Northwestern ($$$) v. Duke ($$$) v. UVA ($$) Forum

[framboozer]

Hello all. I’ve been having quite a wild cycle. I’d say I'm out-performing my numbers and late applications (submitted late January through mid-February) at lease scholarship-wise. You can see my full cycle thus far here, because I haven't included all of my options:

http://www.lawschoolnumbers.com/framboozer

Before I applied, I predicted that I would be choosing between Penn, Duke and UVA and I was hoping for like $75-90K at Duke. Well obviously, my cycle turned out way different than I had imagined. This is comforting because I seriously under-performed on the LSAT and even had crazy notions of re-taking in June to get off waitlists, but I already took the test twice and was crippled by nerves despite being extremely well prepared.

My Options:

Northwestern: $150,000 Scholarship
Pros:
-Attended ASW and really liked the school and the people I met there. Everyone was very informed about what they were getting into and the students were obviously very happy with Northwestern for the most part. They were pretty frank about the school's shortcomings too.
-$$$$$$$$. The named scholarship is pretty hard to turn down. It was so out of nowhere for me. I guess I under-estimated my softs and the value of well put together application.

Cons:
-I have absolutely zero interest ever working in Chicago.
-In fact, while I found Chicago to be a nice city, I had several creepy encounters that would require their post. This is way more creepiness than I ever had when I lived in New York. The downtown area around Northwestern isn't exactly popping with bars and restaurants and instead fills up with bums at night. One of the current students who walked to school even said that she took cabs home during finals time. Most definitely not interested in that. The hotel I stayed at advised me to take a cab to the subway stop to get to the airport. You get the picture.
-High cost of living.
-I'd have to get rid of my car that I literally just bought a few months ago. That's a bad investment.
-I'd have to set up an entire apartment in Chicago, which is expensive and incredibly inconvenient because I'm not from the Midwest.
-My SO would be a 2L at Duke and this kind of distance is not ideal. We're not even from the same part of the country so we wouldn't even be heading to even remotely the same locations on school breaks.
-Miserable weather, which would make commuting not fun.


Duke: $120,000 Scholarship
Pros:
-Slightly cheaper tuition. Significantly cheaper cost of living. Durham has a lot of cheap and tasty options for going out that would cost $$$ anywhere else.
-My SO of over 5 years is a current 1L. Therefore, I have an apartment ready to move into and we would be splitting living costs. No need to buy furniture and I also have a network and support system.
-SO is a good student. By that I mean he is able to keep on top of all of his homework and sticks to a strict schedule. He's never the type of person who's in the library after 11 PM or anything like that because he doesn't procrastinate at all. I could seriously use that structure and if I went to Duke I'd have little choice but to do the same.
-I'd already know a bunch of people who had all of the professors and 1L classes I'd be taking and this would be an immense help.
-It's really easy to get back and forth from Durham to my hometown because there are frequent cheap non-stop flights that are less than 1.5 hours.
-Nice weather!

Cons:
-Scholarship was raised from $105,000 to $120,000, but it's not a named scholarship like Northwestern's and obviously it's not worth as much.
-I've gotten into several higher ranked schools so obviously less prestige. Would that translate into lower quality of jobs? Not all biglaw is equal.


UVA: $75,000 Scholarship
Pros:
-Highest ranked school to give me money thus far.
-It has the most comprehensive program and coursework for the area of law I'm most interested in. No I'm not talking about specialty rankings. I'm talking about a careful perusal of the course offerings, clinics and extras at every school in the T14.
-Charlotteville also has high quality of life and I believe lower cost of living, but I haven't visited yet.
-UVA is the closest school to where I'm from and my parents are (less than 5 hours) and it's also only 3.5 hours away from Duke and my SO.
-Still pretty nice weather.

Cons:
-Most expensive of the three options
-The school-funded jobs statistics are unsettling.
-Still would experience distance from SO even if it's more manageable. Law school is a busy time so I can't constantly be traipsing down to Durham all the time.

More info:
I am quite debt adverse. I still have undergrad debt. The area of law I want to go into does have a possibility of BigLaw, but it's a small market and I would need to be in a big city to do it (probably New York or Miami out of my options) and if I end up working in the Midwest, it's pretty much not going to happen. On that note I'm not assuming I'm getting BigLaw. My ties are in the Mid-Atlantic and through my SO the Midwest and South Florida. My SO did manage to snag a coveted market-paying 1L BigLaw SA spot (not diversity) in the Midwest for this upcoming summer, so I hope that doesn't lock him into that market. To be honest, best case scenario would be that we could both get Miami.


