NU Culture v. GULC Culture Forum

[BA414]

0L here, wondering if any current NU and GULC students could please speak to the culture of the schools. I've done background on programs/jobs/placement, but I'm also heavily considering fit. I also know the age demographics/sizes of the school.

That said, I just have a couple quick questions to start the convo:

1) How has living in Chi/D.C. been?
2) What do students do for fun on the weekend, where do you hang out, etc.?
3) Is the class close knit, or does it trend toward impersonal?
4) Do you regret your decision to attend for any non-academic (i.e. culture) reason?

TIA for your help.

[BA414]

bumpskii

[Micdiddy]

0L here, wondering if any current NU and GULC students could please speak to the culture of the schools. I've done background on programs/jobs/placement, but I'm also heavily considering fit. I also know the age demographics/sizes of the school.

That said, I just have a couple quick questions to start the convo:

1) How has living in Chi/D.C. been?
2) What do students do for fun on the weekend, where do you hang out, etc.?
3) Is the class close knit, or does it trend toward impersonal?
4) Do you regret your decision to attend for any non-academic (i.e. culture) reason?

TIA for your help.

NU 1L.

1. Never lived in D.C. so I don't know. Chicago is pretty great though.
2. Drink a lot. We hang out at bars or at each other's apartments.
3. My section is extremely close-knit, we just had a section last day of class party/brunch with mimosas. It was awesome, our Professors came as well. Other sections are not as close-knit.
4. Nope. Quite the opposite. Pleasantly surprised by the general awesomeness of the people around me.

Anyway, I would be surprised if you get much different answers from anyone at NU or GULC. Decide on scholarship amounts + job placement (in other words, go to NU unless GULC is giving much more $$$).

[hunter.d]

GULC 1L

I have been very pleasantly surprised with the collegiality and lack of competitiveness here. I mean its a top law school so people are generally more motivated but it does not result in anything directed at anybody else. I actually think GULC's size works for it. Basically, the curve does not seem so oppressive when there are a healthy chunk of blank faces out there. That being said, our sections are relatively small and we have a very close-knit community around the section.

Bar review every week, tons of student organizations, typical law school stuff is certainly present here. On-campus housing for 1L's helps build a sense of community as well.

DC is really great, I actually lived in Chicago for a year and prefer DC. I personally like the feel of the Capitol better, the weather is a huge plus, and DC offers a uniqueness that I don't think other cities can really replicate.

[cotiger]

Law students love the word collegiality.

Why is that?

[jbagelboy]

Law firms love collegiality too, as do their clients (until you start work). It never ends.

[cotiger]

Never-ending collegiality. Jesus.

I don't think I've ever heard that word used outside of a law school context. Now it chases my around in my sleep.

[IAFG]

It's gonna be hard to get an answer to this since probably no one has attended both.

I don't care for DC's food/culture scene, which is way better in Chi. But the winters hugely blow.

One cool thing about law school in DC though is amazing externship options. Chicago has good stuff too but DC is better.

[jbagelboy]

Never-ending collegiality. Jesus.

I don't think I've ever heard that word used outside of a law school context. Now it chases my around in my sleep.

Well it would border on irreversible absurdity if a college ever tried to assert it's collegiality. A lot of the consulting firms I interviewed with/ended up working at played up their 'collegiality' tho

Being that 'college' serves as the default paradigm of comfort & "fun times" for most young professionals, collegiality makes sense as an descriptive sell. The attractive catch phrase used to be "professional", but now that stinks of we're-gonna-work-you-till-you-die-and-you'll-have-no-friends

[worldtraveler]

It's gonna be hard to get an answer to this since probably no one has attended both.

I don't care for DC's food/culture scene, which is way better in Chi. But the winters hugely blow.

One cool thing about law school in DC though is amazing externship options. Chicago has good stuff too but DC is better.

Not worth it. DC sucks.

[A. Nony Mouse]

Never-ending collegiality. Jesus.

I don't think I've ever heard that word used outside of a law school context. Now it chases my around in my sleep.

Well it would border on irreversible absurdity if a college ever tried to assert it's collegiality. A lot of the consulting firms I interviewed with/ended up working at played up their 'collegiality' tho

Being that 'college' serves as the default paradigm of comfort & "fun times" for most young professionals, collegiality makes sense as an descriptive sell. The attractive catch phrase used to be "professional", but now that stinks of we're-gonna-work-you-till-you-die-and-you'll-have-no-friends

College faculties at least are HUGE on asserting their collegiality.

