Harvard, Michigan, or Georgetown? Forum

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bk1

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Re: Harvard, Michigan, or Georgetown?

Post by bk1 » Tue Nov 16, 2010 7:10 pm

s0ph1e2007 wrote:You have anger problems lol

I'm simply saying if you want to work in the Midwest, you can get a similar job from michigan as from harvard.
I made no claim about the bottom of the class getting the same job from Harvard as from Michigan.
You give me a below average Harvard student and law review at Michigan, and the Mich kid is getting the job in the Midwest.

No, I'm not guessing. Regional markets still exist. Detroit draws a ridiculous number of people into good firms from Wayne State. It may sound weird to you, but the school is in Detroit and a lot of the partners are Wayne State Law alumns. More so now they're Michigan alumns. This still is a factor.

Additionally, I maintain that people at Harvard in general SEEM to enjoy their time in LS less then Michigan people.
Are you dumb?

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AreJay711

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Re: Harvard, Michigan, or Georgetown?

Post by AreJay711 » Tue Nov 16, 2010 7:11 pm

@ vanwinkle

Thanks for going into such depth. I applied ED at Michigan just because I like the school and some of it's programs but always had GULC as a strong #2 in my my mind. I might reconsider that if I have to make a decision between GULC and another school.

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vanwinkle

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Re: Harvard, Michigan, or Georgetown?

Post by vanwinkle » Tue Nov 16, 2010 7:16 pm

Earlier you said this:
s0ph1e2007 wrote:Job prospects will be better at Harvard, but the difference is negligible if you want to work in the Midwest.
Now you're saying this:
s0ph1e2007 wrote:You give me a below average Harvard student and law review at Michigan, and the Mich kid is getting the job in the Midwest.
That's not negligible. If you have to make Law Review at Michigan to beat the median kid at Harvard, then that's more than a negligible difference.

Of course people with much better grades will do better than people with much worse grades. There are situations where the top 1% at a T30 will beat most T14 kids and get a job at a prestigious law firm. This doesn't make the T30 better, though. He'd still get beat by kids on Law Review at T14s if they're available in the market. Speaking of which:
s0ph1e2007 wrote:I'm simply saying if you want to work in the Midwest, you can get a similar job from michigan as from harvard.
This may be true, but again, it doesn't make Michigan better. If you see more Michigan grads in the midwest there's a number of explanations, a very strong one of which is that most Harvard folks self-select away from there.
s0ph1e2007 wrote:Additionally, I maintain that people at Harvard in general SEEM to enjoy their time in LS less then Michigan people.
Being at Harvard, I can say that this is pretty ridiculous. I haven't been at Michigan, but I have been at UVA (which is regarded as a high-QOL law school), and the QOL is not ridiculously worse here. In fact, I'd say quite the opposite.

And even the QOL here absolutely sucked, I'd still go here for the unique opportunities Harvard presents. For example: Today I had an unannounced speaker visit one of my classes and speak to us for about half an hour. It was Chief Justice John Roberts of the US Supreme Court. True story. This wasn't him giving some prepared speech either, he was taking questions from students about his job and giving pretty honest answers. He's an HLS alum and wanted a chance to speak to the students while he was here. Even at schools like UVA or Michigan, how often do things like that happen?

The difference between Harvard and even lower T14 is only visible in a few real ways, but those ways are often ridiculous.

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Re: Harvard, Michigan, or Georgetown?

Post by irishman86 » Tue Nov 16, 2010 7:34 pm

vanwinkle wrote: For example: Today I had an unannounced speaker visit one of my classes and speak to us for about half an hour. It was Chief Justice John Roberts of the US Supreme Court. True story. This wasn't him giving some prepared speech either, he was taking questions from students about his job and giving pretty honest answers. He's an HLS alum and wanted a chance to speak to the students while he was here. Even at schools like UVA or Michigan, how often do things like that happen?

The difference between Harvard and even lower T14 is only visible in a few real ways, but those ways are often ridiculous.
Chief Justice Roberts spoke at Michigan last year. (It wasn't in a classroom though but in an auditorium, so it's not exactly the same set-up. It was structured like a question + answer session with Dean Caminker, but students were allowed to ask him questions in front of everyone else afterward. I think most questions pertained to SCOTUS decisions.)
Last edited by irishman86 on Tue Nov 16, 2010 7:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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vanwinkle

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Re: Harvard, Michigan, or Georgetown?

