Top Law Schools

On TLS it's t-14 or bust. t-18, sure, whatever. Wustl: wtf is a wustl?

But from speaking with mere mortals in the legal field, the prevailing thoughts seem to be 1. Go to the best school you get in to, and 2. Go where you want to practice. I don't know where I want to practice, so taking all geographic considerations out, what is the best school in your opinion in the rankings from GW to ND?

Please rank and explain at least why you think School X is number 1 within this grouping.

I think Minn probably has a better grip on its market than any of the others - so for raw job prospects I would probably put Minn as 1. After that its pretty murky...

Well...

If you're looking at straight numbers, there really isn't much of a difference. GW is ranked #20, UIUC is #21, and the rest share #22. There isn't much difference in their range of GPAs or LSAT scores, either, though GW and Minn have the highest 75% LSAT (with 168) and UIUC has the highest 75% GPA (with 3.9). I REALLY don't think you can turn around for the difference. These are all sister schools, with strong regional reputations and not a heck of a lot of national portability (though there is some, if you have great grades and can hustle). If you're going based just on lay-person name recognition, I think the winner is Notre Dame, but that's debatable.

If you had to choose between those schools, I'd say you HAVE to factor in geography -- would you rather spend 3 years in on the East Coast or in the Midwest?

EDIT: Teoeo makes a great point. The other areas are pretty saturated as far as jobs go.

Paichka wrote:Well...

If you're looking at straight numbers, there really isn't much of a difference. GW is ranked #20, UIUC is #21, and the rest share #22. There isn't much difference in their range of GPAs or LSAT scores, either, though GW and Minn have the highest 75% LSAT (with 168) and UIUC has the highest 75% GPA (with 3.9). I REALLY don't think you can turn around for the difference. These are all sister schools, with strong regional reputations and not a heck of a lot of national portability (though there is some, if you have great grades and can hustle). If you're going based just on lay-person name recognition, I think the winner is Notre Dame, but that's debatable.

If you had to choose between those schools, I'd say you HAVE to factor in geography -- would you rather spend 3 years in on the East Coast or in the Midwest?

EDIT: Teoeo makes a great point. The other areas are pretty saturated as far as jobs go.

I will certainly be considering geography, and frankly I'm looking for t-14 anyway, so (fingers crossed) hopefully it won't come down to this. I'm just trying to get an idea of a law-savy population's relative impression of the instant schools.

Better idea: poll!
Please mark fill in your bubble completely as incomplete or stray markings may be scored incorrectly.

bump (sorry)

Purely from a job prospects point of view, I'd say BU has the edge out of all these at least by a bit.

That being said, I think the real answer is take whichever is cheapest (or own up to the fact that geography actually matters to you).

bk187 wrote:Purely from a job prospects point of view, I'd say BU has the edge out of all these at least by a bit.

That being said, I think the real answer is take whichever is cheapest (or own up to the fact that geography actually matters to you).

I have nothing left to say...

bk187 wrote:Purely from a job prospects point of view, I'd say BU has the edge out of all these at least by a bit.

That being said, I think the real answer is take whichever is cheapest (or own up to the fact that geography actually matters to you).

I've already owned up to that. See above. Point taken on minimizing debt.

Taking everything into account (including geography), I would choose BU.

They're all about the same rank. The only other thing I would consider if I were you is if it'd be possible to get instate tuition at UIUC or Minn.

Cade McNown wrote:I've already owned up to that. See above. Point taken on minimizing debt.

None of these is significantly better enough to justify ignoring region. Even though I would say this is almost always true, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.

The number one school (in my opinion: BU) isn't that much better than GW/Minn/Illinois/etc. Maybe it's better than ND or even Emory by a decent bit, but the schools around 20-30 are very similar to each other in terms of prospects. They are also uniformly worse than the top 20ish schools, by a decent margin.

If you want to know why I think BU is better, it's because it seems that biglaw firms dip deeper into the classes of BU/BC than other schools (Illinois/GW/etc). I've picked this up from anecdotal evidence following OCI threads and would welcome dispute on this. I could be wrong, but my feeling is BU has stronger biglaw representation than the others here.