[jbagelboy]

Never-ending collegiality. Jesus.

I don't think I've ever heard that word used outside of a law school context. Now it chases my around in my sleep.

Well it would border on irreversible absurdity if a college ever tried to assert it's collegiality. A lot of the consulting firms I interviewed with/ended up working at played up their 'collegiality' tho

Being that 'college' serves as the default paradigm of comfort & "fun times" for most young professionals, collegiality makes sense as an descriptive sell. The attractive catch phrase used to be "professional", but now that stinks of we're-gonna-work-you-till-you-die-and-you'll-have-no-friends

College faculties at least are HUGE on asserting their collegiality.

haha well that I certainly believe.

[BA414]

Thanks for everyone's input. I've actually lived in D.C. before, so I know the score, and I'm pretty agnostic about going back or starting anew in Chi.

Riddle me this: money aside (just for now, because I actually don't have any final offers yet), is there a substantial difference between these two schools? Will report back when I have real numbers.

[BigZuck]

Thanks for everyone's input. I've actually lived in D.C. before, so I know the score, and I'm pretty agnostic about going back or starting anew in Chi.

Riddle me this: money aside (just for now, because I actually don't have any final offers yet), is there a substantial difference between these two schools? Will report back when I have real numbers.

Unless they have changed their ways GULC will probably make this decision for you when they offer you the privilege of paying full sticker price.

[IAFG]

Thanks for everyone's input. I've actually lived in D.C. before, so I know the score, and I'm pretty agnostic about going back or starting anew in Chi.

Riddle me this: money aside (just for now, because I actually don't have any final offers yet), is there a substantial difference between these two schools? Will report back when I have real numbers.

You mean other than biglaw placement power?

[Paul Campos]

Thanks for everyone's input. I've actually lived in D.C. before, so I know the score, and I'm pretty agnostic about going back or starting anew in Chi.

Riddle me this: money aside (just for now, because I actually don't have any final offers yet), is there a substantial difference between these two schools? Will report back when I have real numbers.

GULC will pay you six dollars an hour to pretend to have a job for a year after you graduate without one.

[redbull12]

I think you may be overrating lay prestige relative to law school prestige as a factor in your decision. I ran your situation past Metta World Peace (fka as Ron Artest), and he gave me an interesting glimpse into how professional athletes go about selecting agents. This is a pretty close paraphrase of his comments:

"The top NBA stars are all very sensitive to annual changes in the law school rankings when choosing their agents. I remember getting into an argument last year with Carmelo Anthony about whether GULC's relatively poor big law score was a product of self-selection into government and PI, and a few weeks ago I saw Kevin Durant and Ricky Rubio nearly came to blows over a disagreement regarding the significance of UVA's school-funded job percentage.

"Also, keep in mind that the quality of the rest of the agent's resume counts as well. A couple of years ago LeBron was almost convinced to switch to new representation, but when he saw the guy's resume he was turned off by his time at Latham, which according to King James 'isn't really a V10.' So he went with a SullCrom guy instead. I guess you could say the first guy got Lathamed!"

HTH

Professor Campos is the next great standup act if he retires from enlightening his law students.

[BigZuck]

Thanks for everyone's input. I've actually lived in D.C. before, so I know the score, and I'm pretty agnostic about going back or starting anew in Chi.

Riddle me this: money aside (just for now, because I actually don't have any final offers yet), is there a substantial difference between these two schools? Will report back when I have real numbers.

You mean other than biglaw placement power?

I'm curious: last cycle you weren't willing to discount GULC's placement power as much as most people around here do and you at least seemed to consider that there might be a self-selection bias into PI/Gov involved. Now, NU clearly places better in big law according to you. Has something changed or have you learned something in the past year or so that would make you change your mind? Genuinely curious.