If you can't tell, I'm obviously leaning Duke. I've kind of always assumed I'd end up at Duke, but I didn't expect such great options. Am I over-looking anything? Should I just withdraw from Michigan ($67,500 scholly) and NYU (sticker) now? The only school I've tried to negotiate scholarships with is Duke.

[WokeUpInACar]

I wouldn't think twice about choosing Duke here.

[framboozer]

I wouldn't think twice about choosing Duke here.

Thank you. That's obviously what I want to hear, but I'm biased and want outside perspective. I meant to make the post yesterday when I only had $105K at Duke, but they helped close the gap a bit.

[Samara]

-In fact, while I found Chicago to be a nice city, I had several creepy encounters that would require their post. This is way more creepiness than I ever had when I lived in New York.

I want to know this story.

One of the current students who walked to school even said that she took cabs home during finals time. Most definitely not interested in that. The hotel I stayed at advised me to take a cab to the subway stop to get to the airport. You get the picture.

wut. Are you sure you aren't talking about UChicago?

[Winston1984]

Definitely Duke given your situation. Don't worry about UVA being ranked higher than Duke, no one cares.

[NoodleyOne]

I wouldn't think twice about choosing Duke here.

This. You can save on COA too. Just make sure you and SO are stable so you're not apartment hunting during Finals.

[Law Sauce]

UVA is out here. No reason to consider that. For me, advantage os being with SO easily beat out the 25k or so of increase scholarshiped at NU. Duke by a mile

[badaboom61]

-In fact, while I found Chicago to be a nice city, I had several creepy encounters that would require their post. This is way more creepiness than I ever had when I lived in New York.

I want to know this story.

One of the current students who walked to school even said that she took cabs home during finals time. Most definitely not interested in that. The hotel I stayed at advised me to take a cab to the subway stop to get to the airport. You get the picture.

wut. Are you sure you aren't talking about UChicago?

Northwestern is in a damn nice part of town, and its hopping with restaurants and bars (at least if you're willing to walk 3 blocks to, you know, the Magnificent Mile). Sounds like you just had a bad impression. But the bums / weather are justified concerns.

Duke definitely seems to win. I wouldn't discount the value of having you're SO there, and Duke is just as strong as Northwestern in any market outside of Chicago, and stronger in the South and perhaps DC. The cheaper cost of living also makes the scholarship difference pretty negligible.

[untar614]

-In fact, while I found Chicago to be a nice city, I had several creepy encounters that would require their post. This is way more creepiness than I ever had when I lived in New York.

I want to know this story.

One of the current students who walked to school even said that she took cabs home during finals time. Most definitely not interested in that. The hotel I stayed at advised me to take a cab to the subway stop to get to the airport. You get the picture.

wut. Are you sure you aren't talking about UChicago?

Northwestern is in a damn nice part of town, and its hopping with restaurants and bars (at least if you're willing to walk 3 blocks to, you know, the Magnificent Mile). Sounds like you just had a bad impression. But the bums / weather are justified concerns.

Duke definitely seems to win. I wouldn't discount the value of having you're SO there, and Duke is just as strong as Northwestern in any market outside of Chicago, and stronger in the South and perhaps DC. The cheaper cost of living also makes the scholarship difference pretty negligible.

Yeah, idk whats up with op's impression of chicago. The area there is pretty nice. And most of the students live north, where it's cheaper and there are plenty of bars. That aside, Duke seems to be the better option here. While rent normally wouldnt be as bad as you think in chicago, being able to share a bedroom makes a huge difference in price, on top of generally lower rent in Durham.

[Big Dog]

One of the current students who walked to school even said that she took cabs home during finals time. Most definitely not interested in that.

Perhaps you are interpreting this the wrong way. Cabs are reasonably cheap, and without a car expense, financially easy to use. Instead of awaiting a bus, jump into a cab to head home....

The hotel I stayed at advised me to take a cab to the subway stop to get to the airport. You get the picture.

Most likely that was due to the connections, not safety. The Red Line (which runs right next to Streeteville), does not go to ORD. If you walked from the hotel to the Red Line, you would have to take it downtown (south, and the opposite direction to ORD) to then connect to the O'Hare line. Since folks going to the airport are generally time sensitive, adn again, cabs are cheap, it does makes sense to take a cab from the NU area to the Loop to catch the airport express.

btw: if you can't find bars in Chicago, you need to get your eyes fixed.

Regardless, with the SO, Duke is an easy vote.