Why is this? I think it has to do with the ability to place in both NYC and Boston, the former of which has a lot of jobs and is close by and the latter of which these schools have very little competition for (HLS kids rarely stay in Boston). GW competes with everybody for DC, Illinois competes with UChi/NU/other strong regionals like ND/WUSTL and other T14's for Chicago, Emory's Atlanta market isn't very big, Minnesota's market isn't very big. BU has only to compete with BC and a few Bostonians who went to school outside the area and has a decent sized legal market. Plus, the proximity to NYC(the largest market by a longshot) means that NYC firms are more willing to interview BU/BC kids than they would say a Minnesota or Illinois kid.

But, as I said, it isn't big enough to justify picking BU over other schools if you prefer DC/Atlanta/Illinois/Minnesota/etc to Boston. It also isn't big enough to justify ignoring $ either.

Curry wrote:I have nothing left to say...

<3

Any scholarship money?

OP, I think this really depends on where you want to practice. And you need to kind of figure this out now. If you're interested in the south, id choose ND or Emory. If you want to be in the northeast, BU or GW. If you want chicago, go with UIUC.

There is a heavy east coast bias on this website, so most people will say BU or GW. If it were me, I'd probably choose one of those two also. Or perhaps, UIUC. But if you dont mind practicing in Minn, choose that. I think it really comes down to location here, even though you said geographical considerations aside. Law school is a regional decision when you leave the top 17 or so schools. If you really have no preference, visit a bunch of these and see where you feel more at home. Some of these schools you may not like/feel you fit in.

Edit - also, why no fordham? If you want NYC, fordham is probably going to give you just as good prospects there as any of these schools would in their respective cities.

Also, you couldnt get into WUSTL or anything like that? WUSTL is a great school too, if you want midwest.

I vote UMN, because I feel it will have the best job prospects since it owns its legal market. Plus, Minneapolis rocks, too.

Bk has it down. Really your two best options are GW and BU. Biglaw firms tend to pull deeper from BU than they do from GW (though only slightly) mainly because of how difficult the DC market has been. That being said, both schools are fairly regional, and that should be a bigger factor in your decision than the marginal difference in biglaw prospects between the schools.

I am just free-writing, so excuse the stream of conciousness here:

GW is probably your best bet out of these law schools. Large legal market, great reputation, top professors, good placement stats per NLJ rankings and self reported stats, good environment, great city. Now that the school has been dropping its class size, it may be able to jump back up in the rankings the way BU did in 2004. There is nothing wrong with gaming the rankings when it is to your benefit in the long run. Then again, they fell only really because of the addition of PT programs into the US News calculations.

UIUC - big ten, decent reputation, low cost if you are from the state, placement largely depends on Chicago which is a very saturated legal market with all the other top law schools placing their students at the top firms (Chicago, Northwestern, Michigan, ND, MN, etc.) Just more competition.

BU - decent professors, arguments could be made that you have better career prospects out of Boston College, there is a lot of competition in the northeast, with the Ivy schools and BC competing for the same jobs, it gets a little tight for BU students, which is probably why their career prosps aren't always stellar (depends on the year), clerkship stats are not as high as you would think, reputation and alumni network are lacking, especially outside of Boston.

Emory - decent school, good reputation, lacks a bit of prestige in law, forced to compete in the smaller altanta legal market with Vandy/Duke grads. Nice campus, great weather (year round too!).

Minn. - Small legal market, decent profs, good clerkship stats, pretty horrible law firm placement stats

ND - You'd be forced to live in Indiana, with no legal market to place into other than Chicago which is saturated with grads of every other football school in middle america, beautiful campus though, decent profs, good reputation, good alumni network

Thanks for the responses. Full disclosure I was a December 2010 lsat taker applying late in the cycle. I'm shooting for t-14 or at least t-18, but I was trying to pick a couple more schools where I'm sure I'll be accepted. The whole point of this exercise was to weed out impressions of these schools that I haven't had time to form myself, and I excluded geography as a variable because I really don't know yet where I'd like to practice.

Informative wrote:I am just free-writing, so excuse the stream of conciousness here:

GW is probably your best bet out of these law schools. Large legal market, great reputation, top professors, good placement stats per NLJ rankings and self reported stats, good environment, great city. Now that the school has been dropping its class size, it may be able to jump back up in the rankings the way BU did in 2004. There is nothing wrong with gaming the rankings when it is to your benefit in the long run. Then again, they fell only really because of the addition of PT programs into the US News calculations.

Would you also put GW ahead of Wash U. for someone without market preference but desiring mid-BIGLAW?

