Top Law Schools

From LA, want to work in LA, interested in PI, academia, clerking (Chicago) very debt averse (UCLA). Let me know your thoughts

Chicago gives you a slight edge for academia/clerking but those things are insanely tough to get anyways.

Since you want PI and LA I would easily take the money at UCLA over having to use LRAP at UChi.

sergeantpzr wrote:From LA, want to work in LA, interested in PI, academia, clerking (Chicago) very debt averse (UCLA). Let me know your thoughts

LA. Also, poll.

camelcrema wrote:

sergeantpzr wrote:From LA, want to work in LA, interested in PI, academia, clerking (Chicago) very debt averse (UCLA). Let me know your thoughts

LA. Also, poll.

Agreed on both counts.

UCLA.

If you wanted to work anywhere other than LA, Chicago may be justifiable. In your case though, I would think that UCLA is the best bet.

You are bright enough to have been offered a wonderful scholarship package from both schools, so I would think that you could dominate at UCLA and have many great career options.

Take the money and don't look back

Older Chest wrote:I would think that you could dominate at UCLA

Anybody can dominate any given school, even the kid who got in the last day off the waitlist. It would be foolhardy to assume that just because OP has better numbers that there is a significantly better chance at doing well, because that simply is not the case.

bk187 wrote:

Older Chest wrote:I would think that you could dominate at UCLA

Anybody can dominate any given school, even the kid who got in the last day off the waitlist. It would be foolhardy to assume that just because OP has better numbers that there is a significantly better chance at doing well, because that simply is not the case.

not to derail, but given that OP likely has substantially better numbers, which have proven at least slightly accurate predictors of 1L success, OP's chance of doing well relative to his peers at UCLA (which is of course what matters with a curved grading scheme) is increased at least to a certain degree. But yeah, probably not significantly better.

regardless, UCLA.

University of California Los Angeles

bk187 wrote:

Older Chest wrote:I would think that you could dominate at UCLA

Anybody can dominate any given school, even the kid who got in the last day off the waitlist. It would be foolhardy to assume that just because OP has better numbers that there is a significantly better chance at doing well, because that simply is not the case.

I didn't mean to imply that OP would certainly do better at UCLA because he/she is smart. I do not believe that success in law school is simply a product of undergrad GPA and LSAT, but I am sure there is some correlation. With that said, and considering the strong interest in staying in LA, I was trying to be reassuring in saying that OP can still have great job prospects coming out of UCLA versus Chicago and avoid being saddled with substantial debt.

I don't want to get on your bad side BK

I would vote Chicago. All of your career goals will be better served at Chicago. I think if you are from LA you should be able to go back if you go to Chicago, but going to LA and getting median or below will leave you with substantially fewer good options.

UCLA. Chicago does offer some better job prospects, but after taking into consideration your being "very debt averse," and everything else you said, I think UCLA is the way to go.

Older Chest wrote:I didn't mean to imply that OP would certainly do better at UCLA because he/she is smart. I do not believe that success in law school is simply a product of undergrad GPA and LSAT, but I am sure there is some correlation. With that said, and considering the strong interest in staying in LA, I was trying to be reassuring in saying that OP can still have great job prospects coming out of UCLA versus Chicago and avoid being saddled with substantial debt.

I don't want to get on your bad side BK

You're not on my bad side . I just see people post something like "take the full ride because you will do better there" when that shouldn't be the reason for taking the full ride and it irks me. Take the full ride because it is far less risky and it's a good deal.

The correlation, from what I remember, is that LSAT/GPA combined account for 20% of 1L grades. Which is decent, but nothing I would bank on.

bk187 wrote:

Older Chest wrote:I would think that you could dominate at UCLA

Anybody can dominate any given school, even the kid who got in the last day off the waitlist. It would be foolhardy to assume that just because OP has better numbers that there is a significantly better chance at doing well, because that simply is not the case.

I agree, however, it stands to reason that you can expect a higher class rank if you go to a weaker school. There was a law review article on this last year that presented statistical evidence that this happens. Given that LSAT and UGPA are correlated with law school performance, any statistician would predict that going to a school with less competitive admissions would result in a higher class rank.

In this case, the difference between UCLA and Chicago is too small to be a big deal, so I agree that it would be foolhardy to count on doing better at UCLA. But the most likely outcome is a very slightly higher class rank at UCLA, because UCLA students are a little bit weaker competition than Chicago students.

You are absolutely wrong and definitely not the voice of reason.

keep in mind how hard academia is...

if your ranking high enough in chicago to go straight into academia (top 5-10% in grades or whatever it is), I would not think that having the same ranking in UCLA would take you out of the academia running.

another thing to note,If you look at LA area law schools (which I havnt), you will also see professors not from yale/harvard, but who went to LA area schools instead (mostly at their alma matter).

Chicago is great, but in this case, take UCLA and run!

Curry wrote:You are absolutely wrong and definitely not the voice of reason.

