what's the lowest ranked law school you would attend? Forum

[Who32]

lol

[sbalive]

Engineering is a solid, stable profession... right up until you're in your 40s. Then, you have a very good chance of being laid off - and if you do lose your job, you have trouble finding anything stable that pays nearly as much as you were, right up until retirement. It's not a certainty, of course, but it's a definite possibility, regardless of discipline.

So, even though going to law school has a large opportunity cost in terms of lost salary + the large tuition cost & debt, it can be worth it. Even if you add up the numbers and it doesn't lead to a net win, you can have potential psychological benefits just by virtue of being able to work and not worry about the next technological revolution or change in government priorities making you irrelevant.

[rayiner]

Aiming for Academia + 3.1 undergrad GPA = Effort comes better late than never?

What kind of McSchool has a geography minor?

[Aeroplane]

Aiming for Academia + 3.1 undergrad GPA = Effort comes better late than never?

Is this directed at me? I'm not sure what you mean.

[Aeroplane]

Engineering is a solid, stable profession... right up until you're in your 40s. Then, you have a very good chance of being laid off - and if you do lose your job, you have trouble finding anything stable that pays nearly as much as you were, right up until retirement. It's not a certainty, of course, but it's a definite possibility, regardless of discipline.

So, even though going to law school has a large opportunity cost in terms of lost salary + the large tuition cost & debt, it can be worth it. Even if you add up the numbers and it doesn't lead to a net win, you can have potential psychological benefits just by virtue of being able to work and not worry about the next technological revolution or change in government priorities making you irrelevant.

You seem to be referring to one particular subtype of engineers. Those who specialize in one tiny niche for 20+ years and never do anything else, ever. I don't think this type of engineer is anything near a majority of us. An engineering degree opens almost all the doors that a lib arts degree opens, and a ton more.

[sbalive]

Engineering is a solid, stable profession... right up until you're in your 40s. Then, you have a very good chance of being laid off - and if you do lose your job, you have trouble finding anything stable that pays nearly as much as you were, right up until retirement. It's not a certainty, of course, but it's a definite possibility, regardless of discipline.

So, even though going to law school has a large opportunity cost in terms of lost salary + the large tuition cost & debt, it can be worth it. Even if you add up the numbers and it doesn't lead to a net win, you can have potential psychological benefits just by virtue of being able to work and not worry about the next technological revolution or change in government priorities making you irrelevant.

You seem to be referring to one particular subtype of engineers. Those who specialize in one tiny niche for 20+ years and never do anything else, ever. I don't think this type of engineer is anything near a majority of us. An engineering degree opens almost all the doors that a lib arts degree opens, and a ton more.

In my experience, engineers who stay on the technical side tend to specialize - not necessarily a "tiny" niche, but certainly a specific application area, because it takes so much effort to stay up to date in any given field & networking is so important to how you get every job after the first one. This is a major point - just because you're a EE doesn't mean you can jump from power to telecommunications. Transitions are possible, but they're difficult.

But, I know a lot of engineers who faced bad timing outside their control - guys who worked in aerospace in LA who got devastated by the post-Cold War Bush/Clinton defense cuts, guys who worked in R&D for the big tech firms - IBM, AT&T, Xerox - and then got killed when deregulation forced the companies to cut those areas. It's very hard to execute these kinds of changes later in your career. If you're a certain age, you can survive for 3-5 years while things turn around or a related field develops, but if you're a bit too old, then it's really tough. Also, even for those who land on their feet, they may not have any seniority over kids fresh out of school.

You're right though - certainly, engineers can go into management, sales, finance, "entrepreneurship", and obviously law. That's why I don't get so exercised about this idea of going to law school and ending up doing non-legal work.

[Gaius]

Wisconsin at full price. WI is a good state, and if I do well I can work in Chicago.

I wouldn't go below that even for free since I have an engineering degree and if I work hard probably do better than whatever opportunities 2T schools can give. Sure some lower tier ones can do well, but you have to be very close to the top of the class and have to work where you go to school.

The one tier 2 school I'd go to would be Chicago Kent at full scholarship and live with my parents and take the train to school every day. I would only be wasting time at this point, which I am now anyway. Hopefully I ace year one an transfer, if not, no money wasted. With no debt invested worst case I can do public interest.