Open question (and my apologies to OP - not trying to take away from your question. Fwiw, I voted for GWU).

Anacreon wrote:

Informative wrote:I am just free-writing, so excuse the stream of conciousness here:

GW is probably your best bet out of these law schools. Large legal market, great reputation, top professors, good placement stats per NLJ rankings and self reported stats, good environment, great city. Now that the school has been dropping its class size, it may be able to jump back up in the rankings the way BU did in 2004. There is nothing wrong with gaming the rankings when it is to your benefit in the long run. Then again, they fell only really because of the addition of PT programs into the US News calculations.

Would you also put GW ahead of Wash U. for someone without market preference but desiring mid-BIGLAW?

Open question (and my apologies to OP - not trying to take away from your question. Fwiw, I voted for GWU).

No worries, I'm interested in WUSTL too. My personal impression is that WUSTL > GW. More selective (unless you are URM), much better faculty to student ratio. The more I look at it though they seem almost the same. Maybe I should have included WUSTL in this poll...

BU, this place is amazing.

Anacreon wrote:

Informative wrote: Would you also put GW ahead of Wash U. for someone without market preference but desiring mid-BIGLAW?

Open question (and my apologies to OP - not trying to take away from your question. Fwiw, I voted for GWU).

If you want bigfirms, its likely: BU/GW then UIUC/ND then WUSTL/Emory. WUSTL/Emory are really overrated if you're talking bigfirm placement.

OP, this is all geography. Pure career prospects I'd take BU or GW. Boston's COL is a lot lower, and I know at least 3 people with DC SAs (top 10%ers though) and a bunch with gov jobs, so DC isn't closed off for you. Both may be equal in NYC (unsure, but I'll go on a limb and say BU has an edge because historically it used to place the majority of students in NYC), but GW definately doesn't fly in Boston. GW does give you opportunities to intern in fed. gov agencies during the school year where positions aren't nearly as competitive.

In conclusion, wait for financial aid offers, calculate total COA and come back with a new poll. It'll be much more helpful.

Out of these schools, which do you think is best for Philly?

GW is the best all round choice, probably followed by ND.

Emory is probably the next best, but it is largely regional to the south east.

Minn and UIUC are decent, but not national.

BU is decent if you want to stay in new england, but it lacks a national name.

I know you say ignoring geography, but the main difference between all these schools is geography. Where you want to go to school and what kind of scholly money you're looking at is really all that should matter for you at this point, because those schools are pretty similar across the board.

With that said, totally ignoring geography, I'd say BU.

Blindmelon wrote:If you want bigfirms, its likely: BU/GW then UIUC/ND then WUSTL/Emory. WUSTL/Emory are really overrated if you're talking bigfirm placement.

Even though UIUC, ND, and WUSTL are virtually identical in biglaw placement, and WUSTL in fact places slightly better than UIUC? Umm, okay....

If you want to criticize a school, go ahead (including my own beloved WUSTL). Just don't spout nonsense.

Blindmelon wrote:

Anacreon wrote:

Informative wrote: Would you also put GW ahead of Wash U. for someone without market preference but desiring mid-BIGLAW?

Open question (and my apologies to OP - not trying to take away from your question. Fwiw, I voted for GWU).

If you want bigfirms, its likely: BU/GW then UIUC/ND then WUSTL/Emory. WUSTL/Emory are really overrated if you're talking bigfirm placement.

OP, this is all geography. Pure career prospects I'd take BU or GW. Boston's COL is a lot lower, and I know at least 3 people with DC SAs (top 10%ers though) and a bunch with gov jobs, so DC isn't closed off for you. Both may be equal in NYC (unsure, but I'll go on a limb and say BU has an edge because historically it used to place the majority of students in NYC), but GW definately doesn't fly in Boston. GW does give you opportunities to intern in fed. gov agencies during the school year where positions aren't nearly as competitive.

In conclusion, wait for financial aid offers, calculate total COA and come back with a new poll. It'll be much more helpful.

Thanks for the input, but actually this poll has worked out exactly as I had hoped. If I had wanted financial aid to be a factor I would have included it. Or I would have just looked up one of many previous forum topics that base conclusions on cost and geography.

BU. I don't have much new to add; decent career prospects, and from my research BU seems to have the least criticism of all the schools (aside from the ugly law building). A good CDO, solid prospects, semi-national reach, highly regarded professors... Can't beat that ITE if t14 isn't an option.