[PrideandGlory1776]

Seems to me collegiality when used to describe law schools is meant to describe the antithesis of a "cut-throat" "ruthless" "hyper-competitive" atmosphere. That is a more friendly, tight-knit community then a mere "professional atmosphere" where there is mutually respect, duty/obligation but less conviviality and enjoyment. Colleges on the other hand, seem far more interested in creating a "fun" atmosphere where students can "learn and grow" - college has become (for all intensive purposes) the place where people grow up - whether this is for good or ill I don't claim to know. In short, I'd say the prevailing paradigm of college institutionally has become our students "work hard and play hard" which is code for -- they learn what they have to but "enjoy" themselves all the while especially on weekends. Very interesting how the institutional ethos' of each atmosphere develops into mantras which reinforce that paradigmatic approach to culture and community.

[IAFG]

Thanks for everyone's input. I've actually lived in D.C. before, so I know the score, and I'm pretty agnostic about going back or starting anew in Chi.

Riddle me this: money aside (just for now, because I actually don't have any final offers yet), is there a substantial difference between these two schools? Will report back when I have real numbers.

You mean other than biglaw placement power?

I'm curious: last cycle you weren't willing to discount GULC's placement power as much as most people around here do and you at least seemed to consider that there might be a self-selection bias into PI/Gov involved. Now, NU clearly places better in big law according to you. Has something changed or have you learned something in the past year or so that would make you change your mind? Genuinely curious.

You overstate my position. I think GULC potentially comes off worse in those statistics due to the factors you mention relative to the rest of the t14. NU places very well into large firms, however, especially when you remove the JDMBAs from the calculation (as you should).

However, another caveat, NU doesn't place particularly well into DC.

[BA414]

All things being equal: would a student who most likely wants a decent shot at big law take NU and run with it?

Tell me if my reasoning doesn't make sense, but at least personally, I think being in the top half/top 25 percent of a class with ~250 students is less mentally taxing than knowing you have to be in the top 25-30 percent of a class of ~500+ to even have a shot. I know you'll still have to kick ass wherever you go, but the large class size scares me. And I completely understand that firms have to pick the best of the best, especially when they're recruiting at a school with individual class sizes that are very large.

I received a nice little grant from GULC (not scholly, although I'm still under consideration) and praying NU will match it, and maybe even give me some scholly after the deadline. There's no clear winner in my mind as of now, because I like both, but if NU at least shows me a little money then I think I'll have a better picture.

Any other evidence of people failing to get big law from GULC that's not in LST, ATL, NLJ250 reports, etc.?

TIA.

[bk1]

Tell me if my reasoning doesn't make sense, but at least personally, I think being in the top half/top 25 percent of a class with ~250 students is less mentally taxing than knowing you have to be in the top 25-30 percent of a class of ~500+ to even have a shot. I know you'll still have to kick ass wherever you go, but the large class size scares me. And I completely understand that firms have to pick the best of the best, especially when they're recruiting at a school with individual class sizes that are very large.

Your chances of getting top 1/4 isn't materially different whether there is 250 people or 1000 people.

Large class size isn't relevant for hiring once you know the statistics. Harvard has a large class size and does fine. GULC has a large class size and doesn't do as well. If the stats between 2 schools are the same, your odds aren't going to change between the 2 schools just because they have differing class sizes.

[BA414]

I think I understand what you're saying in theory, yes. My understanding is that at NU, you don't necessarily have to be in the top 25 to 30 percent like you do at GULC to land big law (but obviously you still have to do well). That's what I was trying to express earlier. Is this right? Because that would at least partially help me understand why 50 percent are getting big law at NU while less are getting it at GTown.

[bk1]

I think I understand what you're saying in theory, yes. My understanding is that at NU, you don't necessarily have to be in the top 25 to 30 percent like you do at GULC to land big law (but obviously you still have to do well). That's what I was trying to express earlier. Is this right? Because that would at least partially help me understand why 50 percent are getting big law at NU while less are getting it at GTown.

I haven't looked at employment data in a while. I suspect that NU does have a slight edge in biglaw employment but you should defer to someone who's looked at the data more recently.

To clarify: you don't have to be top 1/3 at GULC to get biglaw, it's more like a sliding scale (e.g. if top 10%-->90% chance of biglaw, if top 20% -->80% chance of biglaw, if top 30%-->70% chance of biglaw, etc, etc). So people with lower grades can get biglaw, they just have a harder time getting it.

[Princetonlaw68]

Out of curiosity, where is this top 25% idea coming from. Is it a GULC student? I've spoken to multiple people who are 3Ls at GULC recently, and they uniformly said that if you're in the top third, you basically have to have something wrong with you or get absurdly unlucky to strike out.