URM 2013-2014 Cycle Thread Forum

[El Principe]

Would 90K at GW with a desire to live/work in DC be worth it?

I don't know, that 22.6% employed by the school isn't exactly a positive sign.

Yeah but thats better than no employment at all.

Yes, but what's happening after that school funded employment ends? We don't have any reported numbers and it's not like this is an anomaly in the data. Year after year GWU and UVA have ridiculously high levels of school funded positions, so clearly this isn't any type of permanent employment.

Yeah, there's that consideration, but at least they wouldn't be saddled in debt. What if you take a higher ranked school and end up layed off of stuck after your firm goes down in three years?

[MoMettaMonk]

I mean it's not the best outcome, but doing some kind of research or legal type job while you continue to look is better than nothing

That's true, but if we're talking about paying six figures for your law degree (which you would be if we're talking about getting 90k at GWU), then those school funded employment figures are an important consideration.

And can we talk about how ridiculous it is that the only employment figures that schools have to provide is 9 months after graduation. Shouldn't there be at least a general picture of what happens 2, 3, 10 years down the line?

[bizzybone1313]

My undergrad sponosered a trip to top business and law schools that I went on. We visited the below skools in the span of about a week. We flew, drove and went by train to all of these skools.

For your pleasure, here are my impressions of the schools that I visited:

Northwestern: Vibrant, liberal and lively. It seems like a great place to get a JD.

Chicago: Isolated, cold, very academic and conservative. I didn't like this place. My gut gave me a very bad feeling when I was on this campus. I would probably have to get a building named after me to attend this skool.

Columbia: Elitist, city on the hill and kinda distant. I think a person would either love this place or not like it all. There doesn't seem too much of a middle ground. I liked it.

NYU: Hippy (stereotype but I found it to be kinda true), nice location, warm. Not for me but I am sure a lot of students would love this place.

Hahvard: Elitist, vibrant, story and village like, unbelievable campus.

Penn: This skool is my most interesting visit. Penn didn't make much of a impression on me. For some weird reason, I have hard time remembering anything about Penn. I remember Philly being lame. I wasn't impressed. But the school itself didn't make much of an impression on me. I guess the best way to put it is that Penn is a middle of the road option. I wouldn't hate it nor would I have a smile on my face all day everyday for attending there.

Since this is top-law-schools.com and not top-business-schools.com, I am not going to review the business skools at these places.

Are you talking about the universities as a whole or just the law schools?

I am mostly talking about the law schools, because that is where I spent most of my time during my visits. I did get a lot of time to walk around Harvard's campus. At the end of the day, we are going to be spending most of our time at the law school portion of the campuses anyways.

[Mojosodope]

Yeah but thats better than no employment at all.

Yes, but what's happening after that school funded employment ends? We don't have any reported numbers and it's not like this is an anomaly in the data. Year after year GWU and UVA have ridiculously high levels of school funded positions, so clearly this isn't any type of permanent employment.

Yeah, there's that consideration, but at least they wouldn't be saddled in debt. What if you take a higher ranked school and end up layed off of stuck after your firm goes down in three years?

That's a rare occurrence. Also wouldn't you get severance pay, and the added experience?

I think that's a better outcome than working for te school for a year. What did you mean by not being saddled with debt anyway?

[EvMont]

You should probably get familiar with lawschooltransparency.com

Thanks, but I'm probably on that site more than I'm on TLS. haha. I was just looking at the wrong class year. Good looking out though. It should definitely be required reading for anyone who's thinking about applying.

[californiauser]

My undergrad sponosered a trip to top business and law schools that I went on. We visited the below skools in the span of about a week. We flew, drove and went by train to all of these skools.

For your pleasure, here are my impressions of the schools that I visited:

Northwestern: Vibrant, liberal and lively. It seems like a great place to get a JD.

Chicago: Isolated, cold, very academic and conservative. I didn't like this place. My gut gave me a very bad feeling when I was on this campus. I would probably have to get a building named after me to attend this skool.

Columbia: Elitist, city on the hill and kinda distant. I think a person would either love this place or not like it all. There doesn't seem too much of a middle ground. I liked it.

