Top Law Schools

Ignoring regional/special/scholarship advantages of law schools, is it a good idea to attend a lower ranked school to get a better shot at getting better grades and ending up in the top quartile/decile there? I'm interested in what you guys think about this. And by lower ranked school - I mean roughly within the range of your top acceptance. e.g. If you get into both Georgetown and George Washington does GTown beat GW every time?

doing_it_in_a_car wrote:Ignoring regional/special/scholarship advantages of law schools, is it a good idea to attend a lower ranked school to get a better shot at getting better grades and ending up in the top quartile/decile there? I'm interested in what you guys think about this. And by lower ranked school - I mean roughly within the range of your top acceptance. e.g. If you get into both Georgetown and George Washington does GTown beat GW every time?

I do not think that GWU vs GULC would make much a difference in 1L difficulty. I would say that they both take academics very seriously and would be rather challenging.

I would like to hear people's (people in school/grad, not 0Ls) about this. It seems to me like everytime someone says they would have a better chance of doing well at a lower ranked/lower stats school people jump all over it. And I'm not just talking about a small difference, i'm talking going from a school where your LSAT puts you well well above 75% of students

jarofsoup wrote:

doing_it_in_a_car wrote:Ignoring regional/special/scholarship advantages of law schools, is it a good idea to attend a lower ranked school to get a better shot at getting better grades and ending up in the top quartile/decile there? I'm interested in what you guys think about this. And by lower ranked school - I mean roughly within the range of your top acceptance. e.g. If you get into both Georgetown and George Washington does GTown beat GW every time?

I do not think that GWU vs GULC would make much a difference in 1L difficulty. I would say that they both take academics very seriously and would be rather challenging.

I agree that GWU and GULC are probably not too different in terms of difficulty, and with that in mind you should go to GULC. You'll have to do well no matter where you go (with YS being the exception), but the higher ranked the school the more leeway you'll have. The only reason to turn down a higher ranked school is the $$$, not that you think it will be easier.

My experience is that if you graduate from a top school with not too bad GPA, you get a better chance employed than from a low ranked school with perfect GPA.

When I graduated from college, one guy I knew got into Miscrosoft with his GPA ranked at the bottom of his class, because our college was in top 5 (not in US). Some companies only hire from top schools.

I have been working for over 8 years and searched for jobs several times. When you are looking for a job fresh out of school, school really matters. As a hiring manager, I score people graduated from top schools higher, because I get over 50 resumes for each opening these days and can not possibly call each one of them.

The top 5% at any school in the t50 would excel in a t14 as well so it isn't like your competition is not comparable. You might have an easier time if you are shooting for the median but I think firms consider that which is why 50% get good jobs out of the top 14 and only 15% do out of TT schools. In short: don't try to game the system; It probably won't work.

It's not going to work because you'd have to rank much higher at the lower school to even have the same opportunities. Even if you end up getting top 20% at GW, you would most likely have been top 25% at GULC and gotten much better job offers that way.

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The differences in schools and the margin of error is too small for this to work.

Maybe top third at NU is equal to Top 10% at UIUC, but I sure as hell wouldn't bet on being Top 10% anywhere. Too much subjectivity, and random luck. You might ruin your career because you didn't spot the Rule against Perpetuities issue on your Prop Exam and score a B dropping you from top 7% to top 20%. FUCK THAT SHIT.

Desert Fox wrote:The differences in schools and the margin of error is too small for this to work.

Maybe top third at NU is equal to Top 10% at UIUC, but I sure as hell wouldn't bet on being Top 10% anywhere. Too much subjectivity, and random luck. You might ruin your career because you didn't spot the Rule against Perpetuities issue on your Prop Exam and score a B dropping you from top 7% to top 20%. FUCK THAT SHIT.

TOP 10% AT COOLEY!

whymeohgodno wrote:

Desert Fox wrote:The differences in schools and the margin of error is too small for this to work.

Maybe top third at NU is equal to Top 10% at UIUC, but I sure as hell wouldn't bet on being Top 10% anywhere. Too much subjectivity, and random luck. You might ruin your career because you didn't spot the Rule against Perpetuities issue on your Prop Exam and score a B dropping you from top 7% to top 20%. FUCK THAT SHIT.

TOP 10% AT COOLEY!

I probably couldn't if they have graded LWR.

Desert Fox wrote:

whymeohgodno wrote:

Desert Fox wrote:The differences in schools and the margin of error is too small for this to work.

