Top Law Schools

My friend's sister has narrowed her choice down to these two schools. Her stats are 3.5x, 169, Minneapolis born and bred. She intends to stay in Minneapolis, and probably wants Big law after graduation. At the moment, she seems to be leaning towards Minnesota, but for me I feel like Northwestern would be a less riskier choice, relatively speaking. Here are my reasons:

- Minnesota is only offering her half tuition, and she has to be in the top 2/3 of the class to retain it
- Northwestern can get her not only the Mpls market, but also the Chicago market, and to a lesser extent, NYC
- Chicago is close enough to Mpls that she could probably come home every week if she really wanted to
- She can always do Chicago Big law for a few years to pay down the debt, and move back into Mpls once she gets some credentials under her belt

Had she received a full ride from Minnesota, I would of encouraged her to accept the offer. However, this is not the case, and it is uncertain whether she can leverage her Northwestern acceptance into getting a full ride from Minnesota. If not, I feel like even at half tuition Minnesota is an excess risk due to its terrible Big law placement. I recall the conventional wisdom is that in order for someone from Minnesota to be competitive for Mpls Big law, they have to be in the top 20 percent. Will a Northwestern law grad in the top third of their class be just as competitive for Mpls?

Can anyone chip in with some alternative analysis? Thanks!

xiao_long wrote:My friend's sister has narrowed her choice down to these two schools. Her stats are 3.5x, 169, Minneapolis born and bred. She intends to stay in Minneapolis, and probably wants Big law after graduation. At the moment, she seems to be leaning towards Minnesota, but for me I feel like Northwestern would be a less riskier choice, relatively speaking. Here are my reasons:

- Minnesota is only offering her half tuition, and she has to be in the top 2/3 of the class to retain it
- Northwestern can get her not only the Mpls market, but also the Chicago market, and to a lesser extent, NYC
- Chicago is close enough to Mpls that she could probably come home every week if she really wanted to
- She can always do Chicago Big law for a few years to pay down the debt, and move back into Mpls once she gets some credentials under her belt

Had she received a full ride from Minnesota, I would of encouraged her to accept the offer. However, this is not the case, and it is uncertain whether she can leverage her Northwestern acceptance into getting a full ride from Minnesota. If not, I feel like even at half tuition Minnesota is an excess risk due to its terrible Big law placement. I recall the conventional wisdom is that in order for someone from Minnesota to be competitive for Mpls Big law, they have to be in the top 20 percent. Will a Northwestern law grad in the top third of their class be just as competitive for Mpls?

Can anyone chip in with some alternative analysis? Thanks!

Yes is the answer to your bolded question. And in fact, a lot of Minneapolis big law firms dip even lower in the class.

In terms of employment, I don't think NU and MN are even in the same league.

.

Northwestern can get her not only the Mpls market, but also the Chicago market, and to a lesser extent, NYC

Northwestern can get her not only the Mpls market, but also the NYC market, and to a lesser extent, Chicago.

There, I fixed it for you. Business is booming in NY, but not so much in ChiTown.

xiao_long wrote:My friend's sister has narrowed her choice down to these two schools. Her stats are 3.5x, 169, Minneapolis born and bred. She intends to stay in Minneapolis, and probably wants Big law after graduation. At the moment, she seems to be leaning towards Minnesota, but for me I feel like Northwestern would be a less riskier choice, relatively speaking. Here are my reasons:

- Minnesota is only offering her half tuition, and she has to be in the top 2/3 of the class to retain it
- Northwestern can get her not only the Mpls market, but also the Chicago market, and to a lesser extent, NYC
- Chicago is close enough to Mpls that she could probably come home every week if she really wanted to
- She can always do Chicago Big law for a few years to pay down the debt, and move back into Mpls once she gets some credentials under her belt

Had she received a full ride from Minnesota, I would of encouraged her to accept the offer. However, this is not the case, and it is uncertain whether she can leverage her Northwestern acceptance into getting a full ride from Minnesota. If not, I feel like even at half tuition Minnesota is an excess risk due to its terrible Big law placement. I recall the conventional wisdom is that in order for someone from Minnesota to be competitive for Mpls Big law, they have to be in the top 20 percent. Will a Northwestern law grad in the top third of their class be just as competitive for Mpls?

Can anyone chip in with some alternative analysis? Thanks!

If she wants to know the answers to these questions so badly, why can't she ask them herself?

To the point though, to answer "your friend's sister's" questions, that scholarship at MN is a trap. Tuition there is waay too expensive (pretty much goes for all law schools, but I digress) and having to pay full-bore, even in-state, is not even a little bit OK. The NU acceptance may be solid leverage for removing that stipulation. Not sure how much it will help in getting more money though.

Top 20% sounds about right as far as MN and biglaw placement goes, though. The Twin Cities summer classes are really small and there's a glut of law schools. Even though the other 3 (I guess now 2) other schools will only send about 5 people each, there just aren't that many opening to begin with. Add in the T-14 kids trying to come back, etc. and it's not a cakewalk.

Also, do you have any idea how far Chicago and MPLS actually are from each other? That's a 7 hour car ride each way. Whether as a law student or an associate, there's no way that shit is happening on a weekly basis.

did UMN increase their scholarship standards? Mine's a 2.5, and I think only 2 people have lost them over the past few years