Top Law Schools

Hey all,

So I got accepted into Whittier (T4) with a $27,500 merit scholarship, and Southwestern (T3) with no scholarship. I would have to relocate to attend Whittier, so I am estimating about $15,000 of that going to housing. My main priority is transferring out to a T1 or T2. My good friend just got accepted into Pepperdine after placing in the top 10% at Whittier, so I have some hope for that school. I am confident I can place in the top 10% at either school. My question is, keeping in mind that transferring is my main priority, do I take the scholarship despite half of it going to relocation costs, or pay sticker at Southwestern?
Any advice would be appreciated...Thanks.

Seriously? Another one?

Neither

Retake or dont go

Less than 100 days till the October LSAT. Better get started.

mikebag23 wrote:Hey all,

So I got accepted into Whittier (T4) with a $27,500 merit scholarship, and Southwestern (T3) with no scholarship. I would have to relocate to attend Whittier, so I am estimating about $15,000 of that going to housing. My main priority is transferring out to a T1 or T2. My good friend just got accepted into Pepperdine after placing in the top 10% at Whittier, so I have some hope for that school. I am confident I can place in the top 10% at either school. My question is, keeping in mind that transferring is my main priority, do I take the scholarship despite half of it going to relocation costs, or pay sticker at Southwestern?
Any advice would be appreciated...Thanks.

DO NOT ATTEND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You can't be confident about placing top 10%. That is just false. You must attend a school you'd be ok graduating from and these are not that.

mikebag23 wrote:I am confident I can place in the top 10% at either school

I'm sure you are, slugger.

InGoodFaith wrote:Seriously? Another one?

Get a life bud...Im just a noob asking for advice...I need to repost cause of smarta55es like you who are of no help and need to make themselves feel better during standard work hours of your sad, unemployed life.

mikebag23 wrote:

InGoodFaith wrote:Seriously? Another one?

Get a life bud...Im just a noob asking for advice...I need to repost cause of smarta55es like you who are of no help and need to make themselves feel better during standard work hours of your sad, unemployed life.

I'm actually posting at work. It's just a really boring, low stress job. Thanks for your concern.

mikebag23 wrote:

InGoodFaith wrote:Seriously? Another one?

Get a life bud...Im just a noob asking for advice...I need to repost cause of smarta55es like you who are of no help and need to make themselves feel better during standard work hours of your sad, unemployed life.

Seriously guys stop being such a55holes he is just asking for help

mikebag23 wrote:

InGoodFaith wrote:Seriously? Another one?

Get a life bud...Im just a noob asking for advice...I need to repost cause of smarta55es like you who are of no help and need to make themselves feel better during standard work hours of your sad, unemployed life.

I'm one here not trying to criticize. But OP, seriously do not attend these schools. Cali market sucks. Your friend who transferred to Pepperdine likely is paying sticker and is therefore making a horrible decision himself. These schools are simply non-starters

abc12345675 wrote:

mikebag23 wrote:

InGoodFaith wrote:Seriously? Another one?

Get a life bud...Im just a noob asking for advice...I need to repost cause of smarta55es like you who are of no help and need to make themselves feel better during standard work hours of your sad, unemployed life.

I'm one here not trying to criticize. But OP, seriously do not attend these schools. Cali market sucks. Your friend who transferred to Pepperdine likely is paying sticker and is therefore making a horrible decision himself. These schools are simply non-starters

+1

I have a good friend with a Whittier J.D. He's making okay money 70-80k - after a stint of working poop-law - but not very happy with his work. Further, with the COL of SoCal, plus student loan payments, that 70-80k goes buh-bye fairly quickly. And he's one of the lucky ones. Needless to say, he regrets having gone, and advises everyone considering the school to stay away.

If you're dead set on attending, I'd ask for $$$$$$$$$$. SMU sticker should have been scratched off of your list like yesterday.

InGoodFaith wrote:Seriously? Another one?

Call me a douchebag but seriously TITCR. OP, don't go to any of these schools, but I'm pretty sure that you would've known this if you made any use of the search function.

Transferring from Whittier to Pepperdine still leaves you knee deep in shit.

timbs4339 wrote:Transferring from Whittier to Pepperdine still leaves you knee deep in shit.

only knee deep? i was thinking neck.

abc12345675 wrote:These schools are simply non-starters

Just numbers.

Whittier:
Underemployment rate (unemployed + non-professional + part-time): 66%
Legal employment rate (FT-BR employment - firms with <10 people - school funded): 11%

Southwestern:
Underemployment rate (unemployed + non-professional + part-time): 39%
Legal employment rate (FT-BR employment - firms with <10 people - school funded): 14%

Your call.

employment_numbers wrote:

abc12345675 wrote:These schools are simply non-starters

Just numbers.

Whittier:
Underemployment rate (unemployed + non-professional + part-time): 66%
Legal employment rate (FT-BR employment - firms with <10 people - school funded): 11%

Southwestern:
Underemployment rate (unemployed + non-professional + part-time): 39%
Legal employment rate (FT-BR employment - firms with <10 people - school funded): 14%

Your call.

I appreciate what you're trying to do, but you're doing more harm than good. Your numbers and process are flatly wrong.

Whittier, using your computation, has 76 in your underemployed category. Divide 76 into 123, you get 62%. Divide it into 120 (i.e. subtracting unknowns) and you get 63%. It looks like you subtracted unknowns from the denominator and then double counted non-professional part-timers. I have no idea what you did with SW.