Are you for real? Do you think any 1L at Yale would be in the bottom half of his/her class at Florida Coastal? VOR conceded that the difference between Chicago and UCLA is so small that making a similar conjecture about these two schools would be foolish, but there is obviously a point at which a student admitted to a top school has a very, very good chance of outperforming his classmates at a festering TTT.

dooood wrote:

Curry wrote:You are absolutely wrong and definitely not the voice of reason.

Are you for real? Do you think any 1L at Yale would be in the bottom half of his/her class at Florida Coastal? VOR conceded that the difference between Chicago and UCLA is so small that making a similar conjecture about these two schools would be foolish, but there is obviously a point at which a student admitted to a top school has a very, very good chance of outperforming his classmates at a festering TTT.

voiceoflolreason wrote: But the most likely outcome is a very slightly higher class rank at UCLA, because UCLA students are a little bit weaker competition than Chicago students.

Yeah see. See that. That right there. That is wrong.

Curry wrote:

dooood wrote:

Curry wrote:You are absolutely wrong and definitely not the voice of reason.

Are you for real? Do you think any 1L at Yale would be in the bottom half of his/her class at Florida Coastal? VOR conceded that the difference between Chicago and UCLA is so small that making a similar conjecture about these two schools would be foolish, but there is obviously a point at which a student admitted to a top school has a very, very good chance of outperforming his classmates at a festering TTT.

voiceoflolreason wrote: But the most likely outcome is a very slightly higher class rank at UCLA, because UCLA students are a little bit weaker competition than Chicago students.

Yeah see. See that. That right there. That is wrong.

OK, that's real

Stanford.

Easy choice given your geographic preference and overall career goals...UCLA

Curry wrote:

voiceofreason wrote: But the most likely outcome is a very slightly higher class rank at UCLA, because UCLA students are a little bit weaker competition than Chicago students.

Yeah see. See that. That right there. That is wrong.

What, the premise or the conclusion?

If you challenge the premise (UCLA students are a little bit weaker competition than Chicago students), consider that LSAT & UGPA are the best available measures of academic potential and are correlated with intelligence and law school performance. That tells us the strength of the competition. With the best measures we have, UCLA is weaker than Chicago. The difference is very small, but not zero.

If you challenge the conclusion, consider that law school is a mechanism for ranking students according to certain academic abilities, and if you are dropped into a pool of weak students, you are going to be closer to the top than if you are dropped into a pool of stronger students.

voice of reason wrote:

Curry wrote:

voiceofreason wrote: But the most likely outcome is a very slightly higher class rank at UCLA, because UCLA students are a little bit weaker competition than Chicago students.

Yeah see. See that. That right there. That is wrong.

What, the premise or the conclusion?

If you challenge the premise (UCLA students are a little bit weaker competition than Chicago students), consider that LSAT & UGPA are the best available measures of academic potential and are correlated with intelligence and law school performance. That tells us the strength of the competition. With the best measures we have, UCLA is weaker than Chicago. The difference is very small, but not zero.

If you challenge the conclusion, consider that law school is a mechanism for ranking students according to certain academic abilities, and if you are dropped into a pool of weak students, you are going to be closer to the top than if you are dropped into a pool of stronger students.

I reject both. The LSAT and UGPA are NOT correlated in any statistically significant way with law school performance and LOL are even worse measures of general intelligence. You read these boards. This place is chock full of people with high LSATs and high GPAs that are idiots and full of people with lower scores and lower gpas that are absolutely brilliant. Obviously this isn't a significant sample size either but it provides a counterpoint to your claim. Moreover, Berkeley has a lower LSAT than most of the t14. Does that mean its easier to go to law school at Berkeley? No. Of course not, and if anyone here said "go to berkeley because it has a lower LSAT median than UVA," they would get laughed at. The fact is that neither of those two measures tell us ANYTHING about the strength of the competition at any law school. Go to Brigham Young University - you'll have about as hard of a time placing in the top 10% there as you will in almost any other school. The difference in the top 10% between Michigan and Columbia is almost zero. The different between median at UVA and median at berkeley, even though UVA has a higher LSAT, is negligble. To presume otherwise shows a lack of understand of how law school admissions work, how law schools test their students, and how human intelligence can effectively be measured.

Moreover, everything stated above assumes that doing well on the LSAT and having a high gpa = doing well in law school. Law school is a completely different animal. You can only claim to understand how it works once you're there (and I'm making no such claims of understanding). To do well there, from what 1L's 2L's and 3L's on this board have repeatedly said takes a completely different way of studying than anything you've ever done before. When that happens, every measure of "intelligence" is thrown out the window and the ball park is open for anybody with a certain set of skills to come out on top.

As such, your conclusion is flawed with respect to this example. Because we can't measure what a "weak pool of students is" we cannot conclude that the students at UCLA are weaker than the students at Chicago, and as such it is impossible to say it is easier to place better at one school over the other.

UCLA.

P.S. If you need the reasons spelled out, then this may just be a hypothetical.