Michigan vs. Reapply? Forum

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WHAT DO???

Michigan
23
46%
Wait another year
27
54%
 
Total votes: 50

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Tiago Splitter

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Re: Michigan vs. Reapply?

Post by Tiago Splitter » Tue Jul 14, 2015 11:46 pm

Maybe I'm too far removed from admissions but I don't see how this guy cashes in anywhere else. Not worth the cost of waiting IMO. You'll be one of the small handful at Mich who go in smart enough to realize that NYC biglaw is the only real path to a job.

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Re: Michigan vs. Reapply?

Post by abl » Wed Jul 15, 2015 1:44 am

I'm a practicing lawyer, and have been pretty involved in hiring for several different highly desirable positions (public and private sector) over the last few years. I have never heard of someone favoring Duke or NW over Michigan without some personal reason (e.g., one of my bosses went to a school in that range and favored that school slightly). To be frank, the idea's laughable.

There may be some cultural or support-based reasons for why Michigan is slightly lagging in employment outcomes lately, but I suspect that it's more likely to be random noise than anything particularly meaningful. Even accepting that there may be some small edge to going to Duke or even NW (?!) over Michigan, that edge certainly would not justify the average applicant going through the stressful application process again while paying for another round of application fees, let alone delaying law school for another year.* This doesn't strike me as even being a particularly close call.

Look, I know this process encourages applicants to parse increasingly marginal differences between these schools, and the recent recession has bred extreme caution and conservatism. It's important to be thoughtful and careful with a decision of this magnitude. But it is possible to go too far in that direction--and encouraging the OP (with his or her stats) to turn down Michigan with $45k in aid for the sake of trying again next year for the chance of something slightly better is going too far.

*Obviously the burden of delaying a year will be greater on some than others. I'm just talking about the avg applicant.

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Good Guy Gaud

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Re: Michigan vs. Reapply?

Post by Good Guy Gaud » Wed Jul 15, 2015 1:47 am

OhBoyOhBortles wrote:
Brut wrote:
runinthefront wrote:Reapply. No brainer

FirmBiz

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Re: Michigan vs. Reapply?

Post by FirmBiz » Wed Jul 15, 2015 8:17 am

Reapply

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Winston1984

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Re: Michigan vs. Reapply?

Post by Winston1984 » Wed Jul 15, 2015 10:05 am

But it is possible to go too far in that direction--and encouraging the OP (with his or her stats) to turn down Michigan with $45k in aid for the sake of trying again next year for the chance of something slightly better is going too far.
I would disagree that he would only have the chance of something slightly better. The jump from 168 to 171 is huge. He went from being median or below throughout most of the T14, to being at or above the 75th for most of the T14. If he got $45k this year from Mich, I bet he would get $75k next year.

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Tiago Splitter

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Re: Michigan vs. Reapply?

Post by Tiago Splitter » Wed Jul 15, 2015 12:16 pm

Winston1984 wrote:
But it is possible to go too far in that direction--and encouraging the OP (with his or her stats) to turn down Michigan with $45k in aid for the sake of trying again next year for the chance of something slightly better is going too far.
I would disagree that he would only have the chance of something slightly better. The jump from 168 to 171 is huge. He went from being median or below throughout most of the T14, to being at or above the 75th for most of the T14. If he got $45k this year from Mich, I bet he would get $75k next year.
But that's not worth waiting for. I think he'd need like 100k from NYU next year to make waiting worth it and I don't see that happening.

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Winston1984

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Re: Michigan vs. Reapply?

Post by Winston1984 » Wed Jul 15, 2015 12:55 pm

Tiago Splitter wrote:
Winston1984 wrote:
But it is possible to go too far in that direction--and encouraging the OP (with his or her stats) to turn down Michigan with $45k in aid for the sake of trying again next year for the chance of something slightly better is going too far.
I would disagree that he would only have the chance of something slightly better. The jump from 168 to 171 is huge. He went from being median or below throughout most of the T14, to being at or above the 75th for most of the T14. If he got $45k this year from Mich, I bet he would get $75k next year.
But that's not worth waiting for. I think he'd need like 100k from NYU next year to make waiting worth it and I don't see that happening.
I just reread the op, and it looks like parents are helping quite a bit. So even if he got $45k at NYU next year (which is possible), I think that's a better spot to be in than he is now. But you are probably right that the additional $ at Mich isn't worth waiting for.

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megagnarley

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Re: Michigan vs. Reapply?

Post by megagnarley » Wed Jul 15, 2015 6:28 pm

Dude if you can interview well, just go to Mich, work hard, nail median or above and enjoy NY. It's not that complicated.

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Re: Michigan vs. Reapply?

Post by 071816 » Wed Jul 15, 2015 6:35 pm

megagnarley wrote:Dude if you can interview well, just go to Mich, work hard, nail median or above and enjoy NY. It's not that complicated.
how do u enjoy Michigan?

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Ron Howard

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Re: Michigan vs. Reapply?

