better than Illinois and ND. Which is not to say that they are bad, they aren't, but for BigLaw they can't hold a candle to USC.

You say you won't take $30,000 more to go to Illinois? Then you sure as hell shouldn't go to WUSTL.

USC is way underrated. That's your answer.

[romothesavior]

By "a good job" I assume you mean Biglaw.

USC is demonstrably better at placing students in Biglaw. Like, 10-15% better. They've outperformed every non-T14 not named Vandy for the past 3 years. I don't care about US News raw scores, USC absolutely belongs among if not above Vandy, UCLA, and Texas.

Meanwhile WUSTL games their USNWR stats to hold onto that #19 spot, but they are no better than Illinois and ND. Which is not to say that they are bad, they aren't, but for BigLaw they can't hold a candle to USC.

You say you won't take $30,000 more to go to Illinois? Then you sure as hell shouldn't go to WUSTL.

USC is way underrated. That's your answer.

Biggest UIUC troll on TLS. You constantly tell people to go to UIUC when the conversation has nothing to do with UIUC. Personally, I'm turning down a full ride at UIUC because I would absolutely killself if I had to spent three more years in the middle of bumfuck Illinois.

Although I will add... the rest of your advice is credited. USC is better for biglaw, but you shouldn't go there if you don't want CA.

Again, if you want the midwest (and arguable the east coast), take WUSTL.
If you want CA or the west coast, take USC.

[papercranes]

All that said, if you are Midwestern and choose to go to USC, you can use your Midwestern roots to catapult you back to the Midwest, and vice versa, if you're Californian and go to WUSTL, you can use your CA roots as an excuse to get back to CA. Firms in rougher economies are concerned about flight risk to some extent. And if you are actually from their region, they'll be more likely to think you will want to stay there, and consequently, stay with their firm for a number of years.

This is not a good plan.

I think firms, ITE, are less likely to have any interest in interviewing someone who is out of state when they have plenty of great candidates right on their doorsteps. Why would an LA firm bother with a WUSTL kid when they can have a UCLA or USC kid? The time, effort and expense to get the WUSTL kid is not worth it. Similarly, the midwest firms have no incentive to get a USC kid when they have a WUSTL kid. The whole "ties to the region" thing gets less important once you ARE ALREADY IN THE REGION.

Don't assume you'll do well enough out of either school to have firms even look at you.

So, say you pick USC. During 1L year you can volunteer in Los Angeles at one of the various PI places and make contacts. You don't need to move for 1L summer, and you work/intern/whatever 1L summer and make more local contacts. During your 2 and 3L years you can work part time, or continue to volunteer and get academic credit. You can follow some of Matties's suggestions for general networking. If you strike out at OCI, you have in place a great back up plan for a legal job. You won't get the same opportunity to do this if you go to a school in a region you don't intend on working in.

Also, this:

By "a good job" I assume you mean Biglaw.

USC is demonstrably better at placing students in Biglaw. Like, 10-15% better. They've outperformed every non-T14 not named Vandy for the past 3 years. I don't care about US News raw scores, USC absolutely belongs among if not above Vandy, UCLA, and Texas.

Meanwhile WUSTL games their USNWR stats to hold onto that #19 spot, but they are no better than Illinois and ND. Which is not to say that they are bad, they aren't, but for BigLaw they can't hold a candle to USC.

You say you won't take $30,000 more to go to Illinois? Then you sure as hell shouldn't go to WUSTL.

USC is way underrated. That's your answer.

[najumobi]

job prospects are pretty similar, although in the latest nlj chart, usc seems to have the edge. plus, it seems you like LA. go to usc.

WUSTL is pretty skeevy about the job prospects they publish - I get the feeling USC doesn't fudge their numbers as much.

i think wustl is pretty straight forward with their publishing of job placement of it's students. the only knock on them is that they don't show the percentage of students responding to the salary survey directly on their website, however they do report that value to usnews. it was 86% responding for class of 2007 (according to usnews), 65% for the class of 2008 (according usnews), and 94% for the class of 2009 (according to dean spivey).

without a doubt though usc places a greater percentage of its students into biglaw. however i think one should be skeptical when viewing usc's salary stats....they don't report the percentage of students responding on their website and the value they give usnews for that seems to just be the sum of the percentage of grads working for law firms or in business/industry (for last year's usnews rankings and this years).

[DerrickRose]

Biggest UIUC troll on TLS. You constantly tell people to go to UIUC when the conversation has nothing to do with UIUC. Personally, I'm turning down a full ride at UIUC because I would absolutely killself if I had to spent three more years in the middle of bumfuck Illinois.

