Top Law Schools

Need to decide very soon. T14 school ranked 10-12.

Name the school - it's really not going to out you in any way.

Answer the standard: where do you want to work geographically? what do you want to do?

Did you negotiate?

What I'd do, is email GTown with that 105, and get money from them, then email the school you want, and leverage the Gtown offer against them.

I know someone who successfully got 60k from a school in that range in that precise position.

GWU with $105,000 or one of Michigan, Duke & Northwestern at sticker ? Or is the T-14 school Cornell or Georgetown ?

If Georgetown, take the money at GWU if you've already asked them for financial help & received nothing.

If any of Northwestern, Duke, Michigan or Cornell, then the issue becomes: Do you want the money now or later ?

Calculate the total COA for each law school to determine whether or not you have the stomach to turn down the $105,000 grant.

I made this same decision last year and took a T14 at sticker. Neither options are really that appealing. The T14 equals massive debt but the job prospects at T14s are far and away superior to GW.

The problem with 105k at GW is that you will still be around 150k in debt at graduation once you factor in interest. I was also not particularly interested in DC though I did not mind it. I also wanted the exit options that biglaw provides which would be much harder to get from GW. I've been happy with my decision so far, but the risk for the T14 hasn't really kicked in yet. The real risk I feel is that I might not last long enough in biglaw to put a significant dent in my debt (granted I haven't gone through OCI yet either). I'll probably be around 250k in debt by the time I graduate. That is a serious amount of debt, but I felt that 250k for a T14 made much more sense than 150k for GW.

bk187 wrote:The problem with 105k at GW is that you will still be around 150k in debt at graduation once you factor in interest.

This. You're still going to need biglaw to pay off your debts. You might as well maximize your chances of it. GW got slaughtered these past few years.

If this was UT/Vandy/UCLA/USC then taking the money would be credited, but GW has terrible placement stats and you need to discount their stats even further because of all of the IP people. I'd take any T14 sticker over GW.

Consider asking GWU for more scholarship money based on your T-14 acceptance since the worst that can happen is probably a polite "we're out of money".

Yeah once you break $150K worth of debt for a non-T14, you might as well break $250K+ for a non-GTown T14. It's regrettable, but it just makes more sense at that level of debt.

This depends entirely on the T14 (the placement at each school varies, their COA, etc).

What will the COA be at the T14 vs GW?

Northwestern sticker or GW with 105K

pisagua wrote:Northwestern sticker or GW with 105K

Northwestern by a mile bro

pisagua wrote:Northwestern sticker or GW with 105K

I'm turning down 90k at GW for NU, but I'm Chicago biglaw or bust, so take that FWIW.

Doorkeeper wrote:

bk187 wrote:The problem with 105k at GW is that you will still be around 150k in debt at graduation once you factor in interest.

This. You're still going to need biglaw to pay off your debts. You might as well maximize your chances of it. GW got slaughtered these past few years.

Wait, is the 105K the scholarship amount, or the OP's estimated CoA?

You're telling me GW costs (total CoA) $255K at sticker?

I'll tell you what a summer associate once told me:

If you can't get a job, you won't be able to pay back any debt, whether it's 100K or 200K. So go to the best school you can get into.

I won't say that is good advice for all, but in your case I think it is. GW has poor placement, whereas NU has excellent placement. Indeed, placement that is disproportionately high relative to its ranking.

I'm in a similar position. I got 90k to GW. I'm going to try and use it to get some money out of Penn.

flcath wrote:Wait, is the 105K the scholarship amount, or the OP's estimated CoA?

You're telling me GW costs (total CoA) $255K at sticker?

Scholarship. And with interest, yes it does.

bk187 wrote:

flcath wrote:Wait, is the 105K the scholarship amount, or the OP's estimated CoA?

You're telling me GW costs (total CoA) $255K at sticker?

Scholarship. And with interest, yes it does.

What does that mean "with interest"? Debt amounts are always quoted as what's outstanding at graduation, not whatever number of nominal dollars you'll have to ultimately pay back. (If we did that, we should also quote his salary in terms of inflated future dollars.)

So you can include the interest that accrues during the 3 years he's at school (which won't be that much, given that on average interest is only accruing for 1.5 years, and some of the loans will be fully subsidized by the gov't), but not more than that.

I genuinely, truly hope that no one actually spends $255K to go to law school. That would be tragic.

