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Genuinely curious, there are two students

student A-- from california, wants to work doing litigation for a law firm in cali, does exceptionally well on the lsat, gets accepted to Harvard and goes there, does well there, then gets a firm gig in cali, comes back home, but has 250,000 in debt.

student B- also from cali, also wants to work doing litigation for a law firm in cali, does ok on the lsat, thus has limited options, gets accepted to UC Davis on a a full ride, does very well in law school and is top 15 percent, and gets the SAME law firm gig as student A in the same city.

both are now first year associates, earning the same salary, and the only difference ? student A has now 250,000-300,000 debt, thus for five years, he literally has to see half his paycheck go to the govt, while student A can save a little bit every pay check, and end of 5 years, when student A breaks even, and then leaves for a small firm, his net worth is 0. And while student B also leaves for the smaller firm after 5 years, he has saved enough that he he started a college fund for his future children.


So, TLS is Harvard, Yale, Stanford at STICKER worth it for EVERYBODY? and can it HURT some, atleast in the short run? Would love to know your opinions.

Are you trolling?

After a few years where you went to school matters a lot less (if at all). So yeah, student A is in a much worse position.

This seems like trolling but what the hell.

Is your question seriously: do people who go to HYS sometimes end up with worse outcomes than people who go to lower ranked schools? Because if so the answer is unequivocally yes and I'm unsure why this needs to even be asked.

not trolling, just curious, I even believe that harvard, yale and stanford can be worth it in the LONG RUN, but my main q was whether it can HURT some in the SHORT run (short run, meaning 5 years assuming the HYS student leaves/quits his bug law job after 5 years).

deebanger wrote:not trolling, just curious, I even believe that harvard, yale and stanford can be worth it in the LONG RUN, but my main q was whether it can HURT some in the SHORT run (short run, meaning 5 years assuming the HYS student leaves/quits his bug law job after 5 years).

Yes it can hurt someone and no HYS isn't worth it at sticker for the vast majority of people. Is this a subtle way of asking if Davis for free > Stanford at sticker? Because the answer is no.

aboutmydaylight wrote:

deebanger wrote:not trolling, just curious, I even believe that harvard, yale and stanford can be worth it in the LONG RUN, but my main q was whether it can HURT some in the SHORT run (short run, meaning 5 years assuming the HYS student leaves/quits his bug law job after 5 years).

Yes it can hurt someone and no HYS isn't worth it at sticker for the vast majority of people. Is this a subtle way of asking if Davis for free > Stanford at sticker? Because the answer is no.

"HYS isn't worth it at sticker for the vast majority of people"- thank you! I believe that but Im not sure if thats the majority opinion here among 0l's and hls students. Again, I totally agree that HYS can help someone in the long run, or even help someone in certain situations right out of law school, but i dont know why hys students will not agree like u just did that it can certainly HURT someone too especially in the short run

iesca- this was ur post right, before u deleted it, most hys students are rich kids and done have to worry abt debt

well then if your rich, i have nothing to say, u have an easier time in this world.

I honestly didn't think anyone could find a worse way to frame this discussion than the "fundamental problem" thread(s), but you managed. Bravo.

redsox wrote:I honestly didn't think anyone could find a worse way to frame this discussion than the "fundamental problem" thread(s), but you managed. Bravo.

why, I was genuinely curious, I gave u two options, and wanted to know which student was in a better place, given the context.

If you have to ask if 250,000 in debt is harmful to some people, I don't think deciding on HYS will be a problem.

deebanger wrote:

redsox wrote:I honestly didn't think anyone could find a worse way to frame this discussion than the "fundamental problem" thread(s), but you managed. Bravo.

why, I was genuinely curious, I gave u two options, and wanted to know which student was in a better place, given the context.

Explaining why this is stupid isn't worth the time.

redsox wrote:

deebanger wrote:

redsox wrote:I honestly didn't think anyone could find a worse way to frame this discussion than the "fundamental problem" thread(s), but you managed. Bravo.

why, I was genuinely curious, I gave u two options, and wanted to know which student was in a better place, given the context.