[framboozer]

To clarify about my impression of Chicago, I stayed about a block or two off the Magnificent Mile, 2 blocks from the red line.. I was going to transfer to the blue line, but the hotel was like no no no don't do that. I had plenty of time and wasn't going to be late for my flight or anything, but the hotel recommended a cab rather than walking specifically due to the bums. I am used to city life. I've lived in Philly, New York and also a large city in a third world country. I in no way mean to insult Chicago and am not saying Zomg! NU is dangerous! It truly is in a nice part of town and beats UChicago in that respect by a mile (shall we say a Magnificent One?) The experiences I had just made me realize that it's not what I wanted to deal with while in law school. While I was walking around with others at night I had no problems whatsoever. But alone, I am just a 100-pound girl, so I view the city very differently.

I really didn't get a good look at much north of NU (besides when I went to Bar Review), as I was staying in the opposite direction a few blocks north of the Chicago River, but I did do the Student Space tour in Streeterville and there truly wasn't much in restaurants and nightlife around that area. In fact, in Wigmore Follies, they even made fun of this fact.


Thank you all for your helpful thoughts. The SO is pretty much like about this. Is it safe to say that there's no point in trying to get more money out of UVA? I really don't think they'd give me any. I'm median on LSAT and below median on GPA, so I'm extremely fortunate to have what I have already.

[WokeUpInACar]

To clarify about my impression of Chicago, I stayed about a block or two off the Magnificent Mile, 2 blocks from the red line.. I was going to transfer to the blue line, but the hotel was like no no no don't do that. I had plenty of time and wasn't going to be late for my flight or anything, but the hotel recommended a cab rather than walking specifically due to the bums. I am used to city life. I've lived in Philly, New York and also a large city in a third world country. I in no way mean to insult Chicago and am not saying Zomg! NU is dangerous! It truly is in a nice part of town and beats UChicago in that respect by a mile (shall we say a Magnificent One?) The experiences I had just made me realize that it's not what I wanted to deal with while in law school. While I was walking around with others at night I had no problems whatsoever. But alone, I am just a 100-pound girl, so I view the city very differently.

I really didn't get a good look at much north of NU (besides when I went to Bar Review), as I was staying in the opposite direction a few blocks north of the Chicago River, but I did do the Student Space tour in Streeterville and there truly wasn't much in restaurants and nightlife around that area. In fact, in Wigmore Follies, they even made fun of this fact.


Thank you all for your helpful thoughts. The SO is pretty much like about this. Is it safe to say that there's no point in trying to get more money out of UVA? I really don't think they'd give me any. I'm median on LSAT and below median on GPA, so I'm extremely fortunate to have what I have already.

It would probably take a full ride for me to choose UVA over Duke in your situation. It really just isn't that much better than Duke, and the SO makes it a no brainer.

[framboozer]

To clarify about my impression of Chicago, I stayed about a block or two off the Magnificent Mile, 2 blocks from the red line.. I was going to transfer to the blue line, but the hotel was like no no no don't do that. I had plenty of time and wasn't going to be late for my flight or anything, but the hotel recommended a cab rather than walking specifically due to the bums. I am used to city life. I've lived in Philly, New York and also a large city in a third world country. I in no way mean to insult Chicago and am not saying Zomg! NU is dangerous! It truly is in a nice part of town and beats UChicago in that respect by a mile (shall we say a Magnificent One?) The experiences I had just made me realize that it's not what I wanted to deal with while in law school. While I was walking around with others at night I had no problems whatsoever. But alone, I am just a 100-pound girl, so I view the city very differently.

I really didn't get a good look at much north of NU (besides when I went to Bar Review), as I was staying in the opposite direction a few blocks north of the Chicago River, but I did do the Student Space tour in Streeterville and there truly wasn't much in restaurants and nightlife around that area. In fact, in Wigmore Follies, they even made fun of this fact.


Thank you all for your helpful thoughts. The SO is pretty much like about this. Is it safe to say that there's no point in trying to get more money out of UVA? I really don't think they'd give me any. I'm median on LSAT and below median on GPA, so I'm extremely fortunate to have what I have already.

It would probably take a full ride for me to choose UVA over Duke in your situation. It really just isn't that much better than Duke, and the SO makes it a no brainer.

Right, that's all I need to know.

[Ruxin1]

Damn you just really don't want to live near your SO, huh?

[framboozer]

Damn you just really don't want to live near your SO, huh?

Just afraid of making a decision based on my SO, because I've already moved several times for him.

[Ti Malice]

OP, as others have said, no one in legal hiring cares about UVA's rank relative to Duke. UVA ranks where it does because, more than any other T14 school, it shamelessly whores itself out in gaming the USNWR rankings.