Post by Ron Howard » Wed Jul 15, 2015 6:54 pm

megagnarley wrote:Dude if you can interview well, just go to Mich, work hard, nail median or above and enjoy NY. It's not that complicated.
This might be a good approach. There has been, IMHO, way too much emphasis on retaking and upgrading as of late when individuals already have a good deal. The OP has a good deal. He is going to a T14 with scholarship.

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Tiago Splitter

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Re: Michigan vs. Reapply?

Post by Tiago Splitter » Wed Jul 15, 2015 7:11 pm

Ron Howard wrote:
megagnarley wrote:Dude if you can interview well, just go to Mich, work hard, nail median or above and enjoy NY. It's not that complicated.
This might be a good approach. There has been, IMHO, way too much emphasis on retaking and upgrading as of late when individuals already have a good deal. The OP has a good deal. He is going to a T14 with scholarship.
It's not a good approach if he actually needs to make median to get NYC Biglaw. I think he should stay with Michigan, but that's assuming anyone within shouting distance of median can get NYC Biglaw. If you really need median then wait a year and go to Penn or NYU where you can NYC biglaw if you can fog a mirror.

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Re: Michigan vs. Reapply?

Post by BigZuck » Wed Jul 15, 2015 7:23 pm

megagnarley wrote:nail median or above and enjoy NY.
:shock:

I always thought the T12 thing was a joke.

Today I learned it's real.

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frasier

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Re: Michigan vs. Reapply?

Post by frasier » Thu Jul 16, 2015 12:36 am

BigZuck wrote:
megagnarley wrote:nail median or above and enjoy NY.
:shock:

I always thought the T12 thing was a joke.

Today I learned it's real.
Noob here. What do you mean?

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Re: Michigan vs. Reapply?

Post by BigZuck » Thu Jul 16, 2015 12:38 am

frasier wrote:
BigZuck wrote:
megagnarley wrote:nail median or above and enjoy NY.
:shock:

I always thought the T12 thing was a joke.

Today I learned it's real.
Noob here. What do you mean?
What Tiago said

There is a sizeable gap between Michigan and the top schools if you have to "nail median or above" to get NYC big law.

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Clearly

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Re: Michigan vs. Reapply?

Post by Clearly » Thu Jul 16, 2015 2:25 am

I love the opportunity cost of biglaw argument. For a career that lasts roughly 5 years of your life, it doesn't matter which 5 those are...

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Re: Michigan vs. Reapply?

Post by BigZuck » Thu Jul 16, 2015 8:36 am

Clearly wrote:I love the opportunity cost of biglaw argument. For a career that lasts roughly 5 years of your life, it doesn't matter which 5 those are...
I think the thought is that whatever comes after it will pay better than whatever job you could have otherwise. So instead of a 40 year career you get a 39 year career.

But maybe I misunderstand the argument.

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Re: Michigan vs. Reapply?

Post by framboozer » Thu Jul 16, 2015 9:21 am

While I think reapplying is the best idea, I expect you to get more out of UVA and Northwestern than Duke. Your sub-3.5 GPA is on the low side for Duke even with the increased LSAT. I' m not saying you won't get in, but they're probably not gonna make it rain. They're not splitter-friendly like Northwestern and UVA are. They are reverse splitter-friendly though.

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Re: Michigan vs. Reapply?

Post by Stillblade » Thu Jul 16, 2015 12:55 pm

Thank you guys so much for the continued advice. Michigan bumped me to $60K, I'm pretty committed there at this point (barring getting off of either Cornell / UVA waitlists with $$, doesn't look awfully likely)

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Vexed

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Re: Michigan vs. Reapply?

Post by Vexed » Thu Jul 16, 2015 1:27 pm

Yeah, while I think your LSAT bump certainly helps you, the GPA is still weighing you down to splitter status at most schools you apply to. I don't think Michigan is a particularly bad choice, especially with an increased scholarship offer.

And it's not really that nobody below median pulls NYC BigLaw here at Michigan, just that you're pretty safe if you DO hit median or above. There's still plenty of opportunities to place BigLaw if you don't place median, it's just going to be more difficult than if you had. It's not that different from other schools in that regard.

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megagnarley

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Re: Michigan vs. Reapply?

Post by megagnarley » Fri Jul 17, 2015 3:37 am

chimp wrote:
megagnarley wrote:Dude if you can interview well, just go to Mich, work hard, nail median or above and enjoy NY. It's not that complicated.
how do u enjoy Michigan?
Good people. Good professors. Ann Arbor sucks in my opinion but some like the undergrad vibe.
Clearly wrote:I love the opportunity cost of biglaw argument. For a career that lasts roughly 5 years of your life, it doesn't matter which 5 those are...
Sure it does. If you're making 50k pre law school and your average salary post law school (assuming big-law to a common exit option like in-house) is around 300K you're initiating the earnings process a year earlier and putting that 160k to work sooner as well. Compound the interest and over time that 110k pay gap is more than that. Meaning quibbling over 15k of scholarship to defer a year is illogical. Sure you're going to likely exit after a few years but unless you're salary is returning to pre-law school levels (which it shouldn't) your still economically better off in the long run. Pretty basic.
Stillblade wrote:Thank you guys so much for the continued advice. Michigan bumped me to $60K, I'm pretty committed there at this point (barring getting off of either Cornell / UVA waitlists with $$, doesn't look awfully likely)
Enjoy.

