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I would like to work biglaw in Boston after law school. Obviously if I can't get that I'd like biglaw someplace else or even some type of government job because of LRAP. Chicago did not offer me any merit aid, BU offered 25k/yr, and I'm still waiting on Cornell. I'm obviously leaning towards Chicago because of its ranking, but I'm not sure about 250k in the hole coming out of law school. I guess I can just worry about that in ~3 years though.

Edit:
Financial Aid from Cornell=15k/yr

kerrigaa wrote:I would like to work biglaw in Boston after law school. Obviously if I can't get that I'd like biglaw someplace else or even some type of government job because of LRAP. Chicago did not offer me any merit aid, BU offered 25k/yr, and I'm still waiting on Cornell. I'm obviously leaning towards Chicago because of its ranking, but I'm not sure about 250k in the hole coming out of law school. I guess I can just worry about that in ~3 years though.

Nope

That wasn't a 100% serious statement lol.

Chicago, hands down. You'll still have $80k debt after you graduate BU, and it's a lot easier to pay off $250k student loans on $160k salary than $80k on no job.

Well obviously with UChicago you would be set for biglaw in Chicago, and you could get NYC and prob Boston from there. With Cornell you'd be set for NYC and maybe they'll offer you some money. Maybe you could negotiate some more with your Chicago acceptance. BU you would have to gun only for biglaw in Boston I'd say as they're statistics for attaining biglaw are more risky than the other two choices. You should also be able to get more money out of them with the other two acceptances.

Therefore, if Cornell gives you a decent package, that would be your best bet for biglaw with less debt.

Do you have ties to Boston? Might be hard to get biglaw there with Chicago if you don't.

Boston firms will love you from Chicago.... seriously. If you have ties, Chicago hands down. Only reason to take BU is if they offered you one of those full tuition + living stipend deals.

Yes, I do have ties to Boston. I've lived there my whole life (except undergraduate out of state) and all of my family lives there. I was just a little uncertain about Chicago back to Boston due to the limited amount of Chicago graduates that work in Boston. I'm guessing that is mostly because of self selection though.

kerrigaa wrote:Yes, I do have ties to Boston. I've lived there my whole life (except undergraduate out of state) and all of my family lives there. I was just a little uncertain about Chicago back to Boston due to the limited amount of Chicago graduates that work in Boston. I'm guessing that is mostly because of self selection though.

Yeah, self selection. Chicago with ties should get you back to Boston. I'd take Chicago here, but understand that 250k is a lot of debt.

Why are these the only options? What are your numbers and when did you apply? Seems like a random pair of schools to be choosing between. A lower T14 with money would seem to be the happy medium.

Come back and ask this when you know what your Cornell offer is. Cornell will likely make the most sense, but if they don't give you any money and it's Chicago v. Cornell head to head with no money it won't be as cut and dry. Either way, I wouldn't do BU.

Looks like you'll be headed to Chicago. Congrats.

Nelson wrote:Why are these the only options? What are your numbers and when did you apply? Seems like a random pair of schools to be choosing between. A lower T14 with money would seem to be the happy medium.

168/4.0 Applied to UVA, Mich, Cornell, BC,BU, Georgetown in early November and Chicago and Duke late December. Waitlisted at all except the 3 I'm questioning and Georgetown, but I've pretty much ruled Georgetown out.

kerrigaa wrote:

Nelson wrote:Why are these the only options? What are your numbers and when did you apply? Seems like a random pair of schools to be choosing between. A lower T14 with money would seem to be the happy medium.

168/4.0 Applied to UVA, Mich, Cornell, BC,BU, Georgetown in early November and Chicago and Duke late December. Waitlisted at all except the 3 I'm questioning and Georgetown, but I've pretty much ruled Georgetown out.

You should retake and reapply. You're leaving money on the table.

Chucky21 wrote:Well obviously with UChicago you would be set for biglaw in Chicago

whoa whoa whoa... let's not go overboard. Chicago market is TOUGH. I know plenty of people who struck out there. But yeah, Boston firms should love UChicago degree with Boston ties. I think you'd have a great advantage over many of the BU grads simply because of school diversity.

