Should I attend Santa Clara Law School? Forum

[aukitkat]

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[transferror]

Is your dad gonna pay for it?

If not, tell him to shut it and follow your instinct to stay away from Santa Clara.

There are not "decent" numbers of law grads getting biglol or in-house, there are exceptions to the rule of mediocrity and unemployment. Here are the stats: http://www.lstscorereports.com/schools/santaclara/2014/

[trebekismyhero]

As transferror said, don't let your dad force you to go to school.

Don't go to Santa Clara. If you are not good at standardized tests you will not do well in law school. Almost all your 1L grades will be based on standardized exams. Find something else that interests you besides law

[General_Tso]

Posters above are correct. Santa Clara is a waste of time and money. Unless your dad has a job lined up for you as well.

[aukitkat]

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[trebekismyhero]

Is your dad gonna pay for it?

If not, tell him to shut it and follow your instinct to stay away from Santa Clara.

There are not "decent" numbers of law grads getting biglol or in-house, there are exceptions to the rule of mediocrity and unemployment. Here are the stats: http://www.lstscorereports.com/schools/santaclara/2014/

He said he can help pay for slightly over half of the tuition. The rest I will have to take out in loans. Not sure if that makes it worth it though. Yeah by decent I meant around 5 people lol. But those people got jobs as legal counsel at tech companies after graduating, which I found surprising because I thought those jobs only go to people who first had a stint in big-law.

Slightly over half of the tuition doesn't make it worth going. Don't go

[aukitkat]

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[miss_scalia]

As transferror said, don't let your dad force you to go to school.

Don't go to Santa Clara. If you are not good at standardized tests you will not do well in law school. Almost all your 1L grades will be based on standardized exams. Find something else that interests you besides law

Yeah I guess I won't go..my dad is obsessed with the idea of law school and sees it as prestigious. I make around 86K right now and he thinks going to law school will double my salary . He doesn't believe how bad it is even though his cousin is a big-law cast-off that had to start a solo practice, even though he went to UVA.

I will just say this is false--law school grades are not necessarily correlated with LSAT performance. (152 --> top 15% at my school)

[General_Tso]

Most of the people getting sweet tech jobs out of Santa Clara had a sweet tech job prior to enrolling. SCU did nothing. Hope that helps.

Leaving an 86k job to spend 3 years and $150k at SCU, after which you will be left clamoring for 60k jobs, is a terrible idea.

[General_Tso]

law school is a buyer's market right now. you are crazy if you even consider a crap school like Santa Clara. for California its USC-up or bust. Maybe Davis at full tuition.

[trebekismyhero]

As transferror said, don't let your dad force you to go to school.

Don't go to Santa Clara. If you are not good at standardized tests you will not do well in law school. Almost all your 1L grades will be based on standardized exams. Find something else that interests you besides law

Yeah I guess I won't go..my dad is obsessed with the idea of law school and sees it as prestigious. I make around 86K right now and he thinks going to law school will double my salary . He doesn't believe how bad it is even though his cousin is a big-law cast-off that had to start a solo practice, even though he went to UVA.

I will just say this is false--law school grades are not necessarily correlated with LSAT performance. (152 --> top 15% at my school)

Congrats on doing well, but there is evidence that there is correlation between LSAT and performance your first year of law school.

[zhenders]

Keep your job, mate; workchard, and pursue promotions/other better jobs utilizing your skill set. You simply would be making a very poor decision to leave that income for SC. There's no other way to look at this. Even at ful scholarship, you shouldn't go.

Also, I've seen it happen that parents -- especially prestige-hungry ones -- tend to blame their kids when their kids don't get big law right out of school. It's a power move which will garner long-term respect to stay away from SC and build your career as your personal decisions dictate.

[ub3r]

Santa Clara did especially awful this year too. Went from 150 students to 250 students while still dropping medians. Only William Mitchell College of Law saw a worse increase in class size, percentage-wise.

[transferror]

As transferror said, don't let your dad force you to go to school.

Don't go to Santa Clara. If you are not good at standardized tests you will not do well in law school. Almost all your 1L grades will be based on standardized exams. Find something else that interests you besides law

Yeah I guess I won't go..my dad is obsessed with the idea of law school and sees it as prestigious. I make around 86K right now and he thinks going to law school will double my salary . He doesn't believe how bad it is even though his cousin is a big-law cast-off that had to start a solo practice, even though he went to UVA. I'll just have to convince him somehow that it's a bad idea...

I'd wager that 90%+ of SC grads would kill to be in your position making 86k w/o the lost opportunity cost and debt from 3 years of school.

Stay put. Law school isn't going anywhere. Let a few years pass and you can always retake and reapply if the market picks up and you feel like trying again.

Good luck OP and congrats on being a rational human.

[timbs4339]

Cant say this enough OP - do not attend. SCU's employment numbers suck and are only saved from being apocalyptic because it is the "local" school for SV tech types who need a JD for whatever reason. I'm not sure why your dad thinks you will get biglaw out of it.