[UtilityMonster]

What the fuck... How is Duke not painfully obvious? If I was your SO I would be so pissed to find out you were considering going to any other school.

[Real Madrid]

Hello all. I’ve been having quite a wild cycle. I’d say I'm out-performing my numbers and late applications (submitted late January through mid-February) at lease scholarship-wise. You can see my full cycle thus far here, because I haven't included all of my options:

http://www.lawschoolnumbers.com/framboozer

Before I applied, I predicted that I would be choosing between Penn, Duke and UVA and I was hoping for like $75-90K at Duke. Well obviously, my cycle turned out way different than I had imagined. This is comforting because I seriously under-performed on the LSAT and even had crazy notions of re-taking in June to get off waitlists, but I already took the test twice and was crippled by nerves despite being extremely well prepared.

My Options:

Northwestern: $150,000 Scholarship
Pros:
-Attended ASW and really liked the school and the people I met there. Everyone was very informed about what they were getting into and the students were obviously very happy with Northwestern for the most part. They were pretty frank about the school's shortcomings too.
-$$$$$$$$. The named scholarship is pretty hard to turn down. It was so out of nowhere for me. I guess I under-estimated my softs and the value of well put together application.

Cons:
-I have absolutely zero interest ever working in Chicago.
-In fact, while I found Chicago to be a nice city, I had several creepy encounters that would require their post. This is way more creepiness than I ever had when I lived in New York. The downtown area around Northwestern isn't exactly popping with bars and restaurants and instead fills up with bums at night. One of the current students who walked to school even said that she took cabs home during finals time. Most definitely not interested in that. The hotel I stayed at advised me to take a cab to the subway stop to get to the airport. You get the picture.
-High cost of living.
-I'd have to get rid of my car that I literally just bought a few months ago. That's a bad investment.
-I'd have to set up an entire apartment in Chicago, which is expensive and incredibly inconvenient because I'm not from the Midwest.
-My SO would be a 2L at Duke and this kind of distance is not ideal. We're not even from the same part of the country so we wouldn't even be heading to even remotely the same locations on school breaks.
-Miserable weather, which would make commuting not fun.


Duke: $120,000 Scholarship
Pros:
-Slightly cheaper tuition. Significantly cheaper cost of living. Durham has a lot of cheap and tasty options for going out that would cost $$$ anywhere else.
-My SO of over 5 years is a current 1L. Therefore, I have an apartment ready to move into and we would be splitting living costs. No need to buy furniture and I also have a network and support system.
-SO is a good student. By that I mean he is able to keep on top of all of his homework and sticks to a strict schedule. He's never the type of person who's in the library after 11 PM or anything like that because he doesn't procrastinate at all. I could seriously use that structure and if I went to Duke I'd have little choice but to do the same.
-I'd already know a bunch of people who had all of the professors and 1L classes I'd be taking and this would be an immense help.
-It's really easy to get back and forth from Durham to my hometown because there are frequent cheap non-stop flights that are less than 1.5 hours.
-Nice weather!

Cons:
-Scholarship was raised from $105,000 to $120,000, but it's not a named scholarship like Northwestern's and obviously it's not worth as much.
-I've gotten into several higher ranked schools so obviously less prestige. Would that translate into lower quality of jobs? Not all biglaw is equal.


UVA: $75,000 Scholarship
Pros:
-Highest ranked school to give me money thus far.
-It has the most comprehensive program and coursework for the area of law I'm most interested in. No I'm not talking about specialty rankings. I'm talking about a careful perusal of the course offerings, clinics and extras at every school in the T14.
-Charlotteville also has high quality of life and I believe lower cost of living, but I haven't visited yet.
-UVA is the closest school to where I'm from and my parents are (less than 5 hours) and it's also only 3.5 hours away from Duke and my SO.
-Still pretty nice weather.

Cons:
-Most expensive of the three options
-The school-funded jobs statistics are unsettling.
-Still would experience distance from SO even if it's more manageable. Law school is a busy time so I can't constantly be traipsing down to Durham all the time.

More info:
I am quite debt adverse. I still have undergrad debt. The area of law I want to go into does have a possibility of BigLaw, but it's a small market and I would need to be in a big city to do it (probably New York or Miami out of my options) and if I end up working in the Midwest, it's pretty much not going to happen. On that note I'm not assuming I'm getting BigLaw. My ties are in the Mid-Atlantic and through my SO the Midwest and South Florida. My SO did manage to snag a coveted market-paying 1L BigLaw SA spot (not diversity) in the Midwest for this upcoming summer, so I hope that doesn't lock him into that market. To be honest, best case scenario would be that we could both get Miami.


