Northwestern ($$$) v. Duke ($$$) v. UVA ($$)
Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2013 10:59 am
Hello all. I’ve been having quite a wild cycle. I’d say I'm out-performing my numbers and late applications (submitted late January through mid-February) at lease scholarship-wise. You can see my full cycle thus far here, because I haven't included all of my options:
http://www.lawschoolnumbers.com/framboozer
Before I applied, I predicted that I would be choosing between Penn, Duke and UVA and I was hoping for like $75-90K at Duke. Well obviously, my cycle turned out way different than I had imagined. This is comforting because I seriously under-performed on the LSAT and even had crazy notions of re-taking in June to get off waitlists, but I already took the test twice and was crippled by nerves despite being extremely well prepared.
My Options:
Northwestern: $150,000 Scholarship
Pros:
-Attended ASW and really liked the school and the people I met there. Everyone was very informed about what they were getting into and the students were obviously very happy with Northwestern for the most part. They were pretty frank about the school's shortcomings too.
-$$$$$$$$. The named scholarship is pretty hard to turn down. It was so out of nowhere for me. I guess I under-estimated my softs and the value of well put together application.
Cons:
-I have absolutely zero interest ever working in Chicago.
-In fact, while I found Chicago to be a nice city, I had several creepy encounters that would require their post. This is way more creepiness than I ever had when I lived in New York. The downtown area around Northwestern isn't exactly popping with bars and restaurants and instead fills up with bums at night. One of the current students who walked to school even said that she took cabs home during finals time. Most definitely not interested in that. The hotel I stayed at advised me to take a cab to the subway stop to get to the airport. You get the picture.
-High cost of living.
-I'd have to get rid of my car that I literally just bought a few months ago. That's a bad investment.
-I'd have to set up an entire apartment in Chicago, which is expensive and incredibly inconvenient because I'm not from the Midwest.
-My SO would be a 2L at Duke and this kind of distance is not ideal. We're not even from the same part of the country so we wouldn't even be heading to even remotely the same locations on school breaks.
-Miserable weather, which would make commuting not fun.
Duke: $120,000 Scholarship
Pros:
-Slightly cheaper tuition. Significantly cheaper cost of living. Durham has a lot of cheap and tasty options for going out that would cost $$$ 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.
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.