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167 3.47 URM 1st gen maxed out LSAT takes.

Goals: from SoCal and would like to pursue west coast biglaw (LA, OC, SD). Afterward possibly transition into a smaller civil litigation firm and do personal injury, negligence and torts.

I will be financing entirely through loans. If I can get a SA position each year, I will put 90% of that money straight into my tuition. I will also try to cut costs and live very cheaply.

loan balance at repayment:

U Chicago 15k scholly:280k at repayment

Georgetown 45k scholly: 210k at repayment

UCLA 67.5k scholly: 168k at repayment


Your guidance and advice on my best choice out of the above will be greatly appreciated.

UChicago at that price is pretty expensive, but I think it's worth 60k more than UCLA.

Jobs in California are definitely achievable from UChi. I'm not sure if UCLA would give you a worthwhile boost because of the location -- I hope someone who knows more about that can chime in.

I think you can dump GULC completely. I'm not sure what's going on with your COAs but I don't see Chicago as being that much more expensive than DC/GULC.

22191313 wrote:167 3.47 URM 1st gen maxed out LSAT takes.

Goals: from SoCal and would like to pursue west coast biglaw (LA, OC, SD). Afterward possibly transition into a smaller civil litigation firm and do personal injury, negligence and torts.

I will be financing entirely through loans. If I can get a SA position each year, I will put 90% of that money straight into my tuition. I will also try to cut costs and live very cheaply.

loan balance at repayment:

U Chicago 15k scholly:280k at repayment

Georgetown 45k scholly: 210k at repayment

UCLA 67.5k scholly: 168k at repayment


Your guidance and advice on my best choice out of the above will be greatly appreciated.

I don't think there are any great choices here.
280K for Chicago is a hell of a lot of debt at repayment for the honor of going into indentured servitude in big law
210K for Georgetown is a hell of a lot of debt at repayment, the school has a 44% biglaw+fedclerk rate as of last week, and I'm not sure how well it places in SoCal. So don't freaking go to GULC
168K for UCLA is manageable, I guess, but I don't think UCLA is a strong enough school to justify 168K and big law is no guarantee
It's fantasy that you'll be putting 90% of SA money (if you even get one (you would from UChi but who knows from GTown or UCLA))
Credited is to retake, but since you've maxed out, then obviously that isn't an option
If I were in your position, I would not go to law school.
If I had to go, I would pick UCLA after attempting to negotiate a higher scholarship (to minimize debt, but I'm risk averse and some people will probably say Chicago)
Reapply next cycle for better options? Seems to me you got lowballed as a URM with a 167 and decent GPA

Great advice so far especially regarding employment ops.

It seems as if Chicago may be my best bet. I did try to overestimate in terms of COA because I didn't want to sugarcoat anything.

Since negotiating with UCLA is out (they've been frank with stating that they have no more scholarship money even after the deposit deadline), I'd choose to sit this cycle out and reapply next round.

If not, go for Chicago and perhaps try to be forages with them (ex. COL).

22191313 wrote:Great advice so far especially regarding employment ops.

It seems as if Chicago may be my best bet. I did try to overestimate in terms of COA because I didn't want to sugarcoat anything.

Yeah, I get that, and it's smart, and keep doing that!

I'm saying that a 30k a scholarship should put GULC at about 31k less expensive than UChi.

Your estimated COAs show a 70k difference between the two schools.

There's basically no way that the COL, fees, etc. at GULC is going to be 40k less than at UChi, so you're either overestimating UChi or underestimating GULC. I think you should err on the side of assuming that you're underestimating GULC.

I think that a better COA for GULC is $250k. That's what I used when I said to take it out of the running. I think you can take UCLA out of the running, too, given the cost/employment difference, but I don't know enough about the SoCal market to state that definitively.

I agree that UChi is expensive in this situation, and that is something to keep in mind.