1. I am pretty upfront that I'm a huge Illinois troll.
2. Don't call Illinois "UIUC"
3. I asked him what other offers he had and it came up. Sue me.
4. I didn't tell him to go to Illinois, I told him to go to USC. And you appear to agree.
5. What are you taking instead? And what are your goals, etc?

You'll notice I don't go around telling people to take Illinois at sticker, but when they are offering much more money than other contenders, I feel like there is a bias to look at them as weaker than less expensive options (some psych major help me out and remind me what that cognitive bias is called).

If I might add a personal anecdote: I wanted to get out of Champaign too. Went here for undergrad, all my friends were leaving after graduation, wanted a change of scenery. But I do want to practice in Chicago so I applied, along with WUSTL, IU-B, Northwestern, DePaul, etc. I had high hopes of getting one of those big splitter packages that WUSTL used to give out, but alas they offered me only 10k/yr, when I was being offered 25k/yr from Illinois.

I looked into the matter, wisely ignored the USNews rankings, and concluded there was no way I should pay twice as much for the same job prospects, and came back to Champaign.

Is it a little weird being the old man on campus? Yeah. But I couldn't be happier with the law school itself, and I've been very successful here. So I troll. I feel like I can help people out.

[romothesavior]

job prospects are pretty similar, although in the latest nlj chart, usc seems to have the edge. plus, it seems you like LA. go to usc.

WUSTL is pretty skeevy about the job prospects they publish - I get the feeling USC doesn't fudge their numbers as much.

i think wustl is pretty straight forward with their publishing of job placement of it's students. the only knock on them is that they don't show the percentage of students responding to the salary survey directly on their website, however they do report that value to usnews. it was 86% responding for class of 2007 (according to usnews), 65% for the class of 2008 (according usnews), and 94% for the class of 2009 (according to dean spivey).

without a doubt though usc places a greater percentage of its students into biglaw. however i think one should be skeptical when viewing usc's salary stats....they don't report the percentage of students responding on their website and the value they give usnews for that seems to just be the sum of the percentage of grads working for law firms or in business/industry (for last year's usnews rankings and this years).

+1. I am calling Dean Spivey tomorrow to discuss a whole bunch of things, and one of them is going to be reported salary/employment numbers. Whether they fudge or not, I really have no idea... but I don't see how picking a law school based on dvd's "hunch" that USC doesn't fudge is a good idea.

FWIW, I'm going to WUSTL and I voted USC. So I'm not trolling for WUSTL here. I just get sick of people trolling for/against a school without real evidence one way or the other.

[romothesavior]

Biggest UIUC troll on TLS. You constantly tell people to go to UIUC when the conversation has nothing to do with UIUC. Personally, I'm turning down a full ride at UIUC because I would absolutely killself if I had to spent three more years in the middle of bumfuck Illinois.

1. I am pretty upfront that I'm a huge Illinois troll.
2. Don't call Illinois "UIUC"
3. I asked him what other offers he had and it came up. Sue me.
4. I didn't tell him to go to Illinois, I told him to go to USC. And you appear to agree.
5. What are you taking instead? And what are your goals, etc?

You'll notice I don't go around telling people to take Illinois at sticker, but when they are offering much more money than other contenders, I feel like there is a bias to look at them as weaker than less expensive options (some psych major help me out and remind me what that cognitive bias is called).

If I might add a personal anecdote: I wanted to get out of Champaign too. Went here for undergrad, all my friends were leaving after graduation, wanted a change of scenery. But I do want to practice in Chicago so I applied, along with WUSTL, IU-B, Northwestern, DePaul, etc. I had high hopes of getting one of those big splitter packages that WUSTL used to give out, but alas they offered me only 10k/yr, when I was being offered 25k/yr from Illinois.

I looked into the matter, wisely ignored the USNews rankings, and concluded there was no way I should pay twice as much for the same job prospects, and came back to Champaign.

Is it a little weird being the old man on campus? Yeah. But I couldn't be happier with the law school itself, and I've been very successful here. So I troll. I feel like I can help people out.

Sorry, I wasn't trying to attack you. I'm glad you're up front about your Fighting Illini trolling.

I'm going to Wash U with a 75k scholarship. The difference between Illinois and WUSTL will be about 40k if I live frugally in St. Louis. I picked Wash U for two reasons:

1) I literally would kill myself if I had to live in central Illinois any longer. I grew up 45 minutes from Champaign and go to school about 45 minutes from Champaign (I probably just gave away my location there). I'm a lifelong Illinois fan and I've had season tix for football the last few years, but I have such a strong desire to get away. Not like FAR away, but just something different. I want a dose of city life and I'm tired of staring at cornfields all day.

