Top Law Schools

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Considering the low LSAT, I'm really *meh* about giving any advise here except retake. As such I'm abstaining from voting, and telling you that you should definitely take the test again. But on the matter at hand, Michigan would be preferable for the markets you cite.

Retake if going to law school would hurt your parents' finances. If not, then go to Michigan.

New York is the easiest market to get biglaw, which partly explains why Cornell has higher biglaw placement (since pretty much everyone bids NYC at Cornell).

Styx91 wrote:I was waitlisted at Northwestern, which I realize is probably tops for my goals.

Yeah, the operative choice would be UChi/NU - BL placement is stellar and Chicago-centric.

Styx91 wrote:I think Michigan places better in the Midwest, but how much of that is self selection? Cornell seems to have better overall placement.

I'm actually conflicted. You hit the nail on the head w/ Cornell's overperformance/Michigan's underperformance (placement stats vs. mag rankings), but that Cornell advantage is negated by feeding NYC almost exclusively. I'm leaning Michigan slightly b/c I'd assume more midwest firms come to campus recruiting, but that's mostly conjecture.

Have you reached out to NU at all since the waitlist notification? Pounding the pavement w/ them seems worth the time.

TheOnePercent wrote:

Styx91 wrote:I was waitlisted at Northwestern, which I realize is probably tops for my goals.

Yeah, the operative choice would be UChi/NU - BL placement is stellar and Chicago-centric.

Styx91 wrote:I think Michigan places better in the Midwest, but how much of that is self selection? Cornell seems to have better overall placement.

I'm actually conflicted. You hit the nail on the head w/ Cornell's overperformance/Michigan's underperformance (placement stats vs. mag rankings), but that Cornell advantage is negated by feeding NYC almost exclusively. I'm leaning Michigan slightly b/c I'd assume more midwest firms come to campus recruiting, but that's mostly conjecture.

Have you reached out to NU at all since the waitlist notification? Pounding the pavement w/ them seems worth the time.

What's NU's placement recently? I'd hesitate on going to NU if I were a younger law student since callbacks are still based on competing with your classmates. I don't know what the class make up is now, but back in the day they had on average older applicants (maybe 26 years on average) with more work experience. That was one of the schools I didn't apply to back in the day since I was like 22 when I started law school.

Quick/dirty placement stats here.

BiglawAssociate wrote:on average older applicants (maybe 26 years on average) with more work experience. That was one of the schools I didn't apply to back in the day since I was like 22 when I started law school.

This is still accurate of NU and something good to think about. I had never thought about NU from this vantage point, so thank you.

For OP: UM is better for your goals in the midwest.

I have similar ties and goals, and I am leaning heavily towards Michigan/Northwestern/Chicago, just given regional preference (disclaimer: 0L, but reapplicant, here). As other posters have said, Michigan keeps the Midwest and New York open, but Cornell may not get you to Chicago. Have you tried approaching Michigan with your WI full ride/Cornell's offer? You may have hit the max scholarship there, but it doesn't hurt to try. Do you have any other offers from T20 that you can use to negotiate?

Definitely ride the Northwestern waitlist. Good luck!

KMart wrote:This is still accurate of NU and something good to think about.

Yeah, average age at matriculation appears to be 25.

Unrelated, but also like the idea of leveraging your current aid offers against each other.

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TheOnePercent wrote:

KMart wrote:This is still accurate of NU and something good to think about.

Yeah, average age at matriculation appears to be 25.

Unrelated, but also like the idea of leveraging your current aid offers against each other.

Yep. Cornell and Michigan are aware of each other's offers. They also are aware of the Wisconsin full ride and other full rides (MN, IA, IN, IL, AL). Michigan is done negotiating.

In terms of other t20 offers, full scholarship to Minnesota. Considering they place pretty much only in MN, like WI in WI, not really considering them, but definitely used as leverage.

boomlawyered wrote:I have similar ties and goals, and I am leaning heavily towards Michigan/Northwestern/Chicago, just given regional preference (disclaimer: 0L, but reapplicant, here). As other posters have said, Michigan keeps the Midwest and New York open, but Cornell may not get you to Chicago. Have you tried approaching Michigan with your WI full ride/Cornell's offer? You may have hit the max scholarship there, but it doesn't hurt to try. Do you have any other offers from T20 that you can use to negotiate?

