Berkeley at sticker price, UCLA half $, UC Irvine full $? Forum

[the_rural_juror]

I was fortunate enough to be admitted to Berkeley (probably no scholarship), UCLA with a half-tuition scholarship, and UCI with a full-tuition scholarship. I'm having a really hard time deciding. Here is a little bit about me:

1) I know I want to end up in California, so national reach of the school is not a factor for me.
2) I'm extremely uncomfortable with debt. (Like, I get squeamish when I pay for gas with a credit card kind of uncomfortable)
3) I'd like to be able to try BigLaw but I'm not 100% sure I want to do it.
4) I have a wife, a baby, and will probably have another sometime in law school.

At first I thought UCLA because it's sort of the best of both worlds, a decent-ranked school with less debt. But now I'm leaning toward UCI because it is in a better location for families and so far it seems to be placing students on par with UCLA and Berkeley. I guess my question is this: In my situation, is UCLA $75K better than UCI, or is Berkeley $150K better than UCI?

[worldtraveler]

What do you want to do, besides possibly trying big law?

[the_rural_juror]

What do you want to do, besides possibly trying big law?

Not sure. Possibly work at a smaller firm. I just don't want to close that door.

[deebanger]

hey! can you share your stats please? or you can pm me if you dont want to share here , as Im sort aiming for the uci full ride, so it would give me a better idea of where I could stand. Thank you!

[the_rural_juror]

hey! can you share your stats please? or you can pm me if you dont want to share here , as Im sort aiming for the uci full ride, so it would give me a better idea of where I could stand. Thank you!

169/3.82. Also, as a side note, they admitted me online a few weeks before I heard about the scholly through snail mail so keep that in mind if you're waiting to hear from them!

[Winston1984]

Will your wife pay for COL?

[the_rural_juror]

Will your wife pay for COL?

No. We will have to take out loans for living expenses. I'm a lot more ok taking out loans just for COL as opposed to COL+tuition. Also, she's about 20K in debt for undergrad already.

[Cicero76]

Why is no poll?

Berkeley.

[Winston1984]

Such a tough call. I don't think any school outside of HYS is worth sticker, but isn't it possible you get something out of Berkeley? You have really good stats, and I'm assuming can demonstrate strong financial need. If you get at least $10k/yr from Berkeley I would take it. If not, I would take UCLA. It is possible you could negotiate some more money out of UCLA too.

[tiltedwindmill]

I would go with Berkeley (depending on what their offer is).

[the_rural_juror]

Such a tough call. I don't think any school outside of HYS is worth sticker, but isn't it possible you get something out of Berkeley? You have really good stats, and I'm assuming can demonstrate strong financial need. If you get at least $10k/yr from Berkeley I would take it. If not, I would take UCLA. It is possible you could negotiate some more money out of UCLA too.

I may be able to squeeze some more dollars out of UCLA. Berkeley is not looking so good as far as financial aid since they make me include my parents' (upper middle-class) income despite being independent for years.

Assuming, however, that the scholarships all remain the same, I'm interested in your reasoning for picking UCLA over Irvine?

[twenty]

You kind of can't have your cake and eat it, too. Either you leave the door open for biglaw (moreover, gun for biglaw) and go to Berkeley, or you close the door to biglaw and go to UCI for close to free.

The tie-breaker between the "regional school with a full ride vs. national school at sticker" is your desire to stay in California, your family situation, and your apparent disinterest in biglaw. Go to UCI unless you get more money from UCLA.

[brotherdarkness]

.

[eaternation]

Sent u a pm. I was in a very similar situation last year.

[the_rural_juror]

Sent u a pm. I was in a very similar situation last year.

If anybody else is/was in a similar situation, please chime in! Thank you all for the advice so far.

[Otunga]

I'd go UCLA if you could somehow negotiate a 3/4th scholarship instead of a 1/2, and if your interest in biglaw is something beyond indifference. Are you completely indifferent? Are you against it in any form? Are you attracted to the high salary? At UCLA, you'd have a reasonable chance at biglaw based on LST's posted number of 34% of grads getting biglaw. In my opinion, if you'd think you'd be just as content working in small law, and you're quite certain of that, then go for the full ride at Irvine. But if there is any sense of positive interest in big law, seriously consider UCLA with a sufficient increase in scholarship money. Granted, it's probably doubtful you get a big enough increase in scholarship to justify attending UCLA (and the same may be said of Berkeley).

[Winston1984]

Such a tough call. I don't think any school outside of HYS is worth sticker, but isn't it possible you get something out of Berkeley? You have really good stats, and I'm assuming can demonstrate strong financial need. If you get at least $10k/yr from Berkeley I would take it. If not, I would take UCLA. It is possible you could negotiate some more money out of UCLA too.

I may be able to squeeze some more dollars out of UCLA. Berkeley is not looking so good as far as financial aid since they make me include my parents' (upper middle-class) income despite being independent for years.

Assuming, however, that the scholarships all remain the same, I'm interested in your reasoning for picking UCLA over Irvine?