2) St. Louis is hands down my #1 market. On one hand, firms seem to be wary of WUSTL students being flight risks, but this seems to be more a function of the wide geographic diversity of WUSTL students and those students wanting to go back home. Wash U really is the bee's knees in STL, and if I am above median and show a commitment to the city, I think I can secure employment there much easier than if I went to UIUC.

Anyways, good luck to you at Illinois (sorry for saying UIUC... I had never even heard it called that until TLS) and Oskee-wow-wow!

[najumobi]

job prospects are pretty similar, although in the latest nlj chart, usc seems to have the edge. plus, it seems you like LA. go to usc.

WUSTL is pretty skeevy about the job prospects they publish - I get the feeling USC doesn't fudge their numbers as much.

i think wustl is pretty straight forward with their publishing of job placement of it's students. the only knock on them is that they don't show the percentage of students responding to the salary survey directly on their website, however they do report that value to usnews. it was 86% responding for class of 2007 (according to usnews), 65% for the class of 2008 (according usnews), and 94% for the class of 2009 (according to dean spivey).

without a doubt though usc places a greater percentage of its students into biglaw. however i think one should be skeptical when viewing usc's salary stats....they don't report the percentage of students responding on their website and the value they give usnews for that seems to just be the sum of the percentage of grads working for law firms or in business/industry (for last year's usnews rankings and this years).

+1. I am calling Dean Spivey tomorrow to discuss a whole bunch of things, and one of them is going to be reported salary/employment numbers. Whether they fudge or not, I really have no idea... but I don't see how picking a law school based on dvd's "hunch" that USC doesn't fudge is a good idea.

FWIW, I'm going to WUSTL and I voted USC. So I'm not trolling for WUSTL here. I just get sick of people trolling for/against a school without real evidence one way or the other.

same here...going to wustl, voted usc. the problem with the reporting of % of students responding (which seems to be the sum of the percentage of students placing in law firms and business/industry) is rampant throughout many school's data on usnews. from what i can tell the only schools in the top 25 that report in such a way are usc, ucla, and minn. other lower ranked tier 1 schools that do that are indiana and smu. for tier 2, 3, and 4 schools it's more common. i don't think wustl is fudging the 65% responding to the salary survey

from what i've gathered about wustl:
class of 2007: at the very worst those in the top 51% of the class earned at least 85k
class of 2008: at the very worst those in the top 43% of the class earned at least 110k
class of 2009: at the very worst those in the top 47% of the class earned at least 120k

[buslaw4302]

"I think firms, ITE, are less likely to have any interest in interviewing someone who is out of state when they have plenty of great candidates right on their doorsteps. Why would an LA firm bother with a WUSTL kid when they can have a UCLA or USC kid? The time, effort and expense to get the WUSTL kid is not worth it. Similarly, the midwest firms have no incentive to get a USC kid when they have a WUSTL kid. The whole "ties to the region" thing gets less important once you ARE ALREADY IN THE REGION."

From what I've seen this is inaccurate--big firms spend upwards of $375,000 (being conservative) for the first 3 years for an incoming associate's salary, which does not include loses incurred for wasteful research, mistakes, and overall lack of utility. Until a few years into practice almost no attorney will bring in money and the firms will lose money hand over fist-- so in the grand scheme, a flight and a hotel room would just be a drop in the bucket.

Plus generally, for a first (pre-screening) interview, most firms will not reimburse for travel expenses. The ties to the region are still very important though regardless, no firm wants to invest in someone who they perceive as a flight risk no matter how close you're located.

And if you do have St. Louis/Midwestern connections, from what I've seen, quite a few people at WUSTL (1Ls) have been able to land local bigfirm summer jobs.

[papercranes]

"I think firms, ITE, are less likely to have any interest in interviewing someone who is out of state when they have plenty of great candidates right on their doorsteps. Why would an LA firm bother with a WUSTL kid when they can have a UCLA or USC kid? The time, effort and expense to get the WUSTL kid is not worth it. Similarly, the midwest firms have no incentive to get a USC kid when they have a WUSTL kid. The whole "ties to the region" thing gets less important once you ARE ALREADY IN THE REGION."

