Top Law Schools

Hi everyone,

Here are the schools that are my options:

-SMU ($27000 scholarship per year, would live at home)
-University of Houston ($16000 scholarship per year, have to pay for rent/housing also)
-Baylor (full scholarship)
-Boston College ($27000 scholarship per year, have to pay for rent/housing)
-UC Davis (39,000 the first year; 30000 the following years, have to pay for rent/housing)
-UC Irvine (20,000 per year, have to pay for rent/housing. I don't really want to go here because it is such a new law school and I don't know if I'm willing to take the risk of attending there.)

I am a Texas resident but I went to college on the East Coast, so I am not tied down to any one location. I had a 163/3.62 when applying, and I plan to go into immigration law in the future. I know immigration lawyers don't usually make as much as other types of lawyers do, so I am wary about taking on too much debt (though realistically, I'll still have to take on a quite a bit). If I end up staying in Texas for school, what would be the best option?

I am considering waiting until the next cycle to reapply to some schools because I would like to try to get into better schools and get more scholarship money but (1) I'm already in the middle of my first year off of school after graduating and my parents are completely against me taking another year off and (2) I'm worried that I'm stuck in the current range of LSAT scores (I would hit anywhere from 163-166 on practice tests but couldn't seem to improve after I plateaued), and I don't want to find myself stuck without a better score and having unnecessarily wasted another year. As a first gen college/law student, I don't have too many people around me I can ask for advice on what decision I should make, so I would greatly appreciate any and all advice I can get! Thank you in advance!!

Need more info, especially re: goals.

-SMU: total tuition and fees are ~$50,000 (not including housing since I'll be living at home), so whatever my scholarship doesn't cover, I would cover by taking out loans (so about $23000).

-University of Houston: total cost of attendance minus housing costs (my parents will be covering that) is about $32000, so I'd have to take out loans of $16000 per year.

-Baylor (scholarship covers full tuition, parents will cover housing costs)

-Boston College: estimated cost is about ~57000, I'd have loans of 30,000 per year.

-UC Davis: about $55000, so I'd have loans of $16000 the first year and it might stay the next two years same depending on if I get California residency.

-UC Irvine: about $55000, so I'd have loans of about 35000.

All of the estimated costs above are what I found when I googled, and my loan estimates are not including housing/rent costs since my parents will help me with that and admittedly, the loans will probably increase as tuition increases over the years. I'm leaning towards staying in Texas since I have some cheaper options but I'll have to take out a lot of loans regardless of where I go. My goal is to work in at least a mid-size private immigration firm with the possibility of opening up my own practice once I become experienced enough. If I stay in Texas, I will say I prefer Dallas to Houston but at the end of the day, I don't really care which city I end up. I definitely want to be practicing in a bigger city though (I grew up in a small town, and I definitely prefer the city). I hope this information is more helpful, and thank you again!

Baylor or retake for better schools. Don't like the other options.

Edit - I'm assuming that you're giving conservative estimates of *annual* costs.

What makes you not like the other options and choose Baylor instead? I've read other threads where people advise against going to Baylor law and suggest either SMU/University of Houston, so I just wanted to know the reasoning behind your comment. Thank you!

Aside from the fact that Baylor gave me a full scholarship, of course.

karebear25 wrote:Aside from the fact that Baylor gave me a full scholarship, of course.

That's literally it. These are not schools worth going to without massive scholarships... Baylor is full-tuition.