Top Law Schools

Which T14 schools would you be willing to go at sticker?
Assume you want big law and the expected debt at graduation is $200k-300k.
I know this has been asked before but I wanted to do a poll.

*edited to better reflect what I want to know.
Also, the system doesn't allow me to put more than 10 poll options, so could you specify which school among Penn Berkeley UVA you'd be willing to attend? Thanks!

go-backk wrote:What is the lowest ranked T14 school you would be willing to go at sticker?
Assume you want big law and the expected debt at graduation is $200 k.
I know this has been asked before but I wanted to do a poll.

Many of these schools sticker + interest is closer to 300K than 200K.

I see why you ranked Penn, UVA, and Berkeley together, but of those I would only attend Berkeley at sticker in this situation.

Poll is dumb because rank doesn't necessarily correlate with BigLaw prospects (and therefore, ability to pay off 200K debt). For instance, Northwestern's BigLaw (500+) prospects are better than Michigan, Duke, even NYU. So, despite its lower rank, Northwestern may be a more reasonable bet than some higher ranked schools.

y no cooley?

LRAP is another consideration

WhiteyCakes wrote:LRAP is another consideration

Just cop that public interest job, which doesn't exist and is harder than big law to obtain.

ITT: People paying sticker at a T14 click the school they are attending.

drmguy wrote:ITT: People paying sticker at a T14 click the school they are attending.

Exactly.

Desert Fox wrote:

WhiteyCakes wrote:LRAP is another consideration

Just cop that public interest job, which doesn't exist and is harder than big law to obtain.

No, just no. 1) It's not easy to quantify something like that and 2) They're probably about the same--they just use different factors in selecting applicants. You could have a shit GPA but have interned at your local state prosecutor's office, taken all the crim focused classes, done mock trial and networked--you have a shot at a DA's office. Fall below the biglaw GPA cutoff at your top 14 and see what happens when you bid on firms and mass mail.

While I also marked the Penn, UVA, Berkeley option, but Penn is the only one of those I would pay sticker.

drive4showLSAT4dough wrote:Poll is dumb because rank doesn't necessarily correlate with BigLaw prospects (and therefore, ability to pay off 200K debt). For instance, Northwestern's BigLaw (500+) prospects are better than Michigan, Duke, even NYU. So, despite its lower rank, Northwestern may be a more reasonable bet than some higher ranked schools.

LOL, yeah, ok.

NYU.

drive4showLSAT4dough wrote:Poll is dumb because rank doesn't necessarily correlate with BigLaw prospects (and therefore, ability to pay off 200K debt). For instance, Northwestern's BigLaw (500+) prospects are better than Michigan, Duke, even NYU. So, despite its lower rank, Northwestern may be a more reasonable bet than some higher ranked schools.

Northwestern's BigLaw placement statistics are likely skewed due to a larger percentage of the students having dat fulltime WE; in addition, a non-trivial number of NYU's grads go public interest, particularly as compared to other schools. Agreed, however, that rank doesn't necessarily correlate with BigLaw prospects.

The answer to this question (at least for me) is all about timing. At this point, I wouldn't pay sticker anywhere except HYSC. If I had honestly answered this post a year ago, I would have probably answered All Of The Above. I think people on this site forget how hard it is coming out of undergrad with a humanities major, and how even a coinflip's shot at biglaw sounds good to that person. Rational? Definitely not. But honest.

drive4showLSAT4dough wrote:Poll is dumb because rank doesn't necessarily correlate with BigLaw prospects (and therefore, ability to pay off 200K debt). For instance, Northwestern's BigLaw (500+) prospects are better than Michigan, Duke, even NYU. So, despite its lower rank, Northwestern may be a more reasonable bet than some higher ranked schools.

LOL, good analysis! Same line of reasoning suggests that Northwestern is better than Yale.

JamesDean1955 wrote:

drive4showLSAT4dough wrote:Poll is dumb because rank doesn't necessarily correlate with BigLaw prospects (and therefore, ability to pay off 200K debt). For instance, Northwestern's BigLaw (500+) prospects are better than Michigan, Duke, even NYU. So, despite its lower rank, Northwestern may be a more reasonable bet than some higher ranked schools.

LOL, yeah, ok.

LOL getting your emplyment placement from US News and the TLS rumor mill probably isn't the best way to go.

http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNL ... 0106165851
http://www.lawschooltransparency.com/tag/nlj-250/
http://abovethelaw.com/2011/03/best-law ... -job-2011/
http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNL ... 2443758843

law2015 wrote: LOL, good analysis! Same line of reasoning suggests that Northwestern is better than Yale.

