Top Law Schools

I have been accepted with scholarships to both schools, after scholarships and the delta between tuition/COL Notre Dame would be around $50-60k more total. I am having a very difficult time trying to decide as both schools seem to have a lot to offer.

Everything I read about Notre Dame seems like it would be the ideal place for me as I am very Catholic and love Notre Dame's emphasis on a "different kind of lawyer". On the other hand, I love the City of Syracuse, have lived here my entire life, and would love to stay here if the right circumstances allow and Syracuse University (including the College of Law), is very committed to working with the community and trying to bring about a renaissance here.

Part of why I am struggling is I am not 100% certain of my future career aspirations. Would I be able to come back home and find a job with a degree from Notre Dame? The legal job market in Syracuse is the weakest that it has been in a while. Is there any truth to the trickle down effect (Cornell grads can't get jobs in NYC, so they take jobs at upstate firms displacing the grads of Albany, Buffalo, and Syracuse)? If I did decide to ultimately live somewhere else in the Mid-Atlatnic/Northeast, how much weight does a Syracuse law degree carry outside of Upstate NY? How many more options would I have with a degree from ND? Would I be $60k better off with a degree from ND, if I decided I ultimately (though not necessarily immediately) wanted to go into policy work rather than firm work?

Thanks in advance for any assistance!

From Utica and went to ND undergrad... Next to cuse and cornell there is no other school more respected and more admired then ND in upstate NY. People just eat up the Irish in upstate. ND is a great place to live and the weather is alot like Upstate... aka shitty... I would say ND has a national appeal to it but even more so in upstate which has a huge irish catholic population... Go to ND

For the difference of 50k I would go to ND if those are truly the only 2 options.

I would go ND. From what I've read in some forums, Syracuse employment prospects are awful at the moment.

IS THIS A JOKE?!!!
NOTRE DAME BY A MILE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Check out the ranking difference

Go to ND.

trayball23 wrote:From Utica and went to ND undergrad... Next to cuse and cornell there is no other school more respected and more admired then ND in upstate NY. People just eat up the Irish in upstate. ND is a great place to live and the weather is alot like Upstate... aka shitty... I would say ND has a national appeal to it but even more so in upstate which has a huge irish catholic population... Go to ND

TITCR I have connections in upstate New York and this is fact.

shamrock1213 wrote:Would I be able to come back home and find a job with a degree from Notre Dame? The legal job market in Syracuse is the weakest that it has been in a while. Is there any truth to the trickle down effect (Cornell grads can't get jobs in NYC, so they take jobs at upstate firms displacing the grads of Albany, Buffalo, and Syracuse)?

I think this is happening to some extent, and not just with Cornell grads. Other T14 grads who grew up in Upstate New York or went to college here come back to get firm jobs (either because they can't get stuff in the city, or they've gotten smarter). A large part of the problem at least this year is that the firms have ridiculously small class sizes (every firm I talked to had a summer class of 2-5 people). So don't make the mistake of thinking that landing a Syracuse firm job will be easier than landing one in NYC.

At least when I was interviewing, I had a hell of a time convincing firms that I wanted to be in Upstate New York, despite the fact that I've lived here my entire life, go to law school here, and didn't interview with any firms other than those in the Syracuse/Rochester area. This is a barrier, but I'd say it's small enough of a barrier that it definitely doesn't merit going to Syracuse over ND. I think you're more likely to get a job in Syracuse coming from ND if you can convince them you want to be there, and if you don't get a job in Syracuse I think you're more likely to find work elsewhere.

With a Notre Dame acceptance in hand, you may be able to negotiate a larger scholarship from Syracuse.