From what I've seen this is inaccurate--big firms spend upwards of $375,000 (being conservative) for the first 3 years for an incoming associate's salary, which does not include loses incurred for wasteful research, mistakes, and overall lack of utility. Until a few years into practice almost no attorney will bring in money and the firms will lose money hand over fist-- so in the grand scheme, a flight and a hotel room would just be a drop in the bucket.

Plus generally, for a first (pre-screening) interview, most firms will not reimburse for travel expenses. The ties to the region are still very important though regardless, no firm wants to invest in someone who they perceive as a flight risk no matter how close you're located.

And if you do have St. Louis/Midwestern connections, from what I've seen, quite a few people at WUSTL (1Ls) have been able to land local bigfirm summer jobs.

Why would a firm spend a drop in the bucket when they could drive down 20 minutes?

I believe we saw that ITE, even T14 schools like Cornell saw a greater drop in firms coming to OCI, than lower ranked schools in major markets because the travel was inconvenient for firms.

If you have a contact at a firm, great, but if you want biglaw and don't have really, really awesome contacts, OCI is your best bet. LA firms are not going to go to do OCI at WUSTL when they have more USC, UCLA, even Loyola grads than the market can tolerate.

And I'm skeptical that LA firms, like NY firms, are overly worried about flight risks. Do you really think all the new grads flocking to NYC have strong ties? Doubtful.

[stratocophic]

"I think firms, ITE, are less likely to have any interest in interviewing someone who is out of state when they have plenty of great candidates right on their doorsteps. Why would an LA firm bother with a WUSTL kid when they can have a UCLA or USC kid? The time, effort and expense to get the WUSTL kid is not worth it. Similarly, the midwest firms have no incentive to get a USC kid when they have a WUSTL kid. The whole "ties to the region" thing gets less important once you ARE ALREADY IN THE REGION."

From what I've seen this is inaccurate--big firms spend upwards of $375,000 (being conservative) for the first 3 years for an incoming associate's salary, which does not include loses incurred for wasteful research, mistakes, and overall lack of utility. Until a few years into practice almost no attorney will bring in money and the firms will lose money hand over fist-- so in the grand scheme, a flight and a hotel room would just be a drop in the bucket.

Plus generally, for a first (pre-screening) interview, most firms will not reimburse for travel expenses. The ties to the region are still very important though regardless, no firm wants to invest in someone who they perceive as a flight risk no matter how close you're located.

And if you do have St. Louis/Midwestern connections, from what I've seen, quite a few people at WUSTL (1Ls) have been able to land local bigfirm summer jobs.

Why would a firm spend a drop in the bucket when they could drive down 20 minutes?

I believe we saw that ITE, even T14 schools like Cornell saw a greater drop in firms coming to OCI, than lower ranked schools in major markets because the travel was inconvenient for firms.

If you have a contact at a firm, great, but if you want biglaw and don't have really, really awesome contacts, OCI is your best bet. LA firms are not going to go to do OCI at WUSTL when they have more USC, UCLA, even Loyola grads than the market can tolerate.

And I'm skeptical that LA firms, like NY firms, are overly worried about flight risks. Do you really think all the new grads flocking to NYC have strong ties? Doubtful.

They don't. Firms in secondary and tertiary markets are generally the only ones worried about losing associates. There's a reason 2 and 3Ls on TLS warn that trying to get a non-NYC/DC/LA market from a school outside that market will require a lot of legwork. Going to a school outside of smaller markets and their regions with the intent of returning to those markets without connections, perhaps even professional connections, is a relatively risky proposition.

[najumobi]

They don't. Firms in secondary and tertiary markets are generally the only ones worried about losing associates. There's a reason 2 and 3Ls on TLS warn that trying to get a non-NYC/DC/LA market from a school outside that market will require a lot of legwork. Going to a school outside of smaller markets and their regions with the intent of returning to those markets without connections, perhaps even professional connections, is a relatively risky proposition.

chicago's big on connections?

[papercranes]

They don't. Firms in secondary and tertiary markets are generally the only ones worried about losing associates. There's a reason 2 and 3Ls on TLS warn that trying to get a non-NYC/DC/LA market from a school outside that market will require a lot of legwork. Going to a school outside of smaller markets and their regions with the intent of returning to those markets without connections, perhaps even professional connections, is a relatively risky proposition.

Yeah, that was my point, sorry if it was unclear.

The OP was interested in LA. More so than the regions served by WUSTL. If that's the case, /thread. USC. It would be absurd to go to WUSTL and try and make it back to LA in order to save a bit on COL.