Explaining why this is stupid isn't worth the time.

again, I understand why HYS students like yourself will be frustrated if you end up in the same firm in the same city with the same pay, then Im not understanding why many HYS students here will not admit that it can HURT some, remember not all but certainly some. A poster above even went as far to say that for the majorty HYS at sticker is not worth it

By the way, the people who it won't be hurting are only people who were smart enough to have it as an option. Full ride lower T14 kids would prob be better off than sticker HYS. Someone who squeaked into Davis and nothing better is not going to be the same person who was better off passing on harvard...

Clearly wrote:By the way, the people who it won't be hurting are only people who were smart enough to have it as an option. Full ride lower T14 kids would prob be better off than sticker HYS. Someone who squeaked into Davis and nothing better is not going to be the same person who was better off passing on harvard...

Why is the student B who passed on Harvard not better off, when they landed in the same firm, in the city with the same pay, and one quit big law after 5 years with lots of savings, and the other quit big law with very little or 0 savings. If you mean long term, the Davis student is not better off, sure i can see a case for that as the harvard student after he quits his big law firm, MIGHT have better gigs. But you should also see that in the short term right out of the the gate, he is not better off compared to the Davis student. Heck, after 5 years if both students quit and then go work again at a small or midsize firm, then really the harvard student is not much better off. This is mind boggling.

deebanger wrote:again, I understand why HYS students like yourself will be frustrated if you end up in the same firm in the same city with the same pay, then Im not understanding why many HYS students here will not admit that it can HURT some, remember not all but certainly some. A poster above even went as far to say that for the majorty HYS at sticker is not worth it

I'm not an HYS student, though I will be. And I won't be at all frustrated that some people at my firm chose to go to other schools and pay less. Why would I give a damn? Of course that will happen. What do you think, HYS students imagine that there is some sort of tier of firms which only hire HYS grads? All you're saying is that some people at non-HYS will have similar outcomes to some people at HYS. How does that mean anyone was hurt (sorry, HURT) by going to HYS?

As it happens, I think you'd have to be crazy to pay sticker anywhere and finance it entirely with loans, HYS or no. But your post doesn't make any sense at all.

deebanger wrote:

Clearly wrote:By the way, the people who it won't be hurting are only people who were smart enough to have it as an option. Full ride lower T14 kids would prob be better off than sticker HYS. Someone who squeaked into Davis and nothing better is not going to be the same person who was better off passing on harvard...

Why is the student B who passed on Harvard not better off, when they landed in the same firm, in the city with the same pay, and one quit big law after 5 years with lots of savings, and the other quit big law with very little or 0 savings. If you mean long term, the Davis student is not better off, sure i can see a case for that as the harvard student after he quits his big law firm, MIGHT have better gigs. But you should also see that in the short term right out of the the gate, he is not better off compared to the Davis student. Heck, after 5 years if both students quit and then go work again at a small or midsize firm, then really the harvard student is not much better off. This is mind boggling.

Because the probabilities to each outcome are not the same from those schools. Do you even know what percentage of students from Davis will end up with with a median Harvard outcome? The reason people go to better schools is to hedge their bets against uncertain outcomes. If you could guarantee someone the same job as an average Harvard grad with 0 debt, of course you'd take it. I don't get what you're asking.

Because the kids who just squeeked into Davis aren't going to be top 10% and find themselves with HYS firm offers. I gotta suspect confirmation bias here, are you just looking to justify a risky decision here? Comparing the worst outcomes from HYS to the very best outcomes from Davis is just plain stupid. Yes for some very lucky Davis grads they would have won out in this deal, but those are the kids more than likely who actually had HYS options and opted to stay local on full rides, etc.

deebanger wrote:

Clearly wrote:By the way, the people who it won't be hurting are only people who were smart enough to have it as an option. Full ride lower T14 kids would prob be better off than sticker HYS. Someone who squeaked into Davis and nothing better is not going to be the same person who was better off passing on harvard...