Definitely ride the Northwestern waitlist. Good luck!

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Styx91 wrote:

boomlawyered wrote:I have similar ties and goals, and I am leaning heavily towards Michigan/Northwestern/Chicago, just given regional preference (disclaimer: 0L, but reapplicant, here). As other posters have said, Michigan keeps the Midwest and New York open, but Cornell may not get you to Chicago. Have you tried approaching Michigan with your WI full ride/Cornell's offer? You may have hit the max scholarship there, but it doesn't hurt to try. Do you have any other offers from T20 that you can use to negotiate?

Definitely ride the Northwestern waitlist. Good luck!

Definitely going to ride NU waitlist. So, Cornell is going to be cheaper for me, and from looking at the placement data, Cornell significantly surpasses Michigan in big law/clerkships. Is Cornell a bad choice? Probably an impossible question to answer, but, is it that you can't get Chicago from Cornell, or is it that people who want Chicago just don't go to Cornell?

Definitely can't answer this, just have seen a lot of threads about Chicago being a tie-sensitive market-- anyone else with experience? and PM'd.

Styx91 wrote:

boomlawyered wrote:I have similar ties and goals, and I am leaning heavily towards Michigan/Northwestern/Chicago, just given regional preference (disclaimer: 0L, but reapplicant, here). As other posters have said, Michigan keeps the Midwest and New York open, but Cornell may not get you to Chicago. Have you tried approaching Michigan with your WI full ride/Cornell's offer? You may have hit the max scholarship there, but it doesn't hurt to try. Do you have any other offers from T20 that you can use to negotiate?

Definitely ride the Northwestern waitlist. Good luck!

Definitely going to ride NU waitlist. So, Cornell is going to be cheaper for me, and from looking at the placement data, Cornell significantly surpasses Michigan in big law/clerkships. Is Cornell a bad choice? Probably an impossible question to answer, but, is it that you can't get Chicago from Cornell, or is it that people who want Chicago just don't go to Cornell?

Impossible question to definitively answer, but likely more people from Cornell want NYC and fewer Chicago offices do OCI at Cornell. Also, Chicago is tie-sensitive. All markets outside of NYC and maybe DC are tie sensitive.

If you're okay with NYC biglaw, then Cornell is a good choice. That said, biglaw sucks big balls (I work in NYC biglaw), so I advocate not doing it in the first place (which contrary to what people say on here, is perfectly feasible). Half of my friends got in house/fed gov/clerkships straight out of law school.

Styx91 wrote:Definitely going to ride NU waitlist. So, Cornell is going to be cheaper for me, and from looking at the placement data, Cornell significantly surpasses Michigan in big law/clerkships. Is Cornell a bad choice? Probably an impossible question to answer, but, is it that you can't get Chicago from Cornell, or is it that people who want Chicago just don't go to Cornell?

Cornell 2L:

There were only like 4 people in our class from Illinois, and not even all of them wanted to go back to Chicago. I know one who consciously chose NYC over Chicago, and one or two people who will be working in Chicago, but I don't know much beyond that. I also know someone who's working in Wisconsin. Not saying it's easy to go anywhere you want from here, because I have no idea what grades you would need to break into Chicago given the small sample size or how it would compare to Michigan's placement. And you'd probably have to do more of your own footwork from here because we probably have fewer Chicago firms at OCI. But it is true that most people here target NYC, DC or CA. And there are probably more people interested in Boston than Chicago.

Clerking shouldn't be a goal. Its a one year job, not a career track. If you're in position to get a clerkship, then go for it, because its a good experience. Though the experience is more helpful for litigators (are you interested in litigating?)

Given you're rather vague goals, the fact that you're unsure about biglaw, and that you're actually interested in staying in Wisconsin - I vote for the full ride at Wisconsin. I think there's a better chance that you appreciate the flexibility of graduating debt free than that you appreciate getting biglaw.

