Top Law Schools

I received a $45,000 scholarship with no gpa stipulations from chicago kent. I also got waitlisted at U of I, i never really planned on going there and applied extremely late in the cycle. Now i am wondering if i do get accepted to U of I is it worth leaving all that money and attending U of I at sticker price, which I'm assuming will be the case since I have been waitlisted. Also, I want to practice law in Chicago. Thanks for any feedback

UIUC is the better school. But in your case, Id take the money at Kent and run with it.

The Chicago Legal Market is shit. I assume that scholarship is over 3 years. Tuition over that time is currently going to come to about $126,000. So you'd still be paying $81,000 just in tuition + COL + interest on loans for a school that places 11 % of its grads into BigLaw with Federal Clerkships being out unless your dad is lifelong buddies with a judge or something. Most of the grads from Kent that get full-time JD required jobs are in offices with 2-10 lawyers (22.7 % of class overall). How well do you think these jobs are paying for a first year attorney? Probably shit. These are the people that tend to wash out of the legal profession. After that the next most common outcome is "Business LT/FT" with 12.4 % of the class which given the 56 % employment score in JD required jobs and the combined Law Firm + Clerkship (Local and Federal) at 51.5 %, would indicate that the majority of these people are in a JD-advantage job. Think long and hard why you want to go to Law School before putting down a deposit.

What's your LSAT? Is re-taking a option? I wouldn't call either of your two outcomes good, imo. Look at what the 3Ls like rad and romo are saying for some perspective on what it's like on the other side.