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Will_McAvoy wrote:If that's legitimately how much you'll take out in loans (50K), I'd say personal preference of BU or BC. Not too bad of an investment for either.

I would deposit at both, retake in June, and see which will give you more dough upon retake.

eagles2013 wrote:Thanks all for the advice! As if I needed any more swaying toward BC...

I have admitted students day at BU this Friday, so we will see what happens after that. Right now, I am leaning toward the strategy of depositing at BC and then taking the LSAT again in June (apparently some trickster made a certain word that shall not be named default to Good luck! Follow your dreams! today).

kimkardashian wrote:I'm really struggling with the choice between BU and BC as well. I visited both this weekend and enjoyed both Preview Days immensely. BU gave me $20k (originally $15k but they raised it) and BC gave me $30k (originally $15k but they also raised it). At those prices, I won't need any loans for either school, thankfully. Paying less is obviously preferable though.

It's frustrating for me because I can't figure out which experience would be better. I think the quality of education would be the same (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) so I'm basically looking at whether I'd be happier living in Boston or right outside of it. These are my major thinking points:

1) city life - pro or con?
I've lived in a large city for the past few years for my undergrad so I would really like to experience "college" with a suburban campus and a close student body. At the same time, I'm afraid of losing opportunities by not being in the city, and, on a less important note, of being bored. As a New Yorker, I dislike city life because of even the simplest of tasks (doing laundry, getting groceries, getting to a friend's place) are so unnecessarily difficult bc you have to lug stuff around in the freezing cold and get on the subway, whereas if I went to BC, I'd just hop in my car and probably have in-building laundry provided. I know these are minor quibbles and that Boston is very different from NYC, but law school is going to be super stressful, so I don't want to add extra stress if I don't have to, and I feel like living near BC would be less stressful than living near BU.

2) student body - which school has a happier one?
I've heard BC called the "Disneyland of Law Schools" and I certainly found that all the students I met there were very friendly and close to each other. Yet when I visited BU, the students there seemed close and friendly too...so I guess both student bodies are happy, from what I've personally witnessed. My friend goes to BC Law currently and says the stereotype holds true, and that they didn't just pick the happiest and friendliest students to put on a show at Preview Day. I don't have any friends from BU Law so I can't compare. At my city undergrad school, there was no community amongst students, so I want to avoid that. I can't help but feel that a suburban campus would foster more community than a city one. However, BU and BC have similar class sizes (~200), so I can't imagine that they're not all friends with each other when there's only 200 people in each grade.

3) setting
Right now, BU Law is ugly. The rooms are incredibly hot, the elevators are tiny and slow, the building layout is poorly designed, and nothing is aesthetically pleasing. However, they're opening a new state-of-the-art building in time for the 1Ls next year, which is great. Unfortunately, the old building (which is connected to the new one) is going to go through renovation over the next year (2014-2015), which means students will have to listen to annoying construction all year long. Also, the library is still going to be ugly and the faculty offices are going to be temporarily displaced while they renovate the old building. The thought of having to sit through this transitional period for BU Law is irritating. Plus I don't trust that the construction on the old building will finish within a year.

BC is nicer at the moment, but if I had to choose between BU's newly renovated building and BC's older, prettier, yet not-renovated building, I'd say BU's new one would win because the acoustics in BC's classrooms are kinda bad. I was sitting in the second to last row during a mock class and I couldn't hear anything the students were saying, and sometimes I couldn't hear the professor either. Some aspects of BC Law are a bit dated. Furthermore, their cafeteria food is meh and it's not like there's any place to quickly grab lunch or coffee from an outside vendor near campus like there is at BU. I'd probably be packing lunch on most days, but still, it'd be nice if BC had more food options, or at least a nice coffee shop.

4) social life
From what I've heard, BC Law students usually head to the same local bars every weekend. This appeals to me because I think it fosters community. I'm not single and haven't been for years, so exploring new nightclubs and bars every night doesn't appeal to me. As an undergrad, we would go to different places all the time and always be mingling with complete strangers, usually much older than us, and I personally don't care for that kind of experience at this time in my life. I'd much rather go to the same comfortable places where everyone knows each other and you don't have to worry about cover charges, promoters, dressing up in stilettos, the fear that comes with walking home/taking the subway in a tight dress at night, and all the other BS that comes with going out in the city. But I'm suppose people don't go out much during law school anyway so I'm not sure if this should even be a factor in my decision.

5) job placement / employment
I don't know where I want to work but I definitely want to stay in the northeast. Boston and NYC would be fine by me. I hear BC places better regionally and BU places better nationally. The Law School Transparency scores for both schools look similar enough to me that I don't know if there's a significant difference in employment prospects.
http://www.lstscorereports.com/schools/bc/
http://www.lstscorereports.com/?school=bu

Ultimately I just want to (somewhat) enjoy the next three years of my life. I think I would be pretty happy at both schools and could manage either way, which is why this is such a difficult choice for me. Does anyone have any input as to which I should choose? Sorry if the points I raised sound petty or stupid. It's just that I didn't love my undergrad city experience and I don't want to make the same mistake twice.