ryanp1000 wrote:
I think my conjecture about transferring, although without much evidence, is reasonable. You claim I am ranking whoring, which I am to a certain extent, but when a school like GW has been consistently ranked higher than Hastings and Davis for who knows how many years, I am sure the top schools are going to be more likely to accept a GW top student vs. a Hastings top student.
On this thread I keep seeing that if you want to work in CA, Hastings would be the way to go, but why? I don't see any stats or anything to counter the notion that the higher prestige level of GW would count for something and at the least put GW on the same playing field as Hastings or Davis.
Going into school thinking of transferring is a pretty awful idea. To transfer to a much better school, you have to be top 10%. Even if you think "oh, I got into better schools, this one should be easy," a lot of people go to schools because of significant scholarships they received. Going to a school because you have a better chance of transferring to a higher ranked school is just crazy to me. There is no way you can guarantee a high level of success in law school, even if you study your ass off (because everyone else will be too).
Hastings is the way to go if you want to stay in CA because you'll develop longterm meaningful contacts while you're in school through your professors, your summer gigs, Hastings alums are more likely to hire other Hastings alums, etc. Connections and having ties to a place can significantly help you get a job, and other people looking for jobs who stayed in the bay area will certainly have an advantage over you.
Finally, on rankings - they change every year. They may matter to some degree, but if they are only a couple of spots away from each other, it isn't as if one school is dramatically better than the other.
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