Post by vanwinkle » Tue Nov 16, 2010 7:42 pm

irishman86 wrote:Chief Justice Roberts spoke at Michigan last year. (It wasn't in a classroom though. He had a question + answer session with Dean Caminker, but students were allowed to ask him questions in front of everyone else afterward. I think most questions pertained to SCOTUS decisions.)
I saw Scalia speak at UVA last year, but it was a scheduled speech in an auditorium that also involved him selling copies of his book. He showed up, gave his speech, autographed some copies of his book, and then left.

Also, Roberts is here because he's judging tonight's moot court finals. He just took time during the day to come say hello to the current HLS students and professors while he was here, before the competition. Most law schools can't get a sitting USSC justice to come judge their intramural moot court, either.

Breyer was here two weeks ago, but I missed him.

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Re: Harvard, Michigan, or Georgetown?

Post by irishman86 » Tue Nov 16, 2010 7:44 pm

vanwinkle wrote: Also, Roberts is here because he's judging tonight's moot court finals. Most law schools can't get a sitting USSC justice to come judge their intramural moot court, either.
That's true. There are benefits from going to Harvard and Yale that are hard to come by at other t-14 schools.
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Re: Harvard, Michigan, or Georgetown?

Post by s0ph1e2007 » Tue Nov 16, 2010 7:53 pm

I said "SEEM" to try to be fair. I could be wrong. My school sends a lot of grad students to Harvard and they hated it. So that's why I said seem. Obviously I don't have everyone's opinion.

I'm genuinely interested. Would you mind telling me why you enjoy Harvard? I've just heart bad things. Maybe I'm being misled?

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vanwinkle

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Re: Harvard, Michigan, or Georgetown?

Post by vanwinkle » Tue Nov 16, 2010 8:20 pm

s0ph1e2007 wrote:I'm genuinely interested. Would you mind telling me why you enjoy Harvard? I've just heart bad things. Maybe I'm being misled?
Well, first of all, Harvard has this really smug reputation, but it seems totally unfounded. Everyone I know in the law school is cool. Folks are just as friendly and helpful and interested in having fun outside of class as anywhere else. There's a certain aura around everything that didn't exist at UVA, the whole "we're at Harvard" halo effect, but overall it's largely the same student experience.

There's an awful lot of student organizations and things to do in your spare time, a lot of which I think are typical to T14, but being such a large school (over 500 students per class) Harvard has so, so many of them. There are student orgs for nearly everything a law student might care to do in their spare time. There's an a capella group, a drama society, flag football competitions, rowing teams, a student newspaper, and so on and so forth. If you're interested in something, it's likely that someone else here is interested in it and you can find them through an extracurricular organization.

Plus, there's a dozen different secondary journals, and they're nearly all walk-on, making that process far less stressful. At UVA you could only apply for up to two journals and had to do a write-on competition, and I knew quite a few people who got shut out of journals there that wanted on.

If you wanna do public interest or any kind of low-pay legal work, Harvard's LIPP is insane. Basically, if you're below a certain income threshold ($42,000, I think?), and you're doing legal work, they'll pay your student loans. That's it. Public or private loans, public interest or private legal work, they'll pay the whole thing. None of this IBR "your payment is reduced but your balance is still there looming over you" stuff, they'll actually pay your whole payment and reduce your debt by that much. If you make over $42,000/year, they calculate a percentage of your income above that you must contribute, but it's a fairly small amount for a while. I don't worry about loans anymore at all. Harvard will pay them if I don't make enough to pay them myself. That's one less source of stress in my life.

And then there are the intangible benefits, like having John Roberts drop into your classroom unexpectedly, or other things I'm not going to discuss here but that have happened to me that I know for certain would have only been possible here.

I've been having a lot of fun here, and all the stuff Harvard offers that lowers my stress level also improves my QOL. Knowing what I know now, I find it hard to imagine a scenario where I wouldn't recommend someone go to Harvard if they have the choice. It's everything I hoped it'd be and more.

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Re: Harvard, Michigan, or Georgetown?

