SMU vs. UCI vs. Colorado Forum

[plshelpdecision]

Hey everyone... I would really appreciate some input and advice on my decision cause I honestly can't make up my mind.

-The schools you are considering
SMU (my undergrad school)
UCI
Colorado

Cost of attendance with the scholarships I received is about the same at all three. I will be fortunate enough to have my parents help cover some cost. Because of this money isn't neccesarily a factor. More important to me is being somewhere I will be happy, with a close knit community of students.

-Where you are from and where you want to work, and other places where you have significant ties (if any)
I've lived in Dallas my whole life, and want to leave to explore other places. I don't really have any set place that I want to end up in the future, but I like both California and Colorado.

-Your general career goals
I want to be in the private sector because of the pay, but beyond that I'm not entirely sure what I want to do.

-Your LSAT/GPA numbers
3.7 GPA, 163 LSAT

[Zotty11]

Uci is all I can speak to and I can tell you it's a close community. Biglaw + fed. clerkship is around 30% which is higher than your other options I believe. University of Colorado is cool but the Denver big law market is super hard to crack it's not like LA/OC from what I hear.

[perpetuallawclerk]

Where do you want to practice? That's probably close to determinative (TX => SMU; CO => UC; CA => UCI). I went to SMU, and in my experience, the law school community was pretty close-knit/friendly.

[eagle2a]

law school isn't really the time to go explore other places, if you want to work in dallas go to smu

[BigZuck]

I would retake/reapply and go to a much better school if you're location/career agnostic and have rich benefactors paying your way. It wouldn't be that hard to get into a Michigan or Cornell type school and those are much better for people who have no idea what you want to do or where you want to do it

But really I wouldn't go to law school until you have a stronger idea of what you want to do and where you want to do it.

[mogwli]

This is entirely a matter of where you would want to work. If you want to work in CA, go to UCI. Colorado, then Colorado. Dallas, SMU. No one can really make that decision for you as it is full of personal preferences. Given that you said you don't want to stay in Dallas, don't go to SMU.

It's not an easy decision. You may think you like CA now, for instance, but after 3 years realize you hate it. You'd basically be stuck though going to UCI because it mostly places people there.

WIth your numbers, you could probably retake if you wanted to and get 165+. That would put you in range for better CA schools like UCLA or USC. That's up to you though.