LOL same line of reasoning that fails to consider that Yale, unlike NYU and the other non HYS schools below NU on the list, has a large percentage of the class verified as going to federal clerkships (and which the graph versions of the nlj charts actually shows).

Usually this is when the "but NYU puts a lot of peeps in PI jobs" thing comes up. But, as a few posters discovered some time back, NYU counts school funded "fellowships" i.e. paying students who have no jobs--as Public Interest

Suralin wrote:

drive4showLSAT4dough wrote:Poll is dumb because rank doesn't necessarily correlate with BigLaw prospects (and therefore, ability to pay off 200K debt). For instance, Northwestern's BigLaw (500+) prospects are better than Michigan, Duke, even NYU. So, despite its lower rank, Northwestern may be a more reasonable bet than some higher ranked schools.

Northwestern's BigLaw placement statistics are likely skewed due to a larger percentage of the students having dat fulltime WE; in addition, a non-trivial number of NYU's grads go public interest, particularly as compared to other schools. Agreed, however, that rank doesn't necessarily correlate with BigLaw prospects.

TCR

BruceWayne wrote:

JamesDean1955 wrote:

drive4showLSAT4dough wrote:Poll is dumb because rank doesn't necessarily correlate with BigLaw prospects (and therefore, ability to pay off 200K debt). For instance, Northwestern's BigLaw (500+) prospects are better than Michigan, Duke, even NYU. So, despite its lower rank, Northwestern may be a more reasonable bet than some higher ranked schools.

LOL, yeah, ok.

LOL getting your emplyment placement from US News and the TLS rumor mill probably isn't the best way to go.

http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNL ... 0106165851
http://www.lawschooltransparency.com/tag/nlj-250/
http://abovethelaw.com/2011/03/best-law ... -job-2011/
http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNL ... 2443758843

law2015 wrote: LOL, good analysis! Same line of reasoning suggests that Northwestern is better than Yale.

LOL same line of reasoning that fails to consider that Yale, unlike NYU and the other non HYS schools below NU on the list, has a large percentage of the class going to federal clerkships.

See Suralin's post above. Also, you are consistently one of the most annoying TLS posters constantly bitching about the economy, even though I agree with a lot of what you say. I didn't "assume" anything. Thanks for the links to a bunch of well known websites on legal employment outcomes that everyone has read 1,000 times.

JamesDean1955 wrote:See Suralin's post above. Also, you are consistently one of the most annoying TLS posters constantly bitching about the economy, even though I agree with a lot of what you say. I didn't "assume" anything. Thanks for the links to a bunch of well known websites on legal employment outcomes that everyone has read 1,000 times.

Lol see my post above about NYU counting school funded "fellowships" as public interest jobs.

And you've read those websites a 1,000 times and still don't understand what they mean?

law2015 wrote:

drive4showLSAT4dough wrote:Poll is dumb because rank doesn't necessarily correlate with BigLaw prospects (and therefore, ability to pay off 200K debt). For instance, Northwestern's BigLaw (500+) prospects are better than Michigan, Duke, even NYU. So, despite its lower rank, Northwestern may be a more reasonable bet than some higher ranked schools.

LOL, good analysis! Same line of reasoning suggests that Northwestern is better than Yale.

No it doesn't. Median student at NU has a better chance at a 160K job than median student at NYU.

Evidence:
http://www.lstscorereports.com/?school= ... =employers
http://www.lstscorereports.com/?school= ... =employers

That's all that my line of reasoning suggests. Has nothing to do with "better" (whatever you assume that term to mean), prestige, USNews ranking, size of Law library, percentage of aspie students, or anything else.

BruceWayne wrote:

JamesDean1955 wrote:See Suralin's post above. Also, you are consistently one of the most annoying TLS posters constantly bitching about the economy, even though I agree with a lot of what you say. I didn't "assume" anything. Thanks for the links to a bunch of well known websites on legal employment outcomes that everyone has read 1,000 times.

Lol see my post above about NYU counting school funded "fellowships" as public interest jobs.

And you've read those websites a 1,000 times and still don't understand what they mean?

Ok, but you're failing to address the skewness of NW's employment outcomes. I really don't care one way or the other, but I happen to know quite a few people at both schools that contradict that NU > NYU for biglaw, especially considering many of the people going to NU have excellent work experience (e.g. investment banking).