If you can't tell, I'm obviously leaning Duke. I've kind of always assumed I'd end up at Duke, but I didn't expect such great options. Am I over-looking anything? Should I just withdraw from Michigan ($67,500 scholly) and NYU (sticker) now? The only school I've tried to negotiate scholarships with is Duke.

A few things:

Chicago does not have as high a COL as you think it does.

Giving a higher weight to the "highest ranked school" between peer schools is retarded - no offense. Any school between 7 - 13 is a peer to the others in that range (arguably including NYU, too).

I would choose Duke, but can see an argument for NU. Cannot see an argument for UVA.

[untar614]

What the fuck... How is Duke not painfully obvious? If I was your SO I would be so pissed to find out you were considering going to any other school.

Obviously she's thinking about dumping him and going to NW to date me. Definitely a good decision.

[dissonance1848]

If you and the SO are serious (meaning clearly long-term, marriage potential, etc.) then definitely Duke.

If you are unsure about the relationship, I would lean towards NU here.

[jbagelboy]

Duke. The fact that SO is already there seals the deal. you will save a ton of living costs, minimizing the $10K per year gap to negligible.

Now conversely, if I were in your position with no ties to duke, I would go to Northwestern or leverage the shit out of everything to go to NYU and see what money they offered. but you actually seem to like durham and not like chicago, so again, clear choice here is duke.

I don't think there's a significant opportunity cost b/t Duke and UVA unless you really, really want a fed clerkship. UVA boosts its job data with university paid positions, which IMO seem less optimal, but here I may be stepping outside my knowledge base.

[jbagelboy]

If you are unsure about the relationship, I would lean towards NU here.

I agree with this too. if you're looking for a way out, now is your chance.

[BigZuck]

Duke seems painfully obvious to me.

But if you hate Chicago, are looking for a way out of your relationship, AND want to chase prestttige I vote UVA. YOLO.

[GMGP]

Duke seems painfully obvious to me.

But if you hate Chicago, are looking for a way out of your relationship, AND want to chase prestttige I vote UVA. YOLO.

I mean, your SO does sound like kinda a loser. I'd say ditch him for NU or UVA.

[lmsf]

To clarify about my impression of Chicago, I stayed about a block or two off the Magnificent Mile, 2 blocks from the red line.. I was going to transfer to the blue line, but the hotel was like no no no don't do that. I had plenty of time and wasn't going to be late for my flight or anything, but the hotel recommended a cab rather than walking specifically due to the bums. I am used to city life. I've lived in Philly, New York and also a large city in a third world country. I in no way mean to insult Chicago and am not saying Zomg! NU is dangerous! It truly is in a nice part of town and beats UChicago in that respect by a mile (shall we say a Magnificent One?) The experiences I had just made me realize that it's not what I wanted to deal with while in law school. While I was walking around with others at night I had no problems whatsoever. But alone, I am just a 100-pound girl, so I view the city very differently.

I really didn't get a good look at much north of NU (besides when I went to Bar Review), as I was staying in the opposite direction a few blocks north of the Chicago River, but I did do the Student Space tour in Streeterville and there truly wasn't much in restaurants and nightlife around that area. In fact, in Wigmore Follies, they even made fun of this fact.


Thank you all for your helpful thoughts. The SO is pretty much like about this. Is it safe to say that there's no point in trying to get more money out of UVA? I really don't think they'd give me any. I'm median on LSAT and below median on GPA, so I'm extremely fortunate to have what I have already.

I don't think you need to be too worried about safety at NU compared to other schools. NU's in a really nice part of town. I was walking around at night near my hotel on the Magnificent Mile and around the apartment in Streeterville where my student host lived and I never felt unsafe (I'm a woman too). I also rode the bus and the train and people were nice. My student host did mention that there has been an increase in muggings in the Streeterville area because people from other parts of town figured out that it's all students (with laptops) but that the campus has beefed up its patrol around the area at night to keep students safe. I agree with you about a lack of restaurants in Streeterville, but Magnificent Mile is only a few blocks away and that's like NY's 5th Ave.

That said, the obvious choice here is Duke if you and SO are serious. I'm from CA and I would have given my left kidney to be able to go to school at Stanford or Berkeley to be near my SO. But if you're not sure how serious you are, ask yourself what you would do if it were just up to you and would you regret Duke if you were to break up? Unfortunately, a lot of couples don't make it through law school, and you don't want to end up in a situation where you're regretting the school you're at because you chose it "for someone else."