Is UCLA or USC worth sticker? (lets end the debate here) Forum

[Grizz]

Yeah, now it sucks, but, again, that says nothing about what it will be in 3-4 years .

Too bad OCI is in a year and 8 months for 0Ls now lololololol

Also not taking into account COL is dumb lolololololol

Resounding NO

[originalmutt]

I'd take it if I wanted to be a lawyer in California.

Definitely over a full ride to Loyola. Not sure if I'd take it over a full ride to UCD/UCH though I think those schools are pretty stingy so it probably doesn't matter.

The difference between UCD/UCH and Loyola isn't that great, and you're far more likely to get a full ride at Loyola than those schools. I'd agree to take UCD/UCH over Loyola if the money offered is the same, but if Loyola offers more money I think you go with it.

The tuition at any UC school is utterly unpredictable right now, ESPECIALLY if the electorate votes down Brown's tax extensions this summer, which are by no means a slam dunk to pass. I would not be surprised if those schools actually become more expensive than the private schools.

[bk1]

The difference between UCD/UCH and Loyola isn't that great, and you're far more likely to get a full ride at Loyola than those schools. I'd agree to take UCD/UCH over Loyola if the money offered is the same, but if Loyola offers more money I think you go with it.

The tuition at any UC school is utterly unpredictable right now, ESPECIALLY if the electorate votes down Brown's tax extensions this summer, which are by no means a slam dunk to pass. I would not be surprised if those schools actually become more expensive than the private schools.

I think the difference between UCD/UCH and Loyola is pretty great. A relative of mine graduated from Loyola in 2009 and said half of his class had no jobs lined up at graduation. While I have no exact evidence that UCD/UCH did not do as bad, I tend to think that they are that much better.

[originalmutt]

I should qualify my earlier comment to apply only if you want to work in LA. If you want to work in NorCal, UCH is far and away a better choice than Loyola.

Loyola has a very large alumni presence in LA ... it's the biggest law school in the state, I believe. Almost half the judges in LA went to Loyola.

[bjsesq]

The only lawl school in Cali worth paying sticker for is Stanford. IMHO, of course. Even Berkeley is too risky a proposition at sticker anymore.

[bk1]

I should qualify my earlier comment to apply only if you want to work in LA. If you want to work in NorCal, UCH is far and away a better choice than Loyola.

Loyola has a very large alumni presence in LA ... it's the biggest law school in the state, I believe. Almost half the judges in LA went to Loyola.

Fair enough. If it was trying to find the best possible employment in CA, whether it be north or south, I think there is a definite difference between UCD/UCH and Loyola.

[JD=Doctor]

Yeah, now it sucks, but, again, that says nothing about what it will be in 3-4 years .

Too bad OCI is in a year and 8 months for 0Ls now lololololol

Also not taking into account COL is dumb lolololololol

Resounding NO

I already live in LA... i know the costs. I want to make this thread as simple as possible.

[originalmutt]

Yeah, now it sucks, but, again, that says nothing about what it will be in 3-4 years .

Too bad OCI is in a year and 8 months for 0Ls now lololololol

Also not taking into account COL is dumb lolololololol

Resounding NO

I already live in LA... i know the costs. I want to make this thread as simple as possible.

If I get into UCLA/USC I will be confronted with this same question myself, as I'm unlikely to get any aid from UCLA. Since you live in LA, you're already well aware that COL can vary greatly even within LA. Westwood and the westside is quite pricey, and in that part of town you absolutely have to have a car. With Loyola you can get a subsidized metro pass and take the train to school from somewhere cheap to live like the valley, thereby substantially reducing your commuting and rent costs.

USC is better connected to public transit than UCLA but its in the ghetto. Even then I don't know what kind of shuttles run to the blue line, which is, I'm assuming, what you'd have to take to get there. But you can live close to USC for cheap if you're not afraid of getting shot.

The question becomes whether the higher COL combined with higher sticker price is worth it ... it just might be, but I don't know the answer.

[speedyj88]

But you can live close to USC for cheap if you're not afraid of getting shot.