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Re: Michigan vs. Reapply?

Post by CTT » Sat Jul 18, 2015 5:39 pm

Michigan has been an awesome place. I don't mind the undergrad vibe. The sports are cool, and the living is reasonably priced as compared to NYC, Palo Alto, or Boston. The above argument on opportunity cost fails to properly evaluate taxes (realistically, it's a $60,000 cost), but whatever.

I agree that the class of 2016 did very well. Numbers show 71.5 percent went to law firms, about 60 percent of the class got there via OCI. A big chunk of the remainder didn't want to go the law firm route. There are people who got 160k slots whom I would not have hired in a million years. If your grades didn't blow, it was quite easy. I should note that many of the smarted people in the class of 2016 had absolutely no interest in BigLaw. It's great. You don't compete against them, and they end up doing really sweet things--public defender offices and policy stuff. TLS has this really unfortunate obsession with BigLaw as the end-all, be-all, and if you do it at all, it's likely only your be-all for but a few years before you manage to move on in order to have a life.

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Re: Michigan vs. Reapply?

Post by usaworldcupchamps » Sat Jul 18, 2015 6:38 pm

no idea what duke/northwestern are like and what grades you need for good biglaw but at michigan almost everyone i know who really wanted a biglaw job got one and almost everyone with fairly elite ones. not an expert on this rankings stuff or anything, but my impression is that this whole grand CCN/Penn/UVA divide is really, really dumb. A higher US news ranking??? Really????? do you think the people that hire you look at that??? not totally brushing aside my school's criticism. if all y'all are saying it, i'm sure UVA and Penn are better schools these days, but y'all are advising him to postpone his law school plans a full year because of the marginal benefit penn will offer him (however much that is we don't actually know). had to jump on here, seems a little ridiculous. you know hiring committees still look at michigan the same as it did 10 years ago? until we get figure saying something like a duke/UVA 3.3 interviewer has a 60% chance at any given interview vs a michigan 3.3 having 30% (ie taking into account people doing public interest/non-firm stuff - which at michigan there is a whole of), i think it's very conjectural to answer this thread "reapply" every time without qualification, for example.

you also can't really pick a better place to go to law school if you're looking for a laid back vibe. not sure what megagnarley is getting at, probably the utter lack of culture. but it's the midwest y'know. is what it is. people are cool normally, professors are fantastic, and you don't have a huge city breathing down your neck all the time - you can retreat to a green pasture when your heart does desire. unless it's one of those 8 months of the year where there're 3 feet of snow on the ground.


go yanks

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Re: Michigan vs. Reapply?

Post by HP5450 » Tue Jul 21, 2015 6:01 am

Hang on. No one is saying those are better schools. They do a marginally better job of forcing their cattle into big law. If people are making a distinction, that's the one.

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Re: Michigan vs. Reapply?

Post by krads153 » Tue Jul 21, 2015 11:00 am

CTT wrote:Michigan has been an awesome place. I don't mind the undergrad vibe. The sports are cool, and the living is reasonably priced as compared to NYC, Palo Alto, or Boston. The above argument on opportunity cost fails to properly evaluate taxes (realistically, it's a $60,000 cost), but whatever.

I agree that the class of 2016 did very well. Numbers show 71.5 percent went to law firms, about 60 percent of the class got there via OCI. A big chunk of the remainder didn't want to go the law firm route. There are people who got 160k slots whom I would not have hired in a million years. If your grades didn't blow, it was quite easy. I should note that many of the smarted people in the class of 2016 had absolutely no interest in BigLaw. It's great. You don't compete against them, and they end up doing really sweet things--public defender offices and policy stuff. TLS has this really unfortunate obsession with BigLaw as the end-all, be-all, and if you do it at all, it's likely only your be-all for but a few years before you manage to move on in order to have a life.

Have a great time!
There's also some article published very recently where Dean Z said they cut the class size by another 10%......I guess that should help employment percentages.

I also sort of recruit for my firm in NYC (as much as associates can participate in recruiting). Pretty sure no non-NYC or HY school gets a bump in recruiting. NYC firms really like NYU/Columbia (and of course, HY), but outside of those I'm not sure there's much of a distinction. A lot of the NY offices don't recruit at the California schools either (Stanford/Berkeley).
Last edited by krads153 on Tue Jul 21, 2015 3:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.

michlaw

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Re: Michigan vs. Reapply?

Post by michlaw » Tue Jul 21, 2015 1:20 pm

If you got money with a far below median GPA and a median LSAT (the average of your 3 takes?) thank your lucky stars and head to Ann Arbor. They have made a number of positive changes that should improve employment outcomes in an ever changing legal world.

Seriously? What are you waiting for?

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