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I am choosing between UC Hastings in SF and McGeorge in Sac. I am from Sac and am 95% sure I want to stay in Sac to practice. I got a full ride from McGeorge and no money from Hastings. My ego is hurting a bit by accepting at McGeorge but graduating with no debt feels pretty great. Any advice.

What are your career goals, and what are your current stats?

I am pretty sure that I want to practice in Sac. I was born and raised there. I want to practice business litigation. Maybe employment law. I have a 3.6 gpa and 160 LSAT.

Karenmacie wrote:I am pretty sure that I want to practice in Sac. I was born and raised there. I want to practice business litigation. Maybe employment law. I have a 3.6 gpa and 160 LSAT.

Do you have a sense of what kind of salary you'd expect to make after graduation? "Business law" usually points to big firms, but there aren't many (any?) of those in Sacramento.

Much better options exist in the region, including UC-Davis just outside the city where you want to work. They post significantly better employment numbers than McGeorge. You should have an okay shot at getting in there with your current numbers and ties, but increasing your LSAT by even 5 points could put you in full-ride range. I'd retake and reapply. That said, between the two choices in front of you, I'd go to McGeorge.

I would pick a free ride to McGeorge over Hastings without hesitation.

If you don't get any money from Hastings, you will graduate with $150-180k in debt (assuming you debt-finance it). The job options are not that much better to justify that amount of debt. If you are six figures in debt, you either need to get big law (maybe a 15-20% chance of that from Hastings) or public interest (pedigree will not matter much), or commit to a very, very long time of living frugally with a significant amount of debt.

This, plus the fact that you are from Sac and want to stay there, makes this a no brainer to me. The difference in pedigree between McGeorge and Hastings is marginal and IMO does not justify spending a decade or more of paying $1500-2000/mo on loans. If that is that important to you, I would try to go to UCD, which is basically a peer school to Hastings.

Re: UC Davis. I was waitlisted and even if I got off waitlist, the idea of free tuition and free room and board at McGeorge sounds like a wiser choice. Thanks for your responses.

I would say Hastings or retake LSAT and reapply. Hastings actually has much better employment outcomes than McGeorge. Look at the websites of firms and you will see very few McGeorge grads (when I was interviewing with SF firms, I came across zero McGeorge grads).

Karenmacie wrote:Re: UC Davis. I was waitlisted and even if I got off waitlist, the idea of free tuition and free room and board at McGeorge sounds like a wiser choice. Thanks for your responses.

McGeorge is really only a wise choice if you have a guaranteed job after graduation. Otherwise, you have less than a coin's-flip chance of being a lawyer at all. And that's in a good hiring market, which you most likely will not get to experience in three years.

At best, McGeorge is a choice that ensures the only thing you'll lose here is three years of your life and the accompanying opportunity costs. But it isn't a good choice if you want to be a practicing lawyer.

cavalier1138 wrote:

Karenmacie wrote:Re: UC Davis. I was waitlisted and even if I got off waitlist, the idea of free tuition and free room and board at McGeorge sounds like a wiser choice. Thanks for your responses.

McGeorge is really only a wise choice if you have a guaranteed job after graduation. Otherwise, you have less than a coin's-flip chance of being a lawyer at all. And that's in a good hiring market, which you most likely will not get to experience in three years.

At best, McGeorge is a choice that ensures the only thing you'll lose here is three years of your life and the accompanying opportunity costs. But it isn't a good choice if you want to be a practicing lawyer.

+1. Significant caveat that Hastings and Davis, while better schools, are not better decisions if these schools at these funding levels are the only three options. Your personal abilities to hustle and specialize are what will get you a job as a lawyer from all three, not the name brand of the school. So I would choose McGeorge, especially if you want to practice in Sacramento. In the larger scheme of things, however, none of these is the correct decision.