There have been more shootings in Beverly Hills than around USC in the past year.

[Revolver066]

I live in LA and I would LOVE the opportunity to even be able to pay sticker (read: get in) those schools. But as of now I'm leaning towards taking (hopefully) some $ at Loyola. Yea our economy does suck right now, but I love living in LA and am pretty much deadset working here, so I'm going to take my chances (random non lawyer TLS'ers thoughts be damned).

[matvei]

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[matvei]

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[NorCalBruin]

I came here late. So... did the debate end or what? Are we all settled?

[JD=Doctor]

I came here late. So... did the debate end or what? Are we all settled?

LOL no its still going on....

[bk1]

I came here late. So... did the debate end or what? Are we all settled?

LOL no its still going on....

I think there's two main camps in this fight:

A. The people who wouldn't take a lower T14 (i.e Cornell/GULC) at sticker and thus wouldn't take USC/UCLA at sticker.

B. The people who would take a lower T14 at sticker and thus would take USC/UCLA at sticker if they were gunning for LA.

[profizzle]

.

[originalmutt]

Truth be told, this debate is a little bit of the blind leading the blind -- which is farily common for TLS. The question is best addressed to practicing lawyers, particularly partners who make hiring decisions. Few people on this board are qualified to provide a good answer, myself included.

[Grizz]

Truth be told, this debate is a little bit of the blind leading the blind -- which is farily common for TLS. The question is best addressed to practicing lawyers, particularly partners who make hiring decisions. Few people on this board are qualified to provide a good answer, myself included.

Most older lawyers outside of hiring people have no idea how bad it is. Some of the best people to ask are probably law students, aka the people actually looking for the jobs. But stats indicate that less than half of USC/UCLA people got NLJ250 jobs back when the economy was good. No reason to think that's any better now. In fact, there's every reason to think it's much worse.

[bk1]

Truth be told, this debate is a little bit of the blind leading the blind -- which is farily common for TLS. The question is best addressed to practicing lawyers, particularly partners who make hiring decisions. Few people on this board are qualified to provide a good answer, myself included.

The question is definitely not even best addressed by hiring partners considering how diverse firms can be in their hiring practices. To get the an idea from them you'd have to poll a lot of hiring partners and try and figure out how many spots are available, however the time that would take would be insane and nobody is going to give you concrete info (because grades aren't the only factor even if they are a huge part of it).

The best info we can actually get would be completely filled out and accurate data from the schools' career services offices, but they are unlikely to give that out as well.

So what we are left with is the compiled anecdotes of 2L TLSers who have gone through OCI and aggregating as much of that as we can to give a ballpark estimate. That and the several pre-ITE biglaw/clerkship data sets (i.e. NLJ250 go to list) are all we really have.

[nonprofit-prophet]

Truth be told, this debate is a little bit of the blind leading the blind -- which is farily common for TLS. The question is best addressed to practicing lawyers, particularly partners who make hiring decisions. Few people on this board are qualified to provide a good answer, myself included.

Most older lawyers outside of hiring people have no idea how bad it is. Some of the best people to ask are probably law students, aka the people actually looking for the jobs. But stats indicate that less than half of USC/UCLA people got NLJ250 jobs back when the economy was good. No reason to think that's any better now. In fact, there's every reason to think it's much worse.

Very good point that people seem to miss. An immediate relative of mine is a federal judge. When I told him I was considering not going to law school because of the drop in the legal market, he responded by saying he hadn't heard of any drop and that I should go to school immediately.

[originalmutt]

The question is definitely not even best addressed by hiring partners considering how diverse firms can be in their hiring practices. To get the an idea from them you'd have to poll a lot of hiring partners and try and figure out how many spots are available, however the time that would take would be insane and nobody is going to give you concrete info (because grades aren't the only factor even if they are a huge part of it).

I concede that talking to a few hiring partners is not going to yield a scientific answer, but neither is posting a question on a message board. But talking to practicing lawyers and hiring partners will produce better information than otherwise available.