Post by sergeantpzr » Tue Nov 16, 2010 8:28 pm

Hey Vanwinkle,

Thanks for the opinions on Harvard. I am still trying to understand the grading system though, how is that working out for you?

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Re: Harvard, Michigan, or Georgetown?

Post by MissLucky » Tue Nov 16, 2010 8:31 pm

vanwinkle wrote:
AreJay711 wrote:(Stealing the thread for a second) - Serious question. Is M really that much better than GULC? I know it is referred to as GeorgeTTTown but is that serious or a joke? I'm not a candidate for Harvard so ignore that it is obviously better than both.
To try to answer seriously:

1) GULC is not the best choice for DC firms. Firms love diversity of education, in part to maintain positive ties with all the law schools. (Law schools started getting pissy at firms that came, interviewed, and then declined to hire anyone from their school during the peak of the recession. In some cases there were firms banned from OCI for doing this, or at least threats of them doing so. It was crazy, but it illustrates the point: Good relations with law schools matter for firms, and they can maintain that by taking a little from all of them.) At GULC you're competing against 600 classmates, and firms are making sure they're saving spots for other top schools, and especially doing so since those other schools are more prestigious than GULC is. And there are kids from every T14 above GULC trying to get into DC. Everybody wants to work in DC.

So there's two advantages for Michigan: It's considered more prestigious which means its students are regarded a little more highly, and (because of smaller class size and more Michigan students trying for NYC or Chicago or elsewhere) you're not competing with as many of your own classmates for the same jobs there as a GULC student is.

Plus, you really shouldn't choose a law school right now with the intention of going to DC anyway, at least not without backup options. That's because DC is a small market that's hard to get into. So, think about your backup options:

2) GULC is not the best choice for NYC firms. NYC is a huge market with a much bigger hiring volume than in DC, making it easier to get into generally. But here, Michigan would win also. The MVP tier of schools does place better in NYC than GULC, and by that I mean firms go deeper into the class at MVP than they do at GULC. Maybe a firm takes anyone in the top 1/2 at MVP but only top 1/3 at GULC. I'd rather be at Michigan than GULC in that case.

3) GULC is not the best choice for secondary markets. There's no such thing as a best choice here, other than to just go to the best-ranked school you can and have ties to that market already. Of course, if you have those ties, you'll be more impressive to lawyers in your secondary market if you have a Mich degree than if you have a GULC degree. That's how prestige works.

4) GULC is not the best choice for public interest. Public interest work is all about networking and connections and prestige, and like I said, everybody wants to work in DC. I'm at HLS and I'm going to be interning in DC over winter break to make connections there, and I'm doing it through other HLS grads that are there. Yes, being in DC gives some advantages, but that can get drowned out for a lot of the "prestigious" PI jobs anyway. You want ACLU? Trust me, there's someone ahead of you. You want DOJ? H/Y/S kids want that too. Not to get you to lose all hope, but the stronger your school's prestige/alumni network, the stronger your chances of getting into solid PI.

And on top of that, many top PI employers don't typically take kids fresh out of law school. Law firms make gobs of money and can afford to take the time to slowly train someone who's just graduated and has no real-world legal experience, but PI orgs don't have that kind of luxury. If they have the money to hire you then they need to put you to work on day one, and that means they greatly prefer having people with experience. What usually ends up happening is that they hire folks who went to law firms for a few years and got trained there and then left and went to do PI.

But sorting out who to hire there is difficult too, so who do they hire? One, they hire the people who went to the better law school. Two, if they worked for a top law firm, they hire people from the firm they used to work for. (For example, there's a V10 firm that's based in DC and has placed an awful lot of former associates into the DOJ, SEC, FTC, and USAO offices in DC and SDNY. That's a strong firm alumni network to tap into, and they actually brag about it as an option for associates who work there.) How do you get into a top law firm that might have those kind of connections for you? By going to the best possible school.

And finally, three, if there's no direct connection to firms, they still might hire the people who went to the most prestigious law firms (e.g., a V20 associate instead of a V100 associate), since the more prestigious firm is probably better-known and has a stronger reputation, and they know more people who worked at that firm already, etc. And how do you get into a better law firm? One way is to go to the best possible school. See above re: DC and NYC.