NYU: Hippy (stereotype but I found it to be kinda true), nice location, warm. Not for me but I am sure a lot of students would love this place.

Hahvard: Elitist, vibrant, story and village like, unbelievable campus.

Penn: This skool is my most interesting visit. Penn didn't make much of a impression on me. For some weird reason, I have hard time remembering anything about Penn. I remember Philly being lame. I wasn't impressed. But the school itself didn't make much of an impression on me. I guess the best way to put it is that Penn is a middle of the road option. I wouldn't hate it nor would I have a smile on my face all day everyday for attending there.

Since this is top-law-schools.com and not top-business-schools.com, I am not going to review the business skools at these places.

Are you talking about the universities as a whole or just the law schools?

I am mostly talking about the law schools, because that is where I spent most of my time during my visits. I did get a lot of time to walk around Harvard's campus. At the end of the day, we are going to be spending most of our time at the law school portion of the campuses anyways.

Can you expound on what you perceived to be the differences between NYU and Columbia? I visited both briefly and found them to be identical for the most part.

did you talk to any URM students?

[MoMettaMonk]

http://www.law.georgetown.edu/admission ... geid=61621

For anyone who's thinking of taking out any loans at all, that calculator is your best friend. Since GWU with 90k was thrown out by Okgo, I plugged that in. Assuming you were to finance the rest of your tuition/COL with loans then you're looking at about $160,000 at time of repayment. If you manage to get a 1L and 2L SA and put most of that paycheck towards your loans, then you're still looking at about $101,000 at repayment.

[californiauser]

http://www.law.georgetown.edu/admission ... geid=61621

For anyone who's thinking of taking out any loans at all, that calculator is your best friend. Since GWU with 90k was thrown out by Okgo, I plugged that in. Assuming you were to finance the rest of your tuition/COL with loans then you're looking at about $160,000 at time of repayment. If you manage to get a 1L and 2L SA and put most of that paycheck towards your loans, then you're still looking at about $101,000 at repayment.

How are you getting 60k from 2 summers of SA? One summer = 30k - 10-15k in taxes, right?

[okaygo]

http://www.law.georgetown.edu/admission ... geid=61621

For anyone who's thinking of taking out any loans at all, that calculator is your best friend. Since GWU with 90k was thrown out by Okgo, I plugged that in. Assuming you were to finance the rest of your tuition/COL with loans then you're looking at about $160,000 at time of repayment. If you manage to get a 1L and 2L SA and put most of that paycheck towards your loans, then you're still looking at about $101,000 at repayment.

Well this ruined my day.

[MoMettaMonk]

http://www.law.georgetown.edu/admission ... geid=61621

For anyone who's thinking of taking out any loans at all, that calculator is your best friend. Since GWU with 90k was thrown out by Okgo, I plugged that in. Assuming you were to finance the rest of your tuition/COL with loans then you're looking at about $160,000 at time of repayment. If you manage to get a 1L and 2L SA and put most of that paycheck towards your loans, then you're still looking at about $101,000 at repayment.

How are you getting 60k from 2 summers of SA? One summer = 30k - 10-15k in taxes, right?

I decided to be incredibly generous with the SA. Also you won't have that big of a tax hit unless you've got some other source of income. Although you'll have an enormous amount taken out of your check (as if you were actually making 160k for the year), that will be adjusted when you file your taxes and get your return.

[californiauser]

http://www.law.georgetown.edu/admission ... geid=61621

For anyone who's thinking of taking out any loans at all, that calculator is your best friend. Since GWU with 90k was thrown out by Okgo, I plugged that in. Assuming you were to finance the rest of your tuition/COL with loans then you're looking at about $160,000 at time of repayment. If you manage to get a 1L and 2L SA and put most of that paycheck towards your loans, then you're still looking at about $101,000 at repayment.

How are you getting 60k from 2 summers of SA? One summer = 30k - 10-15k in taxes, right?

I decided to be incredibly generous with the SA. Also you won't have that big of a tax hit unless you've got some other source of income. Although you'll have an enormous amount taken out of your check (as if you were actually making 160k for the year), that will be adjusted when you file your taxes and get your return.