Maybe top third at NU is equal to Top 10% at UIUC, but I sure as hell wouldn't bet on being Top 10% anywhere. Too much subjectivity, and random luck. You might ruin your career because you didn't spot the Rule against Perpetuities issue on your Prop Exam and score a B dropping you from top 7% to top 20%. FUCK THAT SHIT.

TOP 10% AT COOLEY!

I probably couldn't if they have graded LWR.

I think you're underestimating how bad Cooley is.

whymeohgodno wrote:

Desert Fox wrote:

whymeohgodno wrote:

Desert Fox wrote:The differences in schools and the margin of error is too small for this to work.

Maybe top third at NU is equal to Top 10% at UIUC, but I sure as hell wouldn't bet on being Top 10% anywhere. Too much subjectivity, and random luck. You might ruin your career because you didn't spot the Rule against Perpetuities issue on your Prop Exam and score a B dropping you from top 7% to top 20%. FUCK THAT SHIT.

TOP 10% AT COOLEY!

I probably couldn't if they have graded LWR.

I think you're underestimating how bad Cooley is.

I think you underestimate how bad my writing skills are.

I think you underestimate how bad my writing skills are.

It can't be worse than...bottom 20% at NW. Which in my book is top 1% at Cooley.

whymeohgodno wrote:

I think you underestimate how bad my writing skills are.

It can't be worse than...bottom 20% at NW. Which in my book is top 1% at Cooley.

I'm objectively about bottom 20% at NW.

whymeohgodno wrote:

I think you underestimate how bad my writing skills are.

It can't be worse than...bottom 20% at NW. Which in my book is top 1% at Cooley.

i'm pretty insulted

IAFG wrote:

whymeohgodno wrote:

I think you underestimate how bad my writing skills are.

It can't be worse than...bottom 20% at NW. Which in my book is top 1% at Cooley.

i'm pretty insulted

Are you at the lady cancer place?

Desert Fox wrote:

IAFG wrote:

whymeohgodno wrote:

I think you underestimate how bad my writing skills are.

It can't be worse than...bottom 20% at NW. Which in my book is top 1% at Cooley.

i'm pretty insulted

Are you at the lady cancer place?

yup

IAFG wrote:

Desert Fox wrote:

IAFG wrote:

whymeohgodno wrote:
It can't be worse than...bottom 20% at NW. Which in my book is top 1% at Cooley.

i'm pretty insulted

Are you at the lady cancer place?

yup

I'd come but I'm pretty lazy. White popcorn and Coke zero for dinner. YES healthy 1L lifestyle.

Go the highest ranked school possible. Being at the top of your class is far from certain at any school.

lower tier law schools and med schools alike are still very difficult to excel in, or at least relative to how it works in undergraduate(i.e. it is very hard to get a ~4.0 at a hard school and very easy to get a ~4.0 at a low tier school). I always wonder why... Sometimes I wonder if it is true, but my instinct says a person who chose to go to Brooklyn over Fordham would be at almost the same class rank at Brooklyn as he would have been at Fordham.

thegor1987 wrote:lower tier law schools and med schools alike are still very difficult to excel in, or at least relative to how it works in undergraduate(i.e. it is very hard to get a ~4.0 at a hard school and very easy to get a ~4.0 at a low tier school). I always wonder why... Sometimes I wonder if it is true, but my instinct says a person who chose to go to Brooklyn over Fordham would be at almost the same class rank at Brooklyn as he would have been at Fordham.

Yeah the thing is you can graduate at median at a lower tier med school and you won't be faced with unemployment. You will still be making 6 digits on graduation.

Graduate at median at a lower tier law school and you're looking at unemployment.

Desert Fox wrote:The differences in schools and the margin of error is too small for this to work.

Maybe top third at NU is equal to Top 10% at UIUC, but I sure as hell wouldn't bet on being Top 10% anywhere. Too much subjectivity, and random luck. You might ruin your career because you didn't spot the Rule against Perpetuities issue on your Prop Exam and score a B dropping you from top 7% to top 20%. FUCK THAT SHIT.

Correct response = funniest response.

You should save your money and do something less intellectually demanding.

right now it's top 10% or bust at any non T20. at most T20s its something like top 40% or bust.

based on the OCI results thread on TLS, I think it's better to be top 5% at a T2 than top 20% at a lower T1.