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Hi all!

PLEASE HELP - I only have 2 weeks to make this decision! I am trying to choose between USC Gould with $30k/yr scholarship, no strings attached (so, $108k in loans flat) and Loyola Law School with $50k/yr scholarship, minimum 2.8 gpa, with book stipends & Alumni Scholar distinction (so, $24k in loans flat). I'm from/live in LA, have worked as an entertainment paralegal in LA for 3 years (w some public interest internships), and plan on staying here forever. Both schools are 10 min. from my apartment. I'm 80% sure I want to go into entertainment law, but I also care deeply about public interest/civil rights work, so there's a chance I might flop. I'll be financing all of this on my own, so... it's a big decision.

Any advice would be appreciated! (ALSO - I've already attempted to bargain with USC, and this was the final outcome. So that's not an option.)

I'd rule out Loyola for your goals. USC is reasonable, though you have significantly less than a 50% chance of success. Did you apply to the other T20 schools? Did you apply early in the cycle? Have you maxed out your LSAT score?

QContinuum wrote:I'd rule out Loyola for your goals. USC is reasonable, though you have significantly less than a 50% chance of success. Did you apply to the other T20 schools? Did you apply early in the cycle? Have you maxed out your LSAT score?

I applied to UCLA (waitlisted) and Berkeley (denied), and I applied to everything at the end of October. I have a 3.9 gpa and 160 LSAT (after 2x), so I think I'm at the end of my road in that regard.

lmg22 wrote:

QContinuum wrote:I'd rule out Loyola for your goals. USC is reasonable, though you have significantly less than a 50% chance of success. Did you apply to the other T20 schools? Did you apply early in the cycle? Have you maxed out your LSAT score?

I applied to UCLA (waitlisted) and Berkeley (denied), and I applied to everything at the end of October. I have a 3.9 gpa and 160 LSAT (after 2x), so I think I'm at the end of my road in that regard.

In b4 the regular posters here politely explain why the bolded is wrong.

Tl;dr: Retake/reapply. Not doing so is an objectively bad decision.

lmg22 wrote:

QContinuum wrote:I'd rule out Loyola for your goals. USC is reasonable, though you have significantly less than a 50% chance of success. Did you apply to the other T20 schools? Did you apply early in the cycle? Have you maxed out your LSAT score?

I applied to UCLA (waitlisted) and Berkeley (denied), and I applied to everything at the end of October. I have a 3.9 gpa and 160 LSAT (after 2x), so I think I'm at the end of my road in that regard.

You've got a shot at Stanford, or a full-ride at numerous T14s, if you break 170. the LSAT sucks, but adding ten points to your score is worth literally hundreds of thousands of dollars in scholarship money over the next few years alone. The difference between BigLaw and no BigLaw is literally millions of dollars in career earnings, and turns almost entirely on which school you attend (ie, whether or not you can get that LSAT score up).

You say you're at the end of the road WRT to the LSAT. Law school at a school with bimodal career outcomes like USC (ie, some people get BigLaw, some people do not), is equally as shitty, stressful...and you've gotta do it for three years. Put your head down and grind for a few months, bang out that 170--two years from now, when you're ditching Corporations for an extra week of Spring break in Miami your 2L year because you've already locked up the BigLaw gig, you'll be glad you did.

Even if you fall a bit short of 170, a 3.9 with a 166/167 usually nets near 160k at USC and admission to Berkeley, so at least a 70k pretax value to you

You're right in that range where each point adds tens of thousands of dollars. An underrated component of boosting your LSAT score is that while the LSAT is not a perfect predictor of law school performance, it does test skills that are useful for succeeding on law school exams. There is likely some value in improving your LSAT score that extends to law school.

And even if you're willing to incur debt, a better LSAT will get you into schools that make your goals more likely. I'd also be wary of picking a law school based on the kind of law you think you'd like to practice unless this idea is based on actual exposure to those practicing that law on a day to day basis.