Top Law Schools

New poll due to new data. Super grateful for input! (Especially if you feel comfortable saying why you'd choose one over the other.)

Goals
Unicorn-level PI work in civil rights, policy (sorry for how douchey this sounds).
Maximum geographic flexibility.

COA
Northwestern: ~76K
Penn: ~112K
Numbers represent estimated debt after three years.

Stats
LSAT: 170ish
GPA: 3.9ish

Other
For personal reasons, Philadelphia's a more comfortable destination for me, but I've got modest ties to Chicago as well.

what would your backup plan be

NU, unless you really like Philly. Penn IMO isnt worth 36k more

I don't think one or the other will help more with those plans. I'd have taken NU with $36k more than Penn, but I don't think either is indefensible at their respective CoA. Back-up plan and preferred market (Chicago vs. New York) should largely inform your decision (aside from cost/general employment stats, obviously).

Thanks for the thoughts, everyone!

For biglaw I would do Penn (even as an enthusiastic NU alum). For prestigious PI, meeting the right people quickly and often is more important so I would choose Chicago over Philly and then try to do some sort of semester in NYC.

Tough call. Penn may be worth the difference in cost if seeking biglaw. But, Northwestern's lower cost & location make this a difficult choice with no wrong answer.

I would encourage you to weigh the difference in the PI network at Penn vs. Northwestern.

Drizin and the guys at NU Bluhm are straight ballers. They do excellent work on a wide range of issues. My understanding is that there are a lot of meaningful opportunities for students to get involved. They're super connected and if you convince someone from Bluhm to pick up the phone and advocate for you, their word can open doors.

Here is some Bluhm work in the news yesterday/today:
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation- ... 71949.html


I am not 100% sure Penn has invested the same amount in their PI staff and cultivating the same PI opportunities for students. Worth investigating and weighing.

plaidisrad wrote:New poll due to new data. Super grateful for input! (Especially if you feel comfortable saying why you'd choose one over the other.)

Goals
Unicorn-level PI work in civil rights, policy (sorry for how douchey this sounds).
Maximum geographic flexibility.

COA
Northwestern: ~76K
Penn: ~112K
Numbers represent estimated debt after three years.

Stats
LSAT: 170ish
GPA: 3.9ish

Other
For personal reasons, Philadelphia's a more comfortable destination for me, but I've got modest ties to Chicago as well.

Am I the only one that thinks NU is more geographically flexible than Penn? Looking at the data, NU's 3 largest markets were IL, NY, and CA. Penn's top 3, on the other hand, were NY, PA, and DC. NU has alumni from coast to coast, while Upenn alumni will tend to cluster around the East Coast.

xiao_long wrote: Am I the only one that thinks NU is more geographically flexible than Penn? Looking at the data, NU's 3 largest markets were IL, NY, and CA. Penn's top 3, on the other hand, were NY, PA, and DC. NU has alumni from coast to coast, while Upenn alumni will tend to cluster around the East Coast.

This is an interesting point.

Wouldn't a school like Harvard or maybe even NYU be better for the OP?

BigZuck wrote:Wouldn't a school like Harvard or maybe even NYU be better for the OP?

Yes, NYU's as good an option as any for unicorn PI. OP, did you get any money at NYU?

havemercylorde wrote:

BigZuck wrote:Wouldn't a school like Harvard or maybe even NYU be better for the OP?

Yes, NYU's as good an option as any for unicorn PI. OP, did you get any money at NYU?

If only. I was...disappointed. Not sure what went wrong.

plaidisrad wrote:

havemercylorde wrote:

BigZuck wrote:Wouldn't a school like Harvard or maybe even NYU be better for the OP?

Yes, NYU's as good an option as any for unicorn PI. OP, did you get any money at NYU?

If only. I was...disappointed. Not sure what went wrong.

Retake

BigZuck wrote: Retake

Ha, yeah, I've considered it. But external factors that I don't totally want to get into make waiting for the next cycle unappealing. I might be able to scrape together better outcomes with a retake, if I were to score a few points higher, and that means it might very well be the right choice. For the moment, though, I'm setting the retake route aside and trying to assess what's already on the table.

Goals
Unicorn-level PI work in civil rights, policy (sorry for how douchey this sounds).
Maximum geographic flexibility.

If you just mentioned these considerations (without mentioning the law schools you were considering) and asked me to rank the top 14 schools according to your goals, both Cornell and Penn would be in the bottom 5. Maybe even in the bottom 3.

You need to adjust your goals or find a way to get into different law schools next cycle.

rpupkin wrote:

Goals
Unicorn-level PI work in civil rights, policy (sorry for how douchey this sounds).
Maximum geographic flexibility.

If you just mentioned these considerations (without mentioning the law schools you were considering) and asked me to rank the top 14 schools according to your goals, both Cornell and Penn would be in the bottom 5. Maybe even in the bottom 3.

You need to adjust your goals or find a way to get into different law schools next cycle.

Fair enough - but you mention Cornell, not NU. Does that change things even a little, or just a slip?

plaidisrad wrote:

rpupkin wrote:

Goals
Unicorn-level PI work in civil rights, policy (sorry for how douchey this sounds).
Maximum geographic flexibility.

If you just mentioned these considerations (without mentioning the law schools you were considering) and asked me to rank the top 14 schools according to your goals, both Cornell and Penn would be in the bottom 5. Maybe even in the bottom 3.

You need to adjust your goals or find a way to get into different law schools next cycle.

Fair enough - but you mention Cornell, not NU. Does that change thing even a little, or just a slip?

Whoops! In my head, I was thinking of a hypothetical bottom three of Penn, Cornell, and Northwestern. I just singled out the wrong one. Sorry.

Sigh.