[stratocophic]

They don't. Firms in secondary and tertiary markets are generally the only ones worried about losing associates. There's a reason 2 and 3Ls on TLS warn that trying to get a non-NYC/DC/LA market from a school outside that market will require a lot of legwork. Going to a school outside of smaller markets and their regions with the intent of returning to those markets without connections, perhaps even professional connections, is a relatively risky proposition.

chicago's big on connections?

My bad, I always accidentally forget Chicago or replace it with LA. It can be treated identically, to the best of my knowledge.

They don't. Firms in secondary and tertiary markets are generally the only ones worried about losing associates. There's a reason 2 and 3Ls on TLS warn that trying to get a non-NYC/DC/LA market from a school outside that market will require a lot of legwork. Going to a school outside of smaller markets and their regions with the intent of returning to those markets without connections, perhaps even professional connections, is a relatively risky proposition.

Yeah, that was my point, sorry if it was unclear.

The OP was interested in LA. More so than the regions served by WUSTL. If that's the case, /thread. USC. It would be absurd to go to WUSTL and try and make it back to LA in order to save a bit on COL.

No no, I was agreeing and trying to expound in more certain terms. You had the right of it.

[buslaw4302]

The drop in the bucket would be the decision to fly a potential interviewee into the firm, not choosing whether or not to attend a school's OCI. I think for firms it's very expensive to attend a school's OCI and after a cost-benefit analysis, they figure because of self-selection those truly interested in staying local, would chose a local school. But from what I understand, many schools (WUSTL included) set up off-campus, regional interviews in major (and non-major) markets so those firms would not have to incur that expense and would still be able to pre-screen their applicant pool.

[najumobi]

They don't. Firms in secondary and tertiary markets are generally the only ones worried about losing associates. There's a reason 2 and 3Ls on TLS warn that trying to get a non-NYC/DC/LA market from a school outside that market will require a lot of legwork. Going to a school outside of smaller markets and their regions with the intent of returning to those markets without connections, perhaps even professional connections, is a relatively risky proposition.

chicago's big on connections?

My bad, I always accidentally forget Chicago or replace it with LA. It can be treated identically, to the best of my knowledge.

ah ok

[DerrickRose]

I do want to practice in Chicago. I had high hopes of getting one of those big splitter packages that WUSTL used to give out, but alas they offered me only 10k/yr, when I was being offered 25k/yr from Illinois.

I'm going to Wash U with a 75k scholarship. The difference between Illinois and WUSTL will be about 40k if I live frugally in St. Louis.

St. Louis is hands down my #1 market.

Different strokes for different folks. We both made the right decision.

[romothesavior]

I do want to practice in Chicago. I had high hopes of getting one of those big splitter packages that WUSTL used to give out, but alas they offered me only 10k/yr, when I was being offered 25k/yr from Illinois.

I'm going to Wash U with a 75k scholarship. The difference between Illinois and WUSTL will be about 40k if I live frugally in St. Louis.

St. Louis is hands down my #1 market.

Different strokes for different folks. We both made the right decision.

I certainly hope so. Don't get me wrong... the decision to turn down a full ride at UIUC was difficult, to say the least.

Best of luck to you. (and your Bulls... looks like they're gonna need it)

[notme]

This is a joke, right? Anyone that takes WUSTL over USC must have some extremely special circumstances. Money alone wouldn't seem extreme enough.

[najumobi]

This is a joke, right? Anyone that takes WUSTL over USC must have some extremely special circumstances. Money alone wouldn't seem extreme enough.

if someone wanted a decent shot at the east coast i could see them picking wustl over usc.

[stratocophic]

This is a joke, right? Anyone that takes WUSTL over USC must have some extremely special circumstances. Money alone wouldn't seem extreme enough.

Depends. If the person in question wants to work in CA, it's USC without a second thought. WUSTL's alumni network is more developed in the eastern US due to self-selection, so the slightly better ranking/reputation of USC (which may very well be nonexistent or negligible away from USC's home market) will come with a drawback.

Edit: beaten to it by najumobi

[najumobi]

This is a joke, right? Anyone that takes WUSTL over USC must have some extremely special circumstances. Money alone wouldn't seem extreme enough.

Depends. If the person in question wants to work in CA, it's USC without a second thought. WUSTL's alumni network is more developed in the eastern US due to self-selection, so the slightly better ranking/reputation of USC (which may very well be nonexistent or negligible away from USC's home market) will come with a drawback.

Edit: beaten to it by najumobi

your explanation is much better in that you actually wrote one.

[musicfor18]

bump

[20160810]

LA kinda blows, but STL is like something out of a Fallout game. Go to USC.