Oh, and by the way, PI orgs also do give a damn about your commitment to PI, and that means doing a lot of pro bono work while you're in law school to show you care about doing that kind of work. GULC tries to claim a win here by saying it offers the most clinics of any law school. That'll certainly make it easier to find pro bono work in the field you're most interested in, but all of the T14 have respectable clinical programs now, and you can always set up pro bono opportunities on your own if what you really want is to do PI work. And Michigan + self-starting pro bono work will certainly look better than GULC + clinic work at GULC.

Long story short... Yes, Michigan is better than GULC.
interesting. thanks 4 this

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BruceWayne

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Re: Harvard, Michigan, or Georgetown?

Post by BruceWayne » Tue Nov 16, 2010 8:39 pm

vanwinkle wrote:
s0ph1e2007 wrote:I'm genuinely interested. Would you mind telling me why you enjoy Harvard? I've just heart bad things. Maybe I'm being misled?
Well, first of all, Harvard has this really smug reputation, but it seems totally unfounded. Everyone I know in the law school is cool. Folks are just as friendly and helpful and interested in having fun outside of class as anywhere else. There's a certain aura around everything that didn't exist at UVA, the whole "we're at Harvard" halo effect, but overall it's largely the same student experience.

There's an awful lot of student organizations and things to do in your spare time, a lot of which I think are typical to T14, but being such a large school (over 500 students per class) Harvard has so, so many of them. There are student orgs for nearly everything a law student might care to do in their spare time. There's an a capella group, a drama society, flag football competitions, rowing teams, a student newspaper, and so on and so forth. If you're interested in something, it's likely that someone else here is interested in it and you can find them through an extracurricular organization.

Plus, there's a dozen different secondary journals, and they're nearly all walk-on, making that process far less stressful. At UVA you could only apply for up to two journals and had to do a write-on competition, and I knew quite a few people who got shut out of journals there that wanted on.

If you wanna do public interest or any kind of low-pay legal work, Harvard's LIPP is insane. Basically, if you're below a certain income threshold ($42,000, I think?), and you're doing legal work, they'll pay your student loans. That's it. Public or private loans, public interest or private legal work, they'll pay the whole thing. None of this IBR "your payment is reduced but your balance is still there looming over you" stuff, they'll actually pay your whole payment and reduce your debt by that much. If you make over $42,000/year, they calculate a percentage of your income above that you must contribute, but it's a fairly small amount for a while. I don't worry about loans anymore at all. Harvard will pay them if I don't make enough to pay them myself. That's one less source of stress in my life.

And then there are the intangible benefits, like having John Roberts drop into your classroom unexpectedly, or other things I'm not going to discuss here but that have happened to me that I know for certain would have only been possible here.

I've been having a lot of fun here, and all the stuff Harvard offers that lowers my stress level also improves my QOL. Knowing what I know now, I find it hard to imagine a scenario where I wouldn't recommend someone go to Harvard if they have the choice. It's everything I hoped it'd be and more.
People on here like to shit on Harvard and talk about how it's a "factory" and not as "selective" as Stanford and Yale, and how it's grads "struggle" because of their large class size; but the bottom line is that's bullshit. I've even seen people come up with a YS then H grouping; again total bullshit. The numbers and the alumni strength clearly show that Harvard is at the pinnacle of legal academia. I've seen people say Harvard vs. CCN is a tough decision etc. Hell not it's not. Barring some type of personal situation or a full scholarship at CCN vs. less than half tuition at Harvard (which is a relatively unlikely situation because of their need based aid policy) it just doesn't make sense to turn Harvard down.

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Re: Harvard, Michigan, or Georgetown?

Post by XxSpyKEx » Tue Nov 16, 2010 8:46 pm

vanwinkle wrote:Everybody wants to work in DC.
<-- doesn't want to work in DC. lol. But you're right, DC is a ridiculously competitive market.

vanwinkle wrote:If you wanna do public interest or any kind of low-pay legal work, Harvard's LIPP is insane. Basically, if you're below a certain income threshold ($42,000, I think?), and you're doing legal work, they'll pay your student loans. That's it. Public or private loans, public interest or private legal work, they'll pay the whole thing. None of this IBR "your payment is reduced but your balance is still there looming over you" stuff, they'll actually pay your whole payment and reduce your debt by that much. If you make over $42,000/year, they calculate a percentage of your income above that you must contribute, but it's a fairly small amount for a while. I don't worry about loans anymore at all. Harvard will pay them if I don't make enough to pay them myself. That's one less source of stress in my life.
In all fairness, UMich's LRAP program is comparable (just a lower income threshold-- $36k, maybe?).