And yes, I happen to be a believer that LST, ATL, and TLS are generally over-pessimistic when it comes to these things. I'm not discounting the data or that things are bad. But I have personal experiences outside of law school that have shown me things, albeit shitty, and not quite as bad as everyone says it is. So sue me for being an optimist and getting annoyed when you are constantly posting redundant information on how bad things are. Do you really believe it's that much better in other industries? I know from experience it's worse in at least a few other big industries.

I don't think any school (including HYS) is worth 200k in debt. I'm taking out about 115k or so for H and, despite having an SA lined up, I am still highly uncomfortable with it. I'm always shocked by the way people underestimate how much paying debt sucks. That 3k/month toward debt service may seem like nothing when you are a student but it really sucks when you actually have to work for it.

drive4showLSAT4dough wrote:

law2015 wrote:

drive4showLSAT4dough wrote:Poll is dumb because rank doesn't necessarily correlate with BigLaw prospects (and therefore, ability to pay off 200K debt). For instance, Northwestern's BigLaw (500+) prospects are better than Michigan, Duke, even NYU. So, despite its lower rank, Northwestern may be a more reasonable bet than some higher ranked schools.

LOL, good analysis! Same line of reasoning suggests that Northwestern is better than Yale.

No it doesn't. Median student at NU has a better chance at a 160K job than median student at NYU.

Evidence:
http://www.lstscorereports.com/?school= ... =employers
http://www.lstscorereports.com/?school= ... =employers

That's all that my line of reasoning suggests. Has nothing to do with "better" (whatever you assume that term to mean), prestige, USNews ranking, size of Law library, percentage of aspie students, or anything else.

Your line of reasoning demonstrates that a median student at NU more often has a 160k job than a median student at NYU, not that a median student at NU has a better chance at getting a 160k job than a student at NYU.

Simply put, placement statistics != placement ability, or even more simply: what job a graduate has, is not the same as what job(s) a graduate has the capability of getting.

drive4showLSAT4dough wrote:

law2015 wrote:

drive4showLSAT4dough wrote:Poll is dumb because rank doesn't necessarily correlate with BigLaw prospects (and therefore, ability to pay off 200K debt). For instance, Northwestern's BigLaw (500+) prospects are better than Michigan, Duke, even NYU. So, despite its lower rank, Northwestern may be a more reasonable bet than some higher ranked schools.

LOL, good analysis! Same line of reasoning suggests that Northwestern is better than Yale.

No it doesn't. Median student at NU has a better chance at a 160K job than median student at NYU.

Evidence:
http://www.lstscorereports.com/?school= ... =employers
http://www.lstscorereports.com/?school= ... =employers

That's all that my line of reasoning suggests. Has nothing to do with "better" (whatever you assume that term to mean), prestige, USNews ranking, size of Law library, percentage of aspie students, or anything else.

You are not accounting for self selection into PI which is pretty big at NYU. At NYU more than 80 percent of OCI participants received at least one offer. I doubt NW does better.

Suralin wrote:

drive4showLSAT4dough wrote:

law2015 wrote:

drive4showLSAT4dough wrote:Poll is dumb because rank doesn't necessarily correlate with BigLaw prospects (and therefore, ability to pay off 200K debt). For instance, Northwestern's BigLaw (500+) prospects are better than Michigan, Duke, even NYU. So, despite its lower rank, Northwestern may be a more reasonable bet than some higher ranked schools.

LOL, good analysis! Same line of reasoning suggests that Northwestern is better than Yale.

No it doesn't. Median student at NU has a better chance at a 160K job than median student at NYU.

Evidence:
http://www.lstscorereports.com/?school= ... =employers
http://www.lstscorereports.com/?school= ... =employers

That's all that my line of reasoning suggests. Has nothing to do with "better" (whatever you assume that term to mean), prestige, USNews ranking, size of Law library, percentage of aspie students, or anything else.

Your line of reasoning demonstrates that a median student at NU more often has a 160k job than a median student at NYU, not that a median student at NU has a better chance at getting a 160k job than a student at NYU.

Simply put, placement statistics != placement ability, or even more simply: what job a graduate has, is not the same as what job(s) a graduate has the capability of getting.

And from the bolded, as you so succinctly stated, I conclude that Northwestern is the lowest rank school I would attend with 200K-300K debt .... The End.


EDIT: I now see that OP has edited the original question from "What is the lowest T14 you would attend at sticker?" to "What are ALL of the T14s you would attend at sticker?" My entire argument addressed the first question.