Washington State Forum

[eshnunna]

I would prefer to stay in the Seattle area, and I was wondering if the preference here should be to try for T14 or go to UW?

Upside is I'm a resident, and could potentially live at home to lower CoL even more.

Schools under consideration: UW, Michigan, Berkeley, NU, UCLA
Finances: I'll have some personal savings from working for about a year and a half (basically enough to cover CoL for 2-ish years). Parents have offered to contribute, but they'd obviously prefer not to (I went to an expensive undergrad, which they paid for).
-Your general career goals: Biglaw would be be preferable, though I'm not opposed to a smaller firm.

[redtalun]

There's probably some other similar threads, but a few comments
- Seattle has a very small "big law" market. As such, it's very competitive even for t14 students.
- UW has a reputation for being very stingy with scholarships but that has changed over the past two years - a rich alum died and gave the school $50MM and some of that has gone towards scholarships. There's also ten Gregoire scholarships which are good for $75k and a guaranteed firm/corporate job your 1L summer (it's only available for 'diverse' students but the school has a very, very broad definition of diversity).

imo, full ride from NU or lower ranked t14 schools would be a superior option to UW. Don't do UCLA if you get a good offer from UW.

[Mullens]

You're in a great spot, but should apply to more T14 schools than that. You're in the running for huge money, up to full rides, for any T14s where you're over both medians and there's a legit chance you get more money at T14s than UW. Apply broadly in the T14 for negotiating power/leverage and then make a job prospects/financial decision when everything shakes out.

[eshnunna]

Thank you for all the replies!

I'll definitely apply to more T14 schools. I was thinking apply now, and retake in February for more negotiating power? In that case, do I mark in my application that I'll be taking the February LSAT?