I don't know enough about BU's NLJ250 data to make an educated response to this, but $250k is a lot easier to pay off with a biglaw job than $80k without one.

I think its worth noting that two of the posters telling you to go to Chicago are current BU students who are generally staunch BU advocates.

Nelson wrote:

kerrigaa wrote:

Nelson wrote:Why are these the only options? What are your numbers and when did you apply? Seems like a random pair of schools to be choosing between. A lower T14 with money would seem to be the happy medium.

168/4.0 Applied to UVA, Mich, Cornell, BC,BU, Georgetown in early November and Chicago and Duke late December. Waitlisted at all except the 3 I'm questioning and Georgetown, but I've pretty much ruled Georgetown out.

You should retake and reapply. You're leaving money on the table.

+1

Don't waste that GPA. A 168 is a great score, but you can do better and it will make a world of difference if you do. Break in to the 170s and it will be T14s giving you 25k per year. If you're going to be a lawyer, it'll be a long time before you have the opportunity to earn 75k+ (scholarship offers as earnings) with just 3 months of hard study.

I had the exact same choice between the exact same 3 schools, and went with BU. A quarter million in debt? That's crazy.

kerrigaa wrote:Waitlisted at all except the 3 I'm questioning and Georgetown, but I've pretty much ruled Georgetown out.

Why?

Just to add a little more to my previous response:

I also had a 25K offer from BU, but I shared with them some of my other offers (had 30K a year from WashU and Illinois, 25K from Washington & Lee, along with admissions from Chicago and Cornell). BU was willing to up my offer by giving me free 1st year on-campus housing, which increased the scholarship package to a total of 85K over 3 years.

I knew I wanted to be on the east coast, likely in NY, but would have been fine with Boston. I wasn't going to go and put myself a quarter million in debt, so I had to turn Chicago down. Cornell ended up negotiating some scholarship, but nothing close to the BU offer. Honestly, I think that if you are from Boston and definitely want to stay there, BU would be a fine choice. But if you want anything other than Boston, then Chicago obviously wins. That being said, I just know that I personally could never have done a quarter million in debt. Just seems like too much debt for a young person to have to take on.

Go to the highest ranked school.

RobotGardener wrote:Go to the highest ranked school.

Saying this as some kind of categorical blanket principle is very poor advice. I looked through 3 posts you made regarding school selections today, for 3 different students making choices. In each case, your input was: pick the highest ranked school. Very poor categorical advice. That type of advice typically reeks of 0L-level misconception.

kaiser wrote:

RobotGardener wrote:Go to the highest ranked school.

Saying this as some kind of categorical blanket principle is very poor advice. I looked through 3 posts you made regarding school selections today, for 3 different students making choices. In each case, your input was: pick the highest ranked school. Very poor categorical advice. That type of advice typically reeks of 0L-level misconception.

I am not a 0L.

I should have linked to this: http://top-law-schools.com/forums/viewt ... 1&t=181092

mps102 wrote:

kerrigaa wrote:Waitlisted at all except the 3 I'm questioning and Georgetown, but I've pretty much ruled Georgetown out.

Why?

Why was I waitlisted or why have I ruled Georgetown out? If the latter--because I wasn't offered money at Georgetown and I'd rather go to one of these three.

As for retaking, yes I could possibly score 170+, but there's also a chance I don't. My first score was 157 which I'd attribute to lack of prep and working full-time. While at school I had a lot more time to prepare for the LSAT, hence the 11 point jump. If I were to take a year off and reapply I'd have to continue to work full-time and don't see myself being able to put in enough prep time.

Once I receive word from Cornell about financial aid I'll use that (if there is any) and the BU scholly to ask Chicago if they can do anything for me. $250k in debt plus UG loans kind of scares me, but from what I've heard Chicago does have a good LRAP program if I decided to go the Public Interest route.

Wait, you have undergrad debt in ADDITION to what would be a quarter million of debt from Chicago? Cmon man, I know Chicago is a good school, but thats just an insane amount of debt. Don't do that to yourself. I tried to negotiate with Chicago by showing them my BU and Cornell scholarships, and not only did they say no, but they included some snarky response like "For us to negotiate, you have to submit an offer from a peer school."