Top Law Schools

Hello everyone, this is my first post here so excuse me if I mess up. I'm graduating from UC Davis this June 2019, a year early. I'm 20 years old currently.
I got into UCI & USD this cycle, and waitlisted to UCLA, USC, and Vanderbilt.
I got $12.5k a year/$37.5k total from UCI, grant no stips. With tuition for Cali residents being around $50k a year, this would mean I would be paying around $115,000 total plus housing and food.
USD offered me $50k a year/$150k total, grant no stips. This would cover base tuition, and i'm estimating $17k a year for housing/food/being a person. so walking out owing $51k total.
I have a feeling I won't even be getting into USC off the waitlist, since their email was pretty clear that A) they've only accepted a handful of people off the waitlist the past few years and B) they pretty much wouldn't be giving any money out unless its for lower-income families.
UCLA i have more hope about and would actually love to go there, but does anyone have any input about whether they offer $$ to people off the waitlist? I already toured the campus and spoke to the assistant dean, and sat in a class which I absolutely loved (Torts with Moran)
Vanderbilt, I don't know what to think. Nashville sounds amazing, but it might be hard to come back to SoCal afterwards (which I intend to do), and like I said, I just don't know if they'd be willing to offer any grants.
I come from a pretty fortunate family who has agreed to give me interest-free loans for law schools, which I'll be paying back after I graduate. I still want to weigh out the most financially-feasible option, though, because being burdened with a lot of debt after graduating sounds terrible
Ultimately, my goal is to clerk for the first few years out of law school, then work as a company's lawyer (like being Disney's lawyer, or 3M's lawyer that stays in the building and works with the other employees). This probably wouldn't be the most lucrative thing in the world but the hours would be better. Not sure what this is called. My family has 0 lawyers and I am still very new to everything so any insight whatsoever would be very much appreciated.
Btw, I took the LSAT once after studying 6 months straight for it and taking a (not v helpful and overpriced) TestMasters Prep Course. I got a 164, and applied with a 3.83 GPA

Thank you!

Short answer: Retake the LSAT for better outcomes next cycle.

Longer answer: The career path you envision doesn't exist. You cannot do a clerkship, then jump straight to in-house counsel for a major company. You can't even count on a federal clerkship, period. More importantly, a clerkship wouldn't be very useful if your long-term goal is to practice corporate law. If you want to do that at the level you're talking about, you need to work for a big firm for a few years in a corporate practice.

And to work for a big firm, you need better school options. Davis is the right price for the types of jobs you'd likely have access to after graduation, but it's not going to give you a good chance at the long-term career you say you want. Your goal should be a T13 school, which is very doable if you bump your LSAT up a bit. At the very least, a higher LSAT will get you UCLA/USC with a strong scholarship.

cavalier1138 wrote:Short answer: Retake the LSAT for better outcomes next cycle.

Longer answer: The career path you envision doesn't exist. You cannot do a clerkship, then jump straight to in-house counsel for a major company. You can't even count on a federal clerkship, period. More importantly, a clerkship wouldn't be very useful if your long-term goal is to practice corporate law. If you want to do that at the level you're talking about, you need to work for a big firm for a few years in a corporate practice.

And to work for a big firm, you need better school options. Davis is the right price for the types of jobs you'd likely have access to after graduation, but it's not going to give you a good chance at the long-term career you say you want. Your goal should be a T13 school, which is very doable if you bump your LSAT up a bit. At the very least, a higher LSAT will get you UCLA/USC with a strong scholarship.

Mostly agree, but USD is not UC Davis. USD is San Diego Law, where only 59% of the class of '17 secured full-time, long-term employment as lawyers.