1L and 2L SA are hardly guranteed from GWU either. I wouldn't count on a 1L SA as an URM from any school outside of HYSCCN, let alone a 2L SA.

[AAJD2B]

http://www.law.georgetown.edu/admission ... geid=61621

For anyone who's thinking of taking out any loans at all, that calculator is your best friend. Since GWU with 90k was thrown out by Okgo, I plugged that in. Assuming you were to finance the rest of your tuition/COL with loans then you're looking at about $160,000 at time of repayment. If you manage to get a 1L and 2L SA and put most of that paycheck towards your loans, then you're still looking at about $101,000 at repayment.

Well this ruined my day.

Ditto. With Columbia at 82k/yr I don't know why I am bother applying. It's more expensive than any of the T3s I think. The thought of repaying that gives me hives.

[MoMettaMonk]

http://www.law.georgetown.edu/admission ... geid=61621

For anyone who's thinking of taking out any loans at all, that calculator is your best friend. Since GWU with 90k was thrown out by Okgo, I plugged that in. Assuming you were to finance the rest of your tuition/COL with loans then you're looking at about $160,000 at time of repayment. If you manage to get a 1L and 2L SA and put most of that paycheck towards your loans, then you're still looking at about $101,000 at repayment.

How are you getting 60k from 2 summers of SA? One summer = 30k - 10-15k in taxes, right?

I decided to be incredibly generous with the SA. Also you won't have that big of a tax hit unless you've got some other source of income. Although you'll have an enormous amount taken out of your check (as if you were actually making 160k for the year), that will be adjusted when you file your taxes and get your return.

1L and 2L SA are hardly guranteed from GWU either. I wouldn't count on a 1L SA as an URM from any school outside of HYSCCN, let alone a 2L SA.

Yup. Like I said, incredibly generous. That 60k difference is also a function of you not being charged the interest and origination fees from taking out loans (I assumed 25k per SA for that calculation when in reality it would be closer to 10-15k after taxes and living expenses).

[californiauser]

Yup. Like I said, incredibly generous. That 60k difference is also a function of you not being charged the interest and origination fees from taking out loans (I assumed 25k per SA for that calculation when in reality it would be closer to 10-15k after taxes and living expenses).

That makes sense.

[okaygo]

Just going to vent here, feel free to skip.

I'm just starting to get very underwhelmed by every single law school that I'm planning to apply to. UVA is a great school bur with my numbers I doubt I'll get in, and if I do it'll be with little money, if anything. Additionally, I don't really want to go there because 1) I can't see myself liking the fratty vibe and I can't play softball and 2) I don't want to be in Charlottesville.

Duke seems cool but again, I don't want to go so far from the DMV area, and my numbers aren't competitive for $$. GULC won't give me any money. And GW will but I'll still be broke and unemployed. Gahhhhhhhh.

[bizzybone1313]

My undergrad sponosered a trip to top business and law schools that I went on. We visited the below skools in the span of about a week. We flew, drove and went by train to all of these skools.

For your pleasure, here are my impressions of the schools that I visited:

Northwestern: Vibrant, liberal and lively. It seems like a great place to get a JD.

Chicago: Isolated, cold, very academic and conservative. I didn't like this place. My gut gave me a very bad feeling when I was on this campus. I would probably have to get a building named after me to attend this skool.

Columbia: Elitist, city on the hill and kinda distant. I think a person would either love this place or not like it all. There doesn't seem too much of a middle ground. I liked it.

NYU: Hippy (stereotype but I found it to be kinda true), nice location, warm. Not for me but I am sure a lot of students would love this place.

Hahvard: Elitist, vibrant, story and village like, unbelievable campus.

Penn: This skool is my most interesting visit. Penn didn't make much of a impression on me. For some weird reason, I have hard time remembering anything about Penn. I remember Philly being lame. I wasn't impressed. But the school itself didn't make much of an impression on me. I guess the best way to put it is that Penn is a middle of the road option. I wouldn't hate it nor would I have a smile on my face all day everyday for attending there.

Since this is top-law-schools.com and not top-business-schools.com, I am not going to review the business skools at these places.

So what's your top choice?

Also, have you visited Penn since it's new Golkin Hall addition? If you haven't, please do. I was thoroughly enamored.