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vanwinkle

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Re: Harvard, Michigan, or Georgetown?

Post by vanwinkle » Tue Nov 16, 2010 8:52 pm

XxSpyKEx wrote:In all fairness, UMich's LRAP program is comparable (just a lower income threshold-- $36k, maybe?).
I just read up on the UMich LRAP. It is impressively similar, and may even be modeled after the Harvard LIPP. It's even got the "you can apply at any time" thing Harvard's LIPP does. I know that many LRAPs don't have that, you're only eligible to enter it the year or two after you graduate law school. That means if you go to a law firm for three years and then to public service, you're SOL.

But UMich doesn't do that to you. That's good on them. Much more respect for them now.

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vanwinkle

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Re: Harvard, Michigan, or Georgetown?

Post by vanwinkle » Tue Nov 16, 2010 8:55 pm

sergeantpzr wrote:Hey Vanwinkle,

Thanks for the opinions on Harvard. I am still trying to understand the grading system though, how is that working out for you?
As a transfer, I have not received any grades under the Harvard grading system yet. I only have my 1L grades from my old school.

That became a bit of a joke during OCI; some employers were so relieved to get to see someone with actual grades on their 1L transcript that I started opening with that. "I have a transcript for you if you'd like; unlike most people here, mine actually has grades on it." That usually got a chuckle and lightened things up at least momentarily.

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Re: Harvard, Michigan, or Georgetown?

Post by IAFG » Tue Nov 16, 2010 8:58 pm

vanwinkle wrote:
sergeantpzr wrote:Hey Vanwinkle,

Thanks for the opinions on Harvard. I am still trying to understand the grading system though, how is that working out for you?
As a transfer, I have not received any grades under the Harvard grading system yet. I only have my 1L grades from my old school.

That became a bit of a joke during OCI; some employers were so relieved to get to see someone with actual grades on their 1L transcript that I started opening with that. "I have a transcript for you if you'd like; unlike most people here, mine actually has grades on it." That usually got a chuckle and lightened things up at least momentarily.
awesome.

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Re: Harvard, Michigan, or Georgetown?

Post by FlightoftheEarls » Tue Nov 16, 2010 10:44 pm

vanwinkle wrote: And even the QOL here absolutely sucked, I'd still go here for the unique opportunities Harvard presents. For example: Today I had an unannounced speaker visit one of my classes and speak to us for about half an hour. It was Chief Justice John Roberts of the US Supreme Court. True story. This wasn't him giving some prepared speech either, he was taking questions from students about his job and giving pretty honest answers. He's an HLS alum and wanted a chance to speak to the students while he was here. Even at schools like UVA or Michigan, how often do things like that happen?

The difference between Harvard and even lower T14 is only visible in a few real ways, but those ways are often ridiculous.
Yeah, C.J. Roberts made an unannounced visit to my Torts class last year and jokingly started lecturing on the old English law case we were doing, and then he entertained questions for about 30 minutes. So, therefore, the difference between Harvard/Michigan and even lower T14 is only visible in a few real ways, but those ways are often ridiculous. :wink:

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Re: Harvard, Michigan, or Georgetown?

Post by lisjjen » Tue Nov 16, 2010 10:57 pm

Pretty sure this website exists for two kinds of people. Those who are trying to make an informed decision and those who enjoy the taste of human flesh. Trudging through the flaming, the trolls and the douche bags is exhausting.

Harvard's need based aid policy is extremely attractive. As is its alumni network, reputation, student body, faculty, research machine, etc. etc. etc. In general though, I think your question hits on a recurring theme. Take out the names of the schools and you have the conflict between prestige school X, experience school Y and location school Z. Only you can determine what significance you give to each of these attributes. Might I also recommend giving priority amongst equals to those who give you money. PI doesn't pay quite as well after all (unless you go to Harvard. Oh God if only we all could.)

On a final note, if DC is where you want to be, check out George Washington too. If you want to do PI elsewhere, than Georgetown's location isn't really that big of a selling point.