The problem with relying on 2Ls and recent grads is they have a very narrow perspective, one that is distored somewhat by the awful ecnomoy. They only see the jobs they and their classmates are getting. But nobody on here is going to law school to work for only two or three years and then retire. This is a career decision that, hopefully, involves 30+ years of profitable and rewarding work, during which time the economy will go eb and flow.

T14, without question, strongly puts you on a stronger footing the first two or three years out of law school. Nobody disputes that. But that impact ebs over time as the Tier 2/3/4 grads bust their asses in smaller firms and start to show their true value as lawyers, which is not measured by the LSAT. That's not to say that prestige of your law school doesn't matter in the long run -- it most certainly does. But over the course of a career that weakness can be mitigated with a strong resume that you build through old-fashioned hard work.

So the better question is, over the length of an entire career in law, is sticker price at UCLA/USC a better value than a full ride a lower ranked school? Back when UCLA was $20K a year, the answer was a no brainer. UCLA was without a doubt a stronger choice. I think that's a much tougher question to answer now that UCLA costs just as much as a private school.

I think the answer depends on what kind of law you want to practice. If you want to practice criminal law, then go with the highest ranked school that offered you a full ride, then go work debt-free for the public defender/DA a few years to get experience. For criminal law, as long as you go to at least a semi-respectable school, it doesn't matter where you went. For everyone else, myself included, it's not that simple.

There is one other consideration: a lot of people go to law school, get degrees, practice law for fives years and realize they hate it. In such a scenario -- unless you've got a Harvard/Stanford/Yale Law Degree on your wall -- the less debt you take on, the better.

[Grizz]

The question is definitely not even best addressed by hiring partners considering how diverse firms can be in their hiring practices. To get the an idea from them you'd have to poll a lot of hiring partners and try and figure out how many spots are available, however the time that would take would be insane and nobody is going to give you concrete info (because grades aren't the only factor even if they are a huge part of it).

I concede that talking to a few hiring partners is not going to yield a scientific answer, but neither is posting a question on a message board. But talking to practicing lawyers and hiring partners will produce better information than otherwise available.

The problem with relying on 2Ls and recent grads is they have a very narrow perspective, one that is distored somewhat by the awful ecnomoy. They only see the jobs they and their classmates are getting. But nobody on here is going to law school to work for only two or three years and then retire. This is a career decision that, hopefully, involves 30+ years of profitable and rewarding work, during which time the economy will go eb and flow.

T14, without question, strongly puts you on a stronger footing the first two or three years out of law school. Nobody disputes that. But that impact ebs over time as the Tier 2/3/4 grads bust their asses in smaller firms and start to show their true value as lawyers, which is not measured by the LSAT. That's not to say that prestige of your law school doesn't matter in the long run -- it most certainly does. But over the course of a career that weakness can be mitigated with a strong resume that you build through old-fashioned hard work.

So the better question is, over the length of an entire career in law, is sticker price at UCLA/USC a better value than a full ride a lower ranked school? Back when UCLA was $20K a year, the answer was a no brainer. UCLA was without a doubt a stronger choice. I think that's a much tougher question to answer now that UCLA costs just as much as a private school.

I think the answer depends on what kind of law you want to practice. If you want to practice criminal law, then go with the highest ranked school that offered you a full ride, then go work debt-free for the public defender/DA a few years to get experience. For criminal law, as long as you go to at least a semi-respectable school, it doesn't matter where you went. For everyone else, myself included, it's not that simple.

There is one other consideration: a lot of people go to law school, get degrees, practice law for fives years and realize they hate it. In such a scenario -- unless you've got a Harvard/Stanford/Yale Law Degree on your wall -- the less debt you take on, the better.

Short rebuttal

1) Biglaw is the easiest best way to pay off debt (outside of PI). One academic has estimate that you need like $60k+ (low end) to sustain a full debt load and not be impoverished.
2) Too bad thanks to bimodal salary distribution, not too many grads make this, and many small firms provide few opportunities for advancement. It's too hard to predict where you'll end up, even with "hard work"
3) Biglaw hiring happens almost exclusively during 2L
4) If you miss biglaw, you will most probably never get it