Nomo wrote:Clerking shouldn't be a goal. Its a one year job, not a career track. If you're in position to get a clerkship, then go for it, because its a good experience. Though the experience is more helpful for litigators (are you interested in litigating?)

Given you're rather vague goals, the fact that you're unsure about biglaw, and that you're actually interested in staying in Wisconsin - I vote for the full ride at Wisconsin. I think there's a better chance that you appreciate the flexibility of graduating debt free than that you appreciate getting biglaw.

I realize a clerkship is a one year job, but it is a cool opportunity, and firms will give you bonus for doing it.

I also realize my goals are vague. I am interested in a wide variety of areas of the law. I could see working as a local prosecutor, corporate big law, estate planning, etc.

I will graduate debt free regardless of the school I attend. I want to go to the school that is going to give me the best employment options. About 10% of WI gets big law, and their overall employment after 9 months sucks compared to mich and Cornell. I've also lived in Madison for the last 6 years and am ready for a scenery change.

My preference for Milwaukee/Chicago is just a preference. I'm willing to go wherever the jobs are.

Styx91 wrote:

Nomo wrote:Clerking shouldn't be a goal. Its a one year job, not a career track. If you're in position to get a clerkship, then go for it, because its a good experience. Though the experience is more helpful for litigators (are you interested in litigating?)

Given you're rather vague goals, the fact that you're unsure about biglaw, and that you're actually interested in staying in Wisconsin - I vote for the full ride at Wisconsin. I think there's a better chance that you appreciate the flexibility of graduating debt free than that you appreciate getting biglaw.

I realize a clerkship is a one year job, but it is a cool opportunity, and firms will give you bonus for doing it.

I also realize my goals are vague. I am interested in a wide variety of areas of the law. I could see working as a local prosecutor, corporate big law, estate planning, etc.

I will graduate debt free regardless of the school I attend. I want to go to the school that is going to give me the best employment options. About 10% of WI gets big law, and their overall employment after 9 months sucks compared to mich and Cornell. I've also lived in Madison for the last 6 years and am ready for a scenery change.

My preference for Milwaukee/Chicago is just a preference. I'm willing to go wherever the jobs are.

If you're graduating debt free, then do non-biglaw work whereever you want to be. We can't really give you advice on non-biglaw work here, but I know that I wouldn't have done biglaw if I had no loans....I do know that fed gov hiring, etc. is less "prestige oriented" than biglaw fwiw.

Chicago is very tie sensitive but if you have lived in Wisconsin your whole life and tell firms you took Cornell because they gave you substantially more scholarship than NU/Mich I don't think you will have any problem with ties. There may be fewer firms that go to OCI but you can always massmail. I don't really know for sure, but I would be surprised if Chicago firms had higher cutoffs for Cornell students than NU/Mich; in my experience firms seem to view the bottom half of the T14 as totally interchangable (even if they recruit heavier out of certain schools in closer proximity).

Lavitz wrote:

Styx91 wrote:Definitely going to ride NU waitlist. So, Cornell is going to be cheaper for me, and from looking at the placement data, Cornell significantly surpasses Michigan in big law/clerkships. Is Cornell a bad choice? Probably an impossible question to answer, but, is it that you can't get Chicago from Cornell, or is it that people who want Chicago just don't go to Cornell?

Cornell 2L:

There were only like 4 people in our class from Illinois, and not even all of them wanted to go back to Chicago. I know one who consciously chose NYC over Chicago, and one or two people who will be working in Chicago, but I don't know much beyond that. I also know someone who's working in Wisconsin. Not saying it's easy to go anywhere you want from here, because I have no idea what grades you would need to break into Chicago given the small sample size or how it would compare to Michigan's placement. And you'd probably have to do more of your own footwork from here because we probably have fewer Chicago firms at OCI. But it is true that most people here target NYC, DC or CA. And there are probably more people interested in Boston than Chicago.

Cornell grad here. The only person in my class who I remember targeting Chicago did their SA at a New York firm but worked it out with the firm that they would be in the firm's Chicago office when they came back as an associate. Seemed pretty easy.