Why is the student B who passed on Harvard not better off, when they landed in the same firm, in the city with the same pay, and one quit big law after 5 years with lots of savings, and the other quit big law with very little or 0 savings. If you mean long term, the Davis student is not better off, sure i can see a case for that as the harvard student after he quits his big law firm, MIGHT have better gigs. But you should also see that in the short term right out of the the gate, he is not better off compared to the Davis student. Heck, after 5 years if both students quit and then go work again at a small or midsize firm, then really the harvard student is not much better off. This is mind boggling.

Yeah, but you're making a ton of assumptions about what happen to these students which has nothing to do with what is likely to happen to your typical Harvard student and your typical Davis student. Suppose student C got caught smuggling drugs, spent three years in prison, got out, spent 5 years working at Walmart, and then hit a $200 million lottery jackpot. Clearly spending three years in prison is better than going to ANY law school. Duh.

BUT CAN IT HURT?

aboutmydaylight wrote:

deebanger wrote:

Clearly wrote:By the way, the people who it won't be hurting are only people who were smart enough to have it as an option. Full ride lower T14 kids would prob be better off than sticker HYS. Someone who squeaked into Davis and nothing better is not going to be the same person who was better off passing on harvard...

Why is the student B who passed on Harvard not better off, when they landed in the same firm, in the city with the same pay, and one quit big law after 5 years with lots of savings, and the other quit big law with very little or 0 savings. If you mean long term, the Davis student is not better off, sure i can see a case for that as the harvard student after he quits his big law firm, MIGHT have better gigs. But you should also see that in the short term right out of the the gate, he is not better off compared to the Davis student. Heck, after 5 years if both students quit and then go work again at a small or midsize firm, then really the harvard student is not much better off. This is mind boggling.

Because the probabilities to each outcome are not the same from those schools. Do you even know what percentage of students from Davis will end up with with a median Harvard outcome? The reason people go to better schools is to hedge their bets against uncertain outcomes. If you could guarantee someone the same job as an average Harvard grad with 0 debt, of course you'd take it. I don't get what you're asking.

/endthread

This has got to be the dumbest thread I've seen on TLS. Seriously op, wtf dude.

redsox wrote: Suppose student C got caught smuggling drugs, spent three years in prison, got out, spent 5 years working at Walmart, and then hit a $200 million lottery jackpot. Clearly spending three years in prison is better than going to ANY law school. Duh.

TITCR. Just win the lottery op, problem solved.

ETA: Look op, I understand you're looking at going to Davis and looking for some sort of validation that you, personally, could be just as well off as if you went to YHS (which makes the lack of admittance to those schools less painful), but (and I don't mean this in a rude way) this thread just seems completely and utterly delusional.While there is a chance that you very well might graduate at the top of your class at Davis and have the personality that will afford you the same opportunities as some people from YHS, that chance is ridiculously, absurdly slim, to the point of making the Davis option nonsensical. This is why people choose to go to YHS over schools like Duke and Michigan, to say nothing of a school like Davis.

TLS is awful lately

Apparently HYS at sticker is a flame and only the handful of rich kids whose parents won't help them are the ones paying it. So don't worry about it I guess.

Cicero76 wrote:TLS is awful lately

Yes, sorry if I added to that feeling. It is a shock to be off the forums and come back and see that COA at some schools will hit 90,000 in a few years if the increases stay the same. Just a few years ago people on Paul Campos site were outraged that NU was $80,000. A law school education is an expensive luxury item that most people will be paying for their entire adult life.
There are other jobs.

It seems like you really want Big Law, and you're planning on going to Davis. That's not smart.

Having said that, sure, the top student at UC Davis who went on a full ride is in a better position than a median HYS student with 250,000 in debt. The Davis guy will get Big Law if he wants it, and will have a much better quality of life since he's not paying 3k in loans a month.

Problem is, you're almost certainly not going to be top 1% of your class at Davis. Being average at Davis means you're probably hustling for any legal work you can find. Being average at HYS means you still have great opportunities.

Also, please stop randomly capitalizing things. It's very odd.