fordham vs bc vs vanderbilt maybe? Forum

[jjassi07]

I was accepted to Fordham and put my first deposit of $400 down last month. Just heard back from Boston College and was accepted with a slightly better scholarship than Fordham, but money is thankfully not a huge factor for my situation. I have until Friday to decide. The thing is, I'm still on the waitlist at Vanderbilt and have no idea when I'm gonna hear back. My GPA was a 3.5 and my LSAT was 164. Which of these schools gives me the best option of going big law? Is there a huge difference in the employment opportunities I'll have coming out of Fordham vs. BC? And is Vanderbilt mostly a regional school?
From what I've seen on ATL and USNews rankings, Fordham seems to be going up in terms of rankings and employment opportunities, while BC has been on a downward trend. Can anyone speak on this as well? Is this all just statistics stuff, or does it actually hold true in terms of employment opportunities? Thank you for any help you can provide!!!

[AdieuCali]

Do you have total COA figures for these schools? It's tough to compare your options based on scholarships alone. Also, where would you prefer to practice - Boston or NY?

https://www.lstreports.com/compare/ford ... anderbilt/

In a vacuum, Fordham has slightly better BL outcomes than BC. But if you are deadset on BL, neither school gives you better than 50% chance of landing that outcome. Assuming the hiring market reverts back to 2011-12 levels for '23 grads, you'll probably need to be top 1/3 to 1/4 to have a good shot at BL at either school.

Also, don't focus on rankings - focus on outcomes. Fordham is ranked 10 spots behind Alabama in USNWR, but F sends over double the proportion of its students to BL compared to Bama.

[LBJ's Hair]

Can you retake? Think BigLaw recruiting is going to be slammed for the next year or so, and all of these schools had materially worse numbers during the Great Recession than they have now.

Retaking would (a) ideally get you a better LSAT score + T14 admission; (b) delay your admission a year, and let you dodge Summer 2021 OCI, which I suspect will be a massacre.

[objctnyrhnr]

You’ll get a lot of “neither is a good bet” and “why not retake” responses to these “which t30 do I attend”-type questions.

But for the sake of helping you to choose between BC and Fordham at approximately same cost, I’ll avoid those things (though I echo them of course).

If biglaw is the be all end all and nyc and Boston are equal to you, Fordham might be the better bet in a good economy. But look back a decade to see how Fordham performed in a mediocre economy and then look at how it performed in a down economy. BC’s bad economy-based downswings are simply not as bad as Fordham’s. (Moreover, even though BC is very regional, BC will also give you better placement in nyc than Fordham will in Boston, I believe.) With everything going on now, you probably need to assume the economy will be much more similar to the way it was in 2010 than the way it was in 2019 when you get out. Under those circumstances, as I mentioned, both are risky bets; that said I think that BC has the edge. Fordham’s placement only started really booming in the last several years.

My two cents.