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Re: Harvard, Michigan, or Georgetown?

Post by concurrent fork » Tue Nov 16, 2010 11:40 pm

vanwinkle wrote: Today I had an unannounced speaker visit one of my classes and speak to us for about half an hour. It was Chief Justice John Roberts of the US Supreme Court.
Sigh...this is what happens when vanwinkle pounds four loco before class.

jk it really happened.

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Re: Harvard, Michigan, or Georgetown?

Post by The Stig » Tue Nov 16, 2010 11:52 pm

vanwinkle wrote:
s0ph1e2007 wrote:I'm genuinely interested. Would you mind telling me why you enjoy Harvard? I've just heart bad things. Maybe I'm being misled?
Well, first of all, Harvard has this really smug reputation, but it seems totally unfounded. Everyone I know in the law school is cool. Folks are just as friendly and helpful and interested in having fun outside of class as anywhere else. There's a certain aura around everything that didn't exist at UVA, the whole "we're at Harvard" halo effect, but overall it's largely the same student experience.

There's an awful lot of student organizations and things to do in your spare time, a lot of which I think are typical to T14, but being such a large school (over 500 students per class) Harvard has so, so many of them. There are student orgs for nearly everything a law student might care to do in their spare time. There's an a capella group, a drama society, flag football competitions, rowing teams, a student newspaper, and so on and so forth. If you're interested in something, it's likely that someone else here is interested in it and you can find them through an extracurricular organization.

Plus, there's a dozen different secondary journals, and they're nearly all walk-on, making that process far less stressful. At UVA you could only apply for up to two journals and had to do a write-on competition, and I knew quite a few people who got shut out of journals there that wanted on.

If you wanna do public interest or any kind of low-pay legal work, Harvard's LIPP is insane. Basically, if you're below a certain income threshold ($42,000, I think?), and you're doing legal work, they'll pay your student loans. That's it. Public or private loans, public interest or private legal work, they'll pay the whole thing. None of this IBR "your payment is reduced but your balance is still there looming over you" stuff, they'll actually pay your whole payment and reduce your debt by that much. If you make over $42,000/year, they calculate a percentage of your income above that you must contribute, but it's a fairly small amount for a while. I don't worry about loans anymore at all. Harvard will pay them if I don't make enough to pay them myself. That's one less source of stress in my life.

And then there are the intangible benefits, like having John Roberts drop into your classroom unexpectedly, or other things I'm not going to discuss here but that have happened to me that I know for certain would have only been possible here.

I've been having a lot of fun here, and all the stuff Harvard offers that lowers my stress level also improves my QOL. Knowing what I know now, I find it hard to imagine a scenario where I wouldn't recommend someone go to Harvard if they have the choice. It's everything I hoped it'd be and more.
this is really insightful...thanks for sharing. it really nice to hear a clear, positive, and articulate perspective on the differences between two T14s, as often on TLS it seems as though it is those with the most negative attitude (that certain "10 things why Harvard is the worst" thread) that are loudest...

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Re: Harvard, Michigan, or Georgetown?

Post by mrmangs » Tue Nov 16, 2010 11:58 pm

vanwinkle wrote:
sergeantpzr wrote:Hey Vanwinkle,

Thanks for the opinions on Harvard. I am still trying to understand the grading system though, how is that working out for you?
As a transfer, I have not received any grades under the Harvard grading system yet. I only have my 1L grades from my old school.

That became a bit of a joke during OCI; some employers were so relieved to get to see someone with actual grades on their 1L transcript that I started opening with that. "I have a transcript for you if you'd like; unlike most people here, mine actually has grades on it." That usually got a chuckle and lightened things up at least momentarily.
Vanwinkle, you have probably been asked this before, so I apologize, but why did you transfer to Harvard? I remember reading posts where you have been very positive about UVA, and I must assume (as you successfully transfered to Harvard) that your grades were stellar. Is HYS really worth leaving behind a T14 you enjoy where you have already made connections to professors, presumably are on LR, and/or have other things going for you? I can't imagine it would help your employment prospects that much...

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Re: Harvard, Michigan, or Georgetown?

