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So I decided on Temple a few weeks ago, but then out of nowhere Pitt contacted me and said if I was still interested they would increase my scholarship to $25,000 a year. Then, I used this to leverage my Temple Scholarship to $15,000 a year. This makes Temple still slightly more expensive, but I will probably be paying around $4000 a year in tuition and fees either way.

My problem is that now Pitt has gotten into my head. They're only an hour and a half away as opposed to Temple which is six hours away. In the long run I would probably save about ten thousand dollars by going to Pitt, but it's hard to tell with tuition increases and whatnot.

Any advice?

Have you visited both?

banana$$stand wrote:Have you visited both?

This is key. It is important to realize temple is not exactly in a safe area. What are your goals and what are you looking for in a school?

Yeah I have visited both, I liked both but I definitely liked temple's campus and law building better. I'm more concerned with job prospects and quality of life. I know both schools are regional, but I don't really have a preference in where I live.

Where do you want to work? Let that determine your decision.

Idk I like both pittsburgh and philadelphia

Well unfortunately we can't read minds, or hold your hand on the way to class next year. Looks like your gonna have to make this decision on your own.

cmneer wrote:Yeah I have visited both, I liked both but I definitely liked temple's campus and law building better. I'm more concerned with job prospects and quality of life. I know both schools are regional, but I don't really have a preference in where I live.

Prospects from both are poor. What do you want to do after law school?

jayman12 wrote:Well unfortunately we can't read minds, or hold your hand on the way to class next year. Looks like your gonna have to make this decision on your own.

He's asking for advice on an advice forum...troll. OP, list total COA for both schools and what you want to do with your j.d to get the appropriate advice here.

pitt COA would be about 13000 and temple COA would be 15000. I might want to do environmental law, but I kind of want to see what my interests are once I'm in school. Aka I don't really know haha. I was leaning toward temple before because it seems like they might have a more rigorous program, but I have a feeling they're probably pretty comparable.

cmneer wrote:Idk I like both pittsburgh and philadelphia

Well, do you have ties to either city? If not, neither school is probably a good idea.

ATR wrote:

cmneer wrote:Idk I like both pittsburgh and philadelphia

Well, do you have ties to either city? If not, neither school is probably a good idea.

I'm from PA so with in-state and my scholarships I'd say I'm willing to take my chances. I'm definitely going to one of these schools, just not entirely sure which one.

cmneer wrote:pitt COA would be about 13000 and temple COA would be 15000. I might want to do environmental law, but I kind of want to see what my interests are once I'm in school. Aka I don't really know haha. I was leaning toward temple before because it seems like they might have a more rigorous program, but I have a feeling they're probably pretty comparable.

Here's the cold hard truth you're looking for, or probably not looking for:
Both schools are incredibly regional, and not worth that much debt because of their poor placement of students into ANY full time legal career (based on stats from lawschooltransparency). Even worse- environmental law careers, from what I've heard, are almost non-existent and only go to T10 students. Research more threads about your choices and see what people say- retake the lsat to get more scholly or better choices. Good luck to you!

They're OK options for someone who knows what they want to do going in and is going to be aggressive in pursuing that goal from day 1. You have no idea what you want to do, which means these schools are a terrible option.

TheNextAmendment wrote:

cmneer wrote:pitt COA would be about 13000 and temple COA would be 15000. I might want to do environmental law, but I kind of want to see what my interests are once I'm in school. Aka I don't really know haha. I was leaning toward temple before because it seems like they might have a more rigorous program, but I have a feeling they're probably pretty comparable.

Here's the cold hard truth you're looking for, or probably not looking for:
Both schools are incredibly regional, and not worth that much debt because of their poor placement of students into ANY full time legal career (based on stats from lawschooltransparency). Even worse- environmental law careers, from what I've heard, are almost non-existent and only go to T10 students. Research more threads about your choices and see what people say- retake the lsat to get more scholly or better choices. Good luck to you!

If you want to end up in Philly or Pitt, 13k for Pitt and 15k for Temple are not bad ideas at all.

The problem is I don't think the poster included cost of living, unless he has family he can live with in both areas.

I'm a girl with no family. Those figures were my tuition and housing and fees. My tuition will only be 4000 at either school.

phillywc wrote:

TheNextAmendment wrote:

cmneer wrote:pitt COA would be about 13000 and temple COA would be 15000. I might want to do environmental law, but I kind of want to see what my interests are once I'm in school. Aka I don't really know haha. I was leaning toward temple before because it seems like they might have a more rigorous program, but I have a feeling they're probably pretty comparable.

Here's the cold hard truth you're looking for, or probably not looking for:
Both schools are incredibly regional, and not worth that much debt because of their poor placement of students into ANY full time legal career (based on stats from lawschooltransparency). Even worse- environmental law careers, from what I've heard, are almost non-existent and only go to T10 students. Research more threads about your choices and see what people say- retake the lsat to get more scholly or better choices. Good luck to you!

If you want to end up in Philly or Pitt, 13k for Pitt and 15k for Temple are not bad ideas at all.

The problem is I don't think the poster included cost of living, unless he has family he can live with in both areas.

My bad. Thought he said 130k vs 150k assuming he would understand COA included interest, COL, tuition increases, etc. So he's probably looking at 100k each so still I think my advice is reasonable.

cmneer wrote:I'm a girl with no family. Those figures were my tuition and housing and fees. My tuition will only be 4000 at either school.

How do you plan to live in Philly on 11k a year? There are places you get housing for fairly cheap in Philly, but those are not places you are going to want to be walking back to alone late at night. (Not just saying that because you are a girl. I'm a fairly big guy and I hate to walk through those parts of the city in broad daylight).

Graduate housing

Eesh. 15k yearly is 45k of debt. I think you are underestimating the debt. That said, if you want to be a lawyer, you can do worse than Temple for 45k.

That said: DROP OUT IF YOU ARE BELOW THE MEDIAN. Even with that tuition you are wasting your time.

I think Temple is the better school, but if you want to work in Western PA, go with Pitt. If you want to work Eastern PA, go with Temple.

If you're not urm, I call bs on the pit scholly offer. No offense, but I don't believe you based on the countless Pitt admins and applicants I've talked to the past few years.

Also, Pitts employment stats place it way higher than its us ranking. It does very well in w pa and is not a bad option for that price in the region.

.

throw-away-soon wrote:If you're not urm, I call bs on the pit scholly offer. No offense, but I don't believe you based on the countless Pitt admins and applicants I've talked to the past few years.

Also, Pitts employment stats place it way higher than its us ranking. It does very well in w pa and is not a bad option for that price in the region.

Pitt places 50% into longterm full time employment. That is not way above is ranking. In fact many T4s do better.

OP, I think you need to think a lot more seriously about this decision. Figure out what you want to do and where you want to practice.