[Aeroplane]

In my experience, engineers who stay on the technical side tend to specialize - not necessarily a "tiny" niche, but certainly a specific application area, because it takes so much effort to stay up to date in any given field & networking is so important to how you get every job after the first one. This is a major point - just because you're a EE doesn't mean you can jump from power to telecommunications. Transitions are possible, but they're difficult.

But, I know a lot of engineers who faced bad timing outside their control - guys who worked in aerospace in LA who got devastated by the post-Cold War Bush/Clinton defense cuts, guys who worked in R&D for the big tech firms - IBM, AT&T, Xerox - and then got killed when deregulation forced the companies to cut those areas. It's very hard to execute these kinds of changes later in your career. If you're a certain age, you can survive for 3-5 years while things turn around or a related field develops, but if you're a bit too old, then it's really tough. Also, even for those who land on their feet, they may not have any seniority over kids fresh out of school.

You're right though - certainly, engineers can go into management, sales, finance, "entrepreneurship", and obviously law. That's why I don't get so exercised about this idea of going to law school and ending up doing non-legal work.

I know what you're talking about and I have seen some of that. But many of those people are "killed" by a failure to "Sniff and Scurry" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Moved_My_Cheese), not by their choice of education or profession. The same thing is going on with a lot of lawyers now. I think law school can be worth it for a lot of reasons, including a T3/T4 degree. But I wouldn't say that job security (esp over engineering) is a reason to go to law school.

[zettsscores40]

I mean, in the long run, it depends on your alternatives. If you've got a BA and are looking at $35k topping out at $70-80k, $100k at a T50 will still raise your standard of living.

Why would a BA mean you top out at $70-80K?

Oh, and congrats on GULC! It was inevitable you would get some WL love with that LSAT.

Unless it's in Econ it's probably some useless liberal arts degree. I doubt employers are fawning to hire run of the mill Poli Sci Majors like myself.

[sbalive]

In my experience, engineers who stay on the technical side tend to specialize - not necessarily a "tiny" niche, but certainly a specific application area, because it takes so much effort to stay up to date in any given field & networking is so important to how you get every job after the first one. This is a major point - just because you're a EE doesn't mean you can jump from power to telecommunications. Transitions are possible, but they're difficult.

But, I know a lot of engineers who faced bad timing outside their control - guys who worked in aerospace in LA who got devastated by the post-Cold War Bush/Clinton defense cuts, guys who worked in R&D for the big tech firms - IBM, AT&T, Xerox - and then got killed when deregulation forced the companies to cut those areas. It's very hard to execute these kinds of changes later in your career. If you're a certain age, you can survive for 3-5 years while things turn around or a related field develops, but if you're a bit too old, then it's really tough. Also, even for those who land on their feet, they may not have any seniority over kids fresh out of school.

You're right though - certainly, engineers can go into management, sales, finance, "entrepreneurship", and obviously law. That's why I don't get so exercised about this idea of going to law school and ending up doing non-legal work.

I know what you're talking about and I have seen some of that. But many of those people are "killed" by a failure to "Sniff and Scurry" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Moved_My_Cheese), not by their choice of education or profession. The same thing is going on with a lot of lawyers now. I think law school can be worth it for a lot of reasons, including a T3/T4 degree. But I wouldn't say that job security (esp over engineering) is a reason to go to law school.

Yeah, I think we basically agree. The point is that in a globalized world with rapidly advancing technology in which you will likely end up working until you're 80, job security isn't a good reason to pick any job.

[gatorlion]

Aiming for Academia + 3.1 undergrad GPA = Effort comes better late than never?

What kind of McSchool has a geography minor?

Any school that has many options for majors (i.e. top-50 state school). Having earned a Master's at an ivy league university I am well aware of the dearth of undergraduate majors available at some schools, especially liberal arts colleges.

Aiming for Academia + 3.1 undergrad GPA = Effort comes better late than never?

Is this directed at me? I'm not sure what you mean.

Yes. It is ridiculous to think someone with an undergrad GPA of 3.1 (unless it is in the hard sciences or engineering) has any right to think they can one day be an academic when any good PhD program would not admit anyone with a GPA lower than 3.75. Academia in the legal field is not for people who realized at 22 that they need to start taking their education seriously.

[sbalive]

Aiming for Academia + 3.1 undergrad GPA = Effort comes better late than never?

Is this directed at me? I'm not sure what you mean.

Yes. It is ridiculous to think someone with an undergrad GPA of 3.1 (unless it is in the hard sciences or engineering) has any right to think they can one day be an academic when any good PhD program would not admit anyone with a GPA lower than 3.75. Academia in the legal field is not for people who realized at 22 that they need to start taking their education seriously.

This is a joke, correct?

[gatorlion]

Aiming for Academia + 3.1 undergrad GPA = Effort comes better late than never?

Is this directed at me? I'm not sure what you mean.

Yes. It is ridiculous to think someone with an undergrad GPA of 3.1 (unless it is in the hard sciences or engineering) has any right to think they can one day be an academic when any good PhD program would not admit anyone with a GPA lower than 3.75. Academia in the legal field is not for people who realized at 22 that they need to start taking their education seriously.

This is a joke, correct?

Not sure why it would be. Like I said, any good PhD program takes only the students who perform the best at their respective institutions because, FTW, they are the most likely to want to do well in an academic profession and most apt to be successful in a doctoral program. Therefore, a GPA of 3.1 signifies that either your major was absurdly difficult, you have extenuating circumstances that prevented you from excelling academically, or you simply did not try. In a highly competitive environment, why would a reputable school even bother with someone teetering on the brink of irrelevance with a 3.1 when there are many more 3.5+ GPA students to choose from?

[PhantaManta]

Full price = state school U Arizona and up if I can get in state tuition.

+

Any school in the T100 at the right scholarship number

[los blancos]

Probably T14 at sticker.

As low as perhaps Notre Dame with good scholarship money.


It really depends on how confident I am in what kind of LSAT scores I should be getting and the economy... Having a BA from a good school introduces a huge opportunity cost if I have any real opportunities.

[janderson]

Sticker - T20
Significant scholarship/full ride - T30-40, probably

[Ken]

If I did not get into Berkeley I was going to choose UCLA over Columbia and Chicago since I knew I wanted to practice in California. If not UCLA, then I would have likely considered graduate school as I was accepted into several Econ Ph.D. programs including U. of Chicago which is very strong in Econ and would have been the alternative if UCLA rejected me.

[rayiner]

Aiming for Academia + 3.1 undergrad GPA = Effort comes better late than never?

What kind of McSchool has a geography minor?

Any school that has many options for majors (i.e. top-50 state school). Having earned a Master's at an ivy league university I am well aware of the dearth of undergraduate majors available at some schools, especially liberal arts colleges.

Aiming for Academia + 3.1 undergrad GPA = Effort comes better late than never?

Is this directed at me? I'm not sure what you mean.

Yes. It is ridiculous to think someone with an undergrad GPA of 3.1 (unless it is in the hard sciences or engineering) has any right to think they can one day be an academic when any good PhD program would not admit anyone with a GPA lower than 3.75. Academia in the legal field is not for people who realized at 22 that they need to start taking their education seriously.

I'm just saying that nobody who ever took a fucking geography class in college has the standing to criticize an engineering major about anything. Engineering is fucking hard. Really fucking hard. A 3.1 in engineering is a genius compared to your run of the mill 3.5 liberal arts major.

[heyyitskatie]

I'm just saying that nobody who ever took a fucking geography class in college has the standing to criticize an engineering major about anything. Engineering is fucking hard. Really fucking hard. A 3.1 in engineering is a genius compared to your run of the mill 3.5 liberal arts major.

+1. The engineers at my UG with 3.0s are working tons harder, have learned lots more, and are worth far more on the employment market than (most of) the kids with 3.9s in my major. People think my GPA is good, but scaled down to the forced engineering curve, it'd probably be a 3.3 or a 3.4 tops.

[gatorlion]

Aiming for Academia + 3.1 undergrad GPA = Effort comes better late than never?

What kind of McSchool has a geography minor?