Post by MdmMoisel » Wed Nov 17, 2010 12:07 am

patrickd139 wrote:
socraticmethodman wrote:I have not been accepted yet, but I am an aa male, 3.7 gpa, great softs, and will hopefully score a 170+ in December ( scored a 172 on pt 58).
Take the LSAT and then come back. These predictor threads are less than useless without them.
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Re: Harvard, Michigan, or Georgetown?

Post by patrickd139 » Wed Nov 17, 2010 12:07 am

Motion for OP to change thread title to "ITT: Vanwinkle Regales Us with Tales of HLS"

Also, thanks for the candid info. It's depressingly awesome, in a jealous sort of way.

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Re: Harvard, Michigan, or Georgetown?

Post by vanwinkle » Wed Nov 17, 2010 12:43 am

FlightoftheEarls wrote:Yeah, C.J. Roberts made an unannounced visit to my Torts class last year and jokingly started lecturing on the old English law case we were doing, and then he entertained questions for about 30 minutes. So, therefore, the difference between Harvard/Michigan and even lower T14 is only visible in a few real ways, but those ways are often ridiculous. :wink:
Huh, interesting. Michigan seems to be imitating Harvard all over the place. :wink:

Seriously, though, there are things about HLS that I'm pretty sure are fairly unique to it, or at least much stronger and more useful here; I'd just rather not discuss specific examples I have since I want at least some minor amount of privacy on this forum and it involves my, you know, actual life. I'll just say that the HLS professional/alumni network is amazingly strong and useful to me even having just been here a few months.
mrmangs wrote:Vanwinkle, you have probably been asked this before, so I apologize, but why did you transfer to Harvard? I remember reading posts where you have been very positive about UVA, and I must assume (as you successfully transfered to Harvard) that your grades were stellar. Is HYS really worth leaving behind a T14 you enjoy where you have already made connections to professors, presumably are on LR, and/or have other things going for you? I can't imagine it would help your employment prospects that much...
I was open about this on the forum before, in order to explain why I transferred, so I guess I may as well keep being open about it now. I did not make LR at UVA.

I had grades that were frustrating, because they were great, but I literally just missed grading onto LR by a hair. I also had a couple other frustrating experiences (UVA's journal system is annoyingly limited and I didn't get on any of the journals I wanted, for example) and ended up actually having fewer ties to keep me there than I thought. There are three or four different things that would've kept me there if they'd gone differently, but none of them happened, so when I got the call I took it.

Now at HLS I'm on the board of a journal I really love, I'm on the board of another student org I really love, I've been involved in other fun extracurricular things I really love, and I'm enjoying the academic and professional experiences I'm getting to have here. I don't regret it at all. But it's easy not to regret it since things just all fell the wrong way for me last spring. I do miss the professors back at UVA and the friends I had there, but it just worked out that this made more sense for me.

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Re: Harvard, Michigan, or Georgetown?

Post by mrmangs » Wed Nov 17, 2010 1:03 am

vanwinkle wrote:
FlightoftheEarls wrote:I was open about this on the forum before, in order to explain why I transferred, so I guess I may as well keep being open about it now. I did not make LR at UVA.

I had grades that were frustrating, because they were great, but I literally just missed grading onto LR by a hair. I also had a couple other frustrating experiences (UVA's journal system is annoyingly limited and I didn't get on any of the journals I wanted, for example) and ended up actually having fewer ties to keep me there than I thought. There are three or four different things that would've kept me there if they'd gone differently, but none of them happened, so when I got the call I took it.

Now at HLS I'm on the board of a journal I really love, I'm on the board of another student org I really love, I've been involved in other fun extracurricular things I really love, and I'm enjoying the academic and professional experiences I'm getting to have here. I don't regret it at all. But it's easy not to regret it since things just all fell the wrong way for me last spring. I do miss the professors back at UVA and the friends I had there, but it just worked out that this made more sense for me.
Ah, that does sound really frustrating. Well, I'm glad everything is going great at Harvard! Thanks for all the info!

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Re: Harvard, Michigan, or Georgetown?

Post by 12262010 » Wed Nov 17, 2010 10:49 am

Curious as to how many HLS students Sophie actually knows reasonable well. I just want to figure out the scope of her anecdotal/made up evidence study.

Seriously? What are you waiting for?

Now there's a charge.
Just kidding ... it's still FREE!


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