s41991 wrote:Reading all these posts about T14 being the only schools considered "worth it" is really starting to freak me out.
Most of the good points have already been made, but I'll reiterate them. It's not that T14s are the only schools that are worth it. It's that the average law student is taking a progressively more dangerous risk the further down the list they go. Since you can't really predict what your class rank is going to be prior to starting law school, your best resource is the statistical data (like the data that law school transparency has put together).
Once you start looking outside the top 50 schools (give or take), you have about a 15-20% chance of graduating with a job making over $70k a year, and about a 25-30% chance of not having a full-time legal job upon graduation. For the average 0L (who doesn't already have a job lined up, and is going to be taking between $150k and $200k in debt), the most common result out of these T2 and lower schools is a $60k job trying to pay down $200k in debt. In other words, you won't be able to reap the monetary rewards of your legal education for a decade after you graduate, because you're siphoning off a significant portion of your income to pay down your debt.
That's why, depending on the risk tolerance of each person, people say "T-14 or bust" or "T1 or bust." It's just too much of a gamble at T2 and lower schools.
I can go to UNH with a full ride, Cardozo with 25k/yr or BU, but I would have to pay sticker
Never, ever ever ever ever ever... ever... pay sticker. That should be a non-starter for you. The absolute bare minimum that you should accept is a 1/4 scholarship, with a 1/2 scholarship or better being your goal. This is because of the same risk analysis as above. If you're talking about $80k in loans instead of $200k, your analysis is different.
...or I can retake. I got a 158 with a 3.63 GPA, but I have had two cancellations before that and I would rather not wait...I turn 25 in April and would like to graduate sooner rather than later.
Don't rush it. Your impatience isn't a good reason to go to a bad school for too much money and spend the next 13 years paying for it. Retake the exam, sit out this cycle, and you should be able to get into a better school. Your GPA is T14 material if you get your LSAT up to the mid/upper 160s. The LSAT is learnable, use the resources on TLS to boost your score. I turned 25 right before my 1L year... it's really not a big deal. They don't even consider somebody your age a "non-traditional" student.
If I do well I will try to transfer to a T14 school...but that's just a huge maybe. Any advice?

Don't do this. You have the GPA to get into a T14 school. Transferring into a T14 is a massive risk. What happens if you end up around median at your T2 school? Then you're stuck. You seem to have an optimistic picture of how this is all going to work out, and I'm trying to poke a needle into that balloon.
Generally, don't do things assuming that you're going to be a top 10% student, and don't do things assuming that you're going to get a biglaw job. Assume that you're going to be a median student and making $60k/year at graduation. Then make your decisions based on that. Does BU make sense at sticker if you graduate at median and get a $60k job?
If you end up doing better, great! You'll have ample opportunities. However, you don't want to set yourself up for failure by rushing into things with an overly optimistic point of view.