Uhh people do. If you accrue the interest... with max Stafford 6.8% and 7.9% for Plus, with tuition at 73,000 per year, you get $253,000 total debt by the end. That's a lot.

OP's debt at GW will be closer to 135,000. I'd still take NU.

flcath wrote:What does that mean "with interest"? Debt amounts are always quoted as what's outstanding at graduation, not whatever number of nominal dollars you'll have to ultimately pay back. (If we did that, we should also quote his salary in terms of inflated future dollars.)

So you can include the interest that accrues during the 3 years he's at school (which won't be that much, given that on average interest is only accruing for 1.5 years, and some of the loans will be fully subsidized by the gov't), but not more than that.

I genuinely, truly hope that no one actually spends $255K to go to law school. That would be tragic.

With interest means the debt one would have at graduation. What are you talking about the interest that accrues won't be that much? None of the loans will be fully subsidized (this past year was the last year that they gave out subsidized Staffords). So basically someone paying sticker at GW (which is $75,000 per year (LinkRemoved)) will end up with 7% interest on about 20k (the limit for unsubsidized Staffords) and 8% interest on about 55k (GradPLUS which has no limit). It gets disbursed once each semester. The first semester's disbursal will be accrue around $10,000 in interest in 3 years. Granted every other semester will accrue less but that's just to point out how much interest can accrue from a single semester's worth of debt.

Someone taking out only loans for GW will be over $260,000 in debt (use this calculator (LinkRemoved)) by the time they graduate. This doesn't even count if that person has to take out loans for the summer or any possible tuition increases. OP's scholarship will only put them in around $136k debt, but that's still too rich for my blood for GW (I realize I miscalculated it earlier but I still think that a T14 at sticker is probably a better choice, though I think it could be close).

bk187 wrote:

flcath wrote:What does that mean "with interest"? Debt amounts are always quoted as what's outstanding at graduation, not whatever number of nominal dollars you'll have to ultimately pay back. (If we did that, we should also quote his salary in terms of inflated future dollars.)

So you can include the interest that accrues during the 3 years he's at school (which won't be that much, given that on average interest is only accruing for 1.5 years, and some of the loans will be fully subsidized by the gov't), but not more than that.

I genuinely, truly hope that no one actually spends $255K to go to law school. That would be tragic.

With interest means the debt one would have at graduation. What are you talking about the interest that accrues won't be that much? None of the loans will be fully subsidized (this past year was the last year that they gave out subsidized Staffords). So basically someone paying sticker at GW (which is $75,000 per year (LinkRemoved)) will end up with 7% interest on about 20k (the limit for unsubsidized Staffords) and 8% interest on about 55k (GradPLUS which has no limit). It gets disbursed once each semester. The first semester's disbursal will be accrue around $10,000 in interest in 3 years. Granted every other semester will accrue less but that's just to point out how much interest can accrue from a single semester's worth of debt.

Someone taking out only loans for GW will be over $260,000 in debt (use this calculator (LinkRemoved)) by the time they graduate. This doesn't even count if that person has to take out loans for the summer or any possible tuition increases. OP's scholarship will only put them in around $136k debt, but that's still too rich for my blood for GW (I realize I miscalculated it earlier but I still think that a T14 at sticker is probably a better choice, though I think it could be close).

To clarify my previous posts: I found that figure ($255K) so outrageous, that I wanted to dispel the possibility that you were using some bizarre scare-tactic method of expressing the figure. (E.g., you'll ultimately pay back $360K for that $200K house.)

I don't post very much in the 0L threads, and I had no idea that these poor kids--and I say 'kids' because I cannot imagine a working adult doing this--took out this kind of money. I get saddened when I think about my ~$70K, and how it'll force me to stay in BL for far longer than I want to.

flcath wrote:To clarify my previous posts: I found that figure ($255K) so outrageous, that I wanted to dispel the possibility that you were using some bizarre scare-tactic method of expressing the figure. (E.g., you'll ultimately pay back $360K for that $200K house.)

I don't post very much in the 0L threads, and I had no idea that these poor kids--and I say 'kids' because I cannot imagine a working adult doing this--took out this kind of money. I get saddened when I think about my ~$70K, and how it'll force me to stay in BL for far longer than I want to.

Fair enough. This is the same kind of debt that people are taking out when they pay sticker for T14's.

And it seems like you could pay down 70k with 2 years in biglaw (though maybe that is far longer than you want to be there).