Top Law Schools

USC: $120k (end up with about the same amount in debt with COL and everything)
Minnesota: $84k (again end up with $110-120k in debt with COL and everything)
Still waiting on Cornell decision (probably going to be this week)
On hold at Northwestern, going for an interview on Tuesday.

I will be financing solely on loans. My family is covering my undergrad but beyond that I'm on my own.
I'm from NYS and I think I want to end up in another country eventually. Or maybe back in NYS. Or really anywhere I feel comfortable and like I can accomplish my goals. I have a live-in SO of almost 3 years who will be joining me wherever I go (SO has no ties to any specific place). My goals are in food and ag law. I would like to defend farmers and facilitate a shift towards restorative/sustainable ag systems through the law. More broadly I am interested in environmental law so probably public interest, and both USC and Minnesota have good LRAPs.
#s: 167/3.7, just one LSAT.

I don't know much about farm law, but I do know that Minnesota has jipped you royally if that is their final scholarship offer and with $120K at USC, you should be pushing for full tuition or at least a match at UMN. I know they claim they "don't negotiate" but it's bullshit, they'll increase if they want you.

I don't think either of these schools have the cache to land you a legal job in another country. They are both regional schools and they will open up a limited regional market: Southern California or the Twin Cities. I would even hesitate before attending either without ties to SoCal/midwest, respectively, especially Minnesota since so many of their grads will be locals.

Good luck with Cornell and Northwestern. Taking the LSAT again could yield positive results as well, since you've only taken it once. I had a 16x/3.7x several years ago, almost applied and then decided to take another year off to work, took the exam again and had a substantially more rewarding cycle.

I'll cosign Bags' post, especially the retake part. With those numbers and only one take, going to law school right now would be a really bad decision.

earthcat wrote:My goals are in food and ag law. I would like to defend farmers and facilitate a shift towards restorative/sustainable ag systems through the law.

OP, I attend neither school but I worked in MSP last summer with a lot of UM students, and Land O'Lakes has a special program set up with UM for I think 2 students to work on-site in the in-house dep't throughout the school year. Very hands-on in the feed, seed, turf, crop protection, & dairy divisions. General Mills, Hormel, Cargill, Schwan Foods, Rosen's Diversified, Michael Food, AgriBank, and Davisco Foods are all billion-dollar + companies located in MSP.

One of my friends who worked at Land O'Lakes with me also did some side work for a sustainable ag startup in outstate MN as a UM student.

Having said that, get UMN to match the USC scholarship: http://www.lstscorereports.com/schools/minnesota/2012/ & http://www.lstscorereports.com/state/CA/. After spending a summer up there, I am definitely happy I do not attend there (T-14, 3 other twin cities law schools, and Iowa/Wisconsin all coming in to scoop up local biglaw spots).

30% large firm score for USC v. 13.5% for UMN.

With a 170 and mediocre undergrad grades (definitely worse than yours), I got a full-tuition scholarship offer (146k) from UMN. Check LSN and you'll find that your LSAT actually worth more than 84k.
Neither of them has impressive Biglaw numbers and can't really open doors to oversea practices, so I suggest you to retake or negotiate with UMN/USC.
Good luck with your Cornell aid package and NW hold!

Thanks everyone for the feedback. I found out yesterday that I was accepted at Cornell, and I'm pretty sure I'm willing to pay sticker to go there because 1. It's in NYS (Also Ithaca is awesome for my interests). 2. They have a very large Ag program that I will likely be able to collaborate with 3. T14
Any objections? They may give me a little hunk of $$ but I probably won't know before I make my deposit.

Sticker is insane...

Sticker at Cornell is a bad idea, full ride at USC won't get you where you want to go, and Minnesota is way too expensive.

Honestly, probably sit it out and retake unless UMN ups their offer.

OP Nice tar..

Retake.

OP, I don't know of anybody else at Cornell with goals in food or agricultural law. A friend and I actually tried to start a food law club because we're both interested in it, but we couldn't find a single faculty member who did anything remotely related to food law to serve as our faculty adviser. I guess you could take classes at the agriculture school, but I don't know how useful that is.

Honestly, I would agree with the retake sentiment just to save money.

J-e-L-L-o wrote:OP Nice tar..

OP, I have a similar interest in food and ag law. If you retake and wait a cycle, then you should consider applying to UCLA. They have a new program that focuses on food law and policy:
http://www.law.ucla.edu/centers-program ... fault.aspx

With a retake, you could have a good chance of a hearty scholarship bordering full ride.
The only other schools I have found that have a program for this sort of thing are Harvard and Arkansas...

dont pay 300k for Cornell

.

You can definitely get more cash from Minnesota. There are non-urms who have 35k a year with average softs and sub 3 gpas.

Definitely retake June regardless of what you decide