I think you will end up with more $$, I didn't make it clear in my post. If you don't end up with more money, it's a tough call, but maybe UCI is the right answer. Be sure to update us with final scholarship amounts. Why no USC btw?

[the_rural_juror]

I'd go UCLA if you could somehow negotiate a 3/4th scholarship instead of a 1/2, and if your interest in biglaw is something beyond indifference. Are you completely indifferent? Are you against it in any form? Are you attracted to the high salary? At UCLA, you'd have a reasonable chance at biglaw based on LST's posted number of 34% of grads getting biglaw. In my opinion, if you'd think you'd be just as content working in small law, and you're quite certain of that, then go for the full ride at Irvine. But if there is any sense of positive interest in big law, seriously consider UCLA with a sufficient increase in scholarship money. Granted, it's probably doubtful you get a big enough increase in scholarship to justify attending UCLA (and the same may be said of Berkeley).

I probably need to really think about how I feel about biglaw. I'm definitely attracted to the high salary but am opposed to the work/life imbalance. I (perhaps naively) thought this would be something I could figure out in law school (hence not wanting to "close doors" and go to a school that keeps my options open) but it's looking more and more like I need to decide what I want to do before I enroll. It's a tough choice because I want to be able to do biglaw if I want to but I don't want to have to do biglaw just to pay off enormous debt.

[sighsigh]

UCI class of 2012 seems to have very respectable employment stats. ~52% in biglaw/fedclerk, ~9% in public service, total employment 82% with no school-funded jobs. http://www.lstscorereports.com/?school=irvine The class of 2012 (entering class of 2009) had GPA 25ths/75ths of 3.4/3.75 and LSAT 25ths/75ths of 164/167. http://www.law.uci.edu/admission/class-profile.html

I actually have no idea why the employment stats are so good, since it's a brand new school and there are far more established schools with much better GPA/LSAT stats (like UCLA) that preformed significantly worse. I guess it's mainly a function of the small class size.

But the class size has more than doubled from 60 for the entering class of 2009 to 126 for the entering class of 2013. And the entering GPA/LSAT stats have also dropped a bit too. So that's a bit scary.

[the_rural_juror]

Such a tough call. I don't think any school outside of HYS is worth sticker, but isn't it possible you get something out of Berkeley? You have really good stats, and I'm assuming can demonstrate strong financial need. If you get at least $10k/yr from Berkeley I would take it. If not, I would take UCLA. It is possible you could negotiate some more money out of UCLA too.

I may be able to squeeze some more dollars out of UCLA. Berkeley is not looking so good as far as financial aid since they make me include my parents' (upper middle-class) income despite being independent for years.

Assuming, however, that the scholarships all remain the same, I'm interested in your reasoning for picking UCLA over Irvine?

I think you will end up with more $$, I didn't make it clear in my post. If you don't end up with more money, it's a tough call, but maybe UCI is the right answer. Be sure to update us with final scholarship amounts. Why no USC btw?

USC and Stanford are the only schools that have not given me an answer yet (douchebags).

[drevo]

USC and Stanford are the only schools that have not given me an answer yet (douchebags).

Made me audibly chuckle.

[Otunga]

I'd go UCLA if you could somehow negotiate a 3/4th scholarship instead of a 1/2, and if your interest in biglaw is something beyond indifference. Are you completely indifferent? Are you against it in any form? Are you attracted to the high salary? At UCLA, you'd have a reasonable chance at biglaw based on LST's posted number of 34% of grads getting biglaw. In my opinion, if you'd think you'd be just as content working in small law, and you're quite certain of that, then go for the full ride at Irvine. But if there is any sense of positive interest in big law, seriously consider UCLA with a sufficient increase in scholarship money. Granted, it's probably doubtful you get a big enough increase in scholarship to justify attending UCLA (and the same may be said of Berkeley).

I probably need to really think about how I feel about biglaw. I'm definitely attracted to the high salary but am opposed to the work/life imbalance. I (perhaps naively) thought this would be something I could figure out in law school (hence not wanting to "close doors" and go to a school that keeps my options open) but it's looking more and more like I need to decide what I want to do before I enroll. It's a tough choice because I want to be able to do biglaw if I want to but I don't want to have to do biglaw just to pay off enormous debt.

I have the same feelings about it. I'm on the East Coast and BC/BU are about parallel to your UCLA and USC. And if I get t14, I'm not expecting any substantial scholarships.

[Winston1984]

Well hopefully you will get accepted to Stanford, and you won't even need our advice!

[Otunga]

Well hopefully you will get accepted to Stanford, and you won't even need our advice!

He said he hated the prospect of going into a lot of debt. I'm guessing he'd still have to deliberate about it, but not sure.

[rpupkin]

You've mentioned that you want to be in California, but you didn't mention if you have a preference for where you want to live in Cali. If you know that you want to live long-term in SoCal, then I'd go with UCI or UCLA. But if you want the option of working anywhere in Cali, then I'd go to Berkeley. It's MUCH easier to get a job in SoCal out of UCB than in it is to get a job in NorCal out of UCLA. (Not sure yet about UCI, but I'd imagine its reach would be even more limited.)