For your legal employment rate, you're being misleading. First, not all school-funded jobs fall into the full-time BPR or long-term, full-time BPR categories. Second, not all graduates in non-solo shops of 2-10 attorneys are hanging a shingle together. Many suspect that it is a non-negligible number, but there's insufficient data to back this up. By all means, flag schools that place an inordinate amount of graduates in these jobs so that people know to ask questions of those schools, but it is irresponsible and damaging to put a worse face on the numbers than adequate evidence supports.

I suggest you use LST's Employment and Under-Employment Scores instead. It will save you some time and encourage people to look at things for themselves instead of believing your analysis.

.

mikebag23 wrote:

InGoodFaith wrote:Seriously? Another one?

Get a life bud...Im just a noob asking for advice...I need to repost cause of smarta55es like you who are of no help and need to make themselves feel better during standard work hours of your sad, unemployed life.

You really can't go wrong with these options, both Whittier and Southwestern are great choices. You'll be raking in $160k/year shortly after you graduate, so don't worry about the debt. The economy will rebound and jobs will be plentiful, so also don't worry about competing with Stanford grads, Berkeley grads, UCLA grads, USC grads, Hastings grads, Davis grads, etc. And finally, top 10%? Seriously, you could probably miss every class in law school and only show up for the final and get top 10%, so have no fears about that either. There's really no point in retaking and reapplying, because the best that could happen is that you get into a better school, and as I've mentioned Southwestern and Whittier are already really really really good schools.

mikebag23 wrote:

InGoodFaith wrote:Seriously? Another one?

Get a life bud...Im just a noob asking for advice...I need to repost cause of smarta55es like you who are of no help and need to make themselves feel better during standard work hours of your sad, unemployed life.

Alright I'll bite since you are a self-proclaimed noob. Your odds of getting a job at either one are very, very bad.

-At Whittier, only 21 of 123 graduates (17%) got full-time, bar passage-required jobs. Might be the worst in the country for all I know.
-At Southwestern, 34.5% got full-time, bar passage-required jobs. About half of the people who were "lucky" enough to land these jobs were in firms of 10 or less. Good luck paying back that debt

These are the facts. Here you go: http://employmentsummary.abaquestionnaire.org/home.aspx No one here is going to tell you to go to either school, because going to either school would be absolutely idiotic.

Retake or don't go.

I'd rather do heroin with an AIDS needle than go to those skoolz at those prices.

rad lulz wrote:I'd rather do heroin with an AIDS needle than go to those skoolz at those prices.

Thank you. I've been waiting for such a comment so that I could use this meme:

mikebag23 wrote:

InGoodFaith wrote:Seriously? Another one?

Get a life bud...Im just a noob asking for advice...I need to repost cause of smarta55es like you who are of no help and need to make themselves feel better during standard work hours of your sad, unemployed life.

anyone who uses this site would know what 90% of the TLS users would say to both your options: RETAKE or DONT GO TO LAW SCHOOL. No one is going to support you going to two shitty law schools.

Systematic1 wrote:

mikebag23 wrote:

InGoodFaith wrote:Seriously? Another one?

Get a life bud...Im just a noob asking for advice...I need to repost cause of smarta55es like you who are of no help and need to make themselves feel better during standard work hours of your sad, unemployed life.

You really can't go wrong with these options, both Whittier and Southwestern are great choices. You'll be raking in $160k/year shortly after you graduate, so don't worry about the debt. The economy will rebound and jobs will be plentiful, so also don't worry about competing with Stanford grads, Berkeley grads, UCLA grads, USC grads, Hastings grads, Davis grads, etc. And finally, top 10%? Seriously, you could probably miss every class in law school and only show up for the final and get top 10%, so have no fears about that either. There's really no point in retaking and reapplying, because the best that could happen is that you get into a better school, and as I've mentioned Southwestern and Whittier are already really really really good schools.

You're trying too hard

Man, this forum is good at chasing away the new posters who ask about T2/T3/T4 schools. I wonder how many of them actually stay long enough to read all the way down these threads.

rickgrimes69 wrote:

Systematic1 wrote:

mikebag23 wrote:

InGoodFaith wrote:Seriously? Another one?

Get a life bud...Im just a noob asking for advice...I need to repost cause of smarta55es like you who are of no help and need to make themselves feel better during standard work hours of your sad, unemployed life.

You really can't go wrong with these options, both Whittier and Southwestern are great choices. You'll be raking in $160k/year shortly after you graduate, so don't worry about the debt. The economy will rebound and jobs will be plentiful, so also don't worry about competing with Stanford grads, Berkeley grads, UCLA grads, USC grads, Hastings grads, Davis grads, etc. And finally, top 10%? Seriously, you could probably miss every class in law school and only show up for the final and get top 10%, so have no fears about that either. There's really no point in retaking and reapplying, because the best that could happen is that you get into a better school, and as I've mentioned Southwestern and Whittier are already really really really good schools.

You're trying too hard

All assumptions that would have to be made to go to either school.

Wily wrote:Man, this forum is good at chasing away the new posters who ask about T2/T3/T4 schools. I wonder how many of them actually stay long enough to read all the way down these threads.

Yeah, that is the down side.... People really can learn a lot if they don't take it personal, get pissed off and leave.