Any school that has many options for majors (i.e. top-50 state school). Having earned a Master's at an ivy league university I am well aware of the dearth of undergraduate majors available at some schools, especially liberal arts colleges.

Aiming for Academia + 3.1 undergrad GPA = Effort comes better late than never?

Is this directed at me? I'm not sure what you mean.

Yes. It is ridiculous to think someone with an undergrad GPA of 3.1 (unless it is in the hard sciences or engineering) has any right to think they can one day be an academic when any good PhD program would not admit anyone with a GPA lower than 3.75. Academia in the legal field is not for people who realized at 22 that they need to start taking their education seriously.

I'm just saying that nobody who ever took a fucking geography class in college has the standing to criticize an engineering major about anything. Engineering is fucking hard. Really fucking hard. A 3.1 in engineering is a genius compared to your run of the mill 3.5 liberal arts major.

Wow, I can't believe I struck such a nerve given the fact that I qualified my opinion with the notion that a 3.1 GPA is unreasonable "unless it is in the hard sciences or engineering." I thought engineers were supposed to pay attention to detail.

FTW, my courseload in geography focused on physical geography, including climatology (a science, in case you were wondering). In addition, I took physics and statistics during my first MA, which was completed at an ivy league school. Overall GPA? 3.8. Therefore, before you assume that the discipline of geography involves memorizing the names of state capitals, you should really keep your thoughts to yourself. Maybe too much engineering has you thinking in terms of blanket assumptions about the world around you? Good luck in law school. You will make a fine IP lawyer who will do doc review for the litigators gifted with speech who happened to have earned their undergraduate degrees in those awful liberal arts.

[rayiner]

FTW, my courseload in geography focused on physical geography, including climatology (a science, in case you were wondering). In addition, I took physics and statistics during my first MA, which was completed at an ivy league school. Overall GPA? 3.8. Therefore, before you assume that the discipline of geography involves memorizing the names of state capitals, you should really keep your thoughts to yourself. Maybe too much engineering has you thinking in terms of blanket assumptions about the physical world to understand variation?

zOMG! Intro physics and stats! At an Ivy no less!

Color me impressed if it was at MIT or Caltech or Stanford or Berkeley.

[Detail]

FTW, my courseload in geography focused on physical geography, including climatology (a science, in case you were wondering). In addition, I took physics and statistics during my first MA, which was completed at an ivy league school. Overall GPA? 3.8. Therefore, before you assume that the discipline of geography involves memorizing the names of state capitals, you should really keep your thoughts to yourself. Maybe too much engineering has you thinking in terms of blanket assumptions about the physical world to understand variation?

zOMG! Intro physics and stats! At an Ivy no less!

Color me impressed if it was at MIT or Caltech or Stanford or Berkeley.

Don't discriminate. The concept of F=ma is impossibly hard for geography majors!

[Cleareyes]

zOMG! Intro physics and stats! At an Ivy no less!

Color me impressed if it was at MIT or Caltech or Stanford or Berkeley.

Splash damage, Rayiner. Splash damage.

--ImageRemoved--

[Aeroplane]

Yes. It is ridiculous to think someone with an undergrad GPA of 3.1 (unless it is in the hard sciences or engineering) has any right to think they can one day be an academic when any good PhD program would not admit anyone with a GPA lower than 3.75. Academia in the legal field is not for people who realized at 22 that they need to start taking their education seriously.

A random guy with 11 posts on TLS is clearly a better judge of future academic potential than T14 adcomms.

Seriously though dude, there are a number of assumptions that you make about me that are untrue, and there are other things on my resume you are obviously unaware of. No reason why you should be. But also no reason for you to make blanket pronouncements on people's career prospects when you don't know jack about them besides their UGPA. Do everyone in your future LS class a favor and go read the thread about not being a douchebag.

PS - thanks rayiner.

[rayiner]

zOMG! Intro physics and stats! At an Ivy no less!

Color me impressed if it was at MIT or Caltech or Stanford or Berkeley.

Splash damage, Rayiner. Splash damage.

--ImageRemoved--

Sorry Cleareyes. To be entirely fair, I was drunk last night.

That said, Aeroplane is awesome. Dude should keep his skanky-ass mouth shut.