I have only visited Penn once. I would probably go visit again if I were strongly considering the skool.

Besides YHS which almost everyone would ultimately attend if admitted, my top choice has always been Columbia. I have always been very fond of the skool. I probably wouldn't attend NYU under most circumstances because I think the school is overrated and NYC COL isn't something I would want to pay for NYU. I would pay NYC COL in a heartbeat for Columbia though.

Outside of YHS, my top choices are Columbia, Penn and Duke. I have never been real fond of either Penn and Duke, but they are much better than a lot of the other T-14 skools for a number of reasons. I think Penn or Duke could easily get me back to the South, which is where I want to be no matter what.

I have always been real fond of Berkeley and Michigan too, but I probably wouldn't attend either for two reasons: Berkeley is overpriced and stingy with $$$ and Michigan's employment stats have been very bad in recent years. Michigan appears to be a sinking ship. I like Cornell, but it seems their placement is almost exclusively in the upper Northeast, which I don't like. I don't want to be in NYC for the next 30 years. I don't like Virginia because it is known to be the most conservative T-14 skool. I wouldn't attend Virginia under any circumstances. I like Northwestern a lot too, but I don't know if they could get me back to the South. And of course, there is Georgetown. Georgetown is the worst of the T-14 in terms of placement and is also very stingy with $$$. I probably wouldn't attend GT under most circumstances.

Are you not applying to any regional schools like Vandy that could place you in the south?

Outside of the T-14, I am only going to apply to UT Austin and maybe UCLA. I have never considered applying to Vandy. I am only going to apply to UCLA because I have always been very fond of the school. But it would make very little sense to attend UCLA when UT Austin has far better placing power than UCLA in the South. Even with UT Austin, I am not so sure it is a wise investment. I only will attend LS if I get into an elite school. No amount of money would sway me at lesser schools. The risk, investment and work required is not worth it at schools outside of the Top 18 or so.

These racists at my previous job where trying to convince me to attend the "local" schools. At my previous job, when a person is hired, their resume gets e-mailed to everyone in that division. My resume has my latin honors and high GPA listed on it.

When I was resigning my job, these idiots were trying to sway me to attend the local TTTT skools. They all three deal with major law firms on a frequent basis. Two are actually law graduates themselves. One attended UT Austin and the other attended Emory. They both attended Ivy undergrads. They are accutely aware how life ruining it is to attend a shitty law school. I didn't tell them off, but I kinda regret not doing so. I don't need anyone giving me career/life advice.

At my first job out of college, when I was resigning, I was explaining to these two clowns sitting in front of me what I was planning on doing with my career. This was a bad idea. I should have simply walked out on this job. This place has a very toxic environment. Anyways, I stated what company I was going to and what I eventually planned to do. As soon as I stated that I intended to attend law school in the near future, one of these guys (a White male) practically jumps out of his chair and says, "Ahh, law school!!! What is your LSAT score?"

During undergrad, I went to the professional school advising office. When a person walks in, they have to list their GPA and LSAT score on this sheet of paper prior to getting advised by a counselor. As soon as I walk in, the adviser (a White woman) proceeds to ask me, "What schools are you thinking of applying to?" I proceeded to say Berkeley. I was very fond of Berkeley at the time. She then says, "Affirmative action is nice, huh?" I didn't respond because I was speechless.

The lesson of these stories is to keep your LS ambitions to yourself and do not tell people about your plans. If you are a minority, a lot of people still want you to stay "in your place".

[MoMettaMonk]

As shitty as all of that story was, it was pretty funny that she mentioned affirmative action at one of the few schools where it's expressly not allowed.

[AAJD2B]

Just going to vent here, feel free to skip.

I'm just starting to get very underwhelmed by every single law school that I'm planning to apply to. UVA is a great school bur with my numbers I doubt I'll get in, and if I do it'll be with little money, if anything. Additionally, I don't really want to go there because 1) I can't see myself liking the fratty vibe and I can't play softball and 2) I don't want to be in Charlottesville.

Duke seems cool but again, I don't want to go so far from the DMV area, and my numbers aren't competitive for $$. GULC won't give me any money. And GW will but I'll still be broke and unemployed. Gahhhhhhhh.

Harvard? Penn? Columbia? Stanford? What about those?

[bizzybone1313]

My undergrad sponosered a trip to top business and law schools that I went on. We visited the below skools in the span of about a week. We flew, drove and went by train to all of these skools.

For your pleasure, here are my impressions of the schools that I visited:

Northwestern: Vibrant, liberal and lively. It seems like a great place to get a JD.

Chicago: Isolated, cold, very academic and conservative. I didn't like this place. My gut gave me a very bad feeling when I was on this campus. I would probably have to get a building named after me to attend this skool.

Columbia: Elitist, city on the hill and kinda distant. I think a person would either love this place or not like it all. There doesn't seem too much of a middle ground. I liked it.

NYU: Hippy (stereotype but I found it to be kinda true), nice location, warm. Not for me but I am sure a lot of students would love this place.

Hahvard: Elitist, vibrant, story and village like, unbelievable campus.

Penn: This skool is my most interesting visit. Penn didn't make much of a impression on me. For some weird reason, I have hard time remembering anything about Penn. I remember Philly being lame. I wasn't impressed. But the school itself didn't make much of an impression on me. I guess the best way to put it is that Penn is a middle of the road option. I wouldn't hate it nor would I have a smile on my face all day everyday for attending there.

Since this is top-law-schools.com and not top-business-schools.com, I am not going to review the business skools at these places.

Are you talking about the universities as a whole or just the law schools?

I am mostly talking about the law schools, because that is where I spent most of my time during my visits. I did get a lot of time to walk around Harvard's campus. At the end of the day, we are going to be spending most of our time at the law school portion of the campuses anyways.

Can you expound on what you perceived to be the differences between NYU and Columbia? I visited both briefly and found them to be identical for the most part.

did you talk to any URM students?

I didn't get the opportunity to stray and talk to URM students at NYU and Columbia. During my visits at the various schools, sometimes we got to sit in some classes and other times we didn't. At Chicago, we got to sit in some of the classes. At NYU and Columbia, we did not. Columbia and NYU seemed very different to me. Columbia came off as a place with a more serious culture. NYU, on the other hand, seemed to attract more free spirited people. I felt Columbia was more on the elitist side and NYU didn't take itself that seriously. If your goal is to be in NYC no matter what, both skools are fine places to attend at the right price.

[okaygo]

Just going to vent here, feel free to skip.

I'm just starting to get very underwhelmed by every single law school that I'm planning to apply to. UVA is a great school bur with my numbers I doubt I'll get in, and if I do it'll be with little money, if anything. Additionally, I don't really want to go there because 1) I can't see myself liking the fratty vibe and I can't play softball and 2) I don't want to be in Charlottesville.

Duke seems cool but again, I don't want to go so far from the DMV area, and my numbers aren't competitive for $$. GULC won't give me any money. And GW will but I'll still be broke and unemployed. Gahhhhhhhh.

Harvard? Penn? Columbia? Stanford? What about those?

I can't get in to any of those. Especially not with $$.

[MoMettaMonk]

Just going to vent here, feel free to skip.

I'm just starting to get very underwhelmed by every single law school that I'm planning to apply to. UVA is a great school bur with my numbers I doubt I'll get in, and if I do it'll be with little money, if anything. Additionally, I don't really want to go there because 1) I can't see myself liking the fratty vibe and I can't play softball and 2) I don't want to be in Charlottesville.

Duke seems cool but again, I don't want to go so far from the DMV area, and my numbers aren't competitive for $$. GULC won't give me any money. And GW will but I'll still be broke and unemployed. Gahhhhhhhh.

Harvard? Penn? Columbia? Stanford? What about those?

I can't get in to any of those. Especially not with $$.

What was your LSAT?

[El Principe]

1L and 2L SA are hardly guranteed from GWU either. I wouldn't count on a 1L SA as an URM from any school outside of HYSCCN, let alone a 2L SA.

One word... Texas

[twenty]

Okaygo, you might consider applying for GWU's early decision which comes with a full ride. GWU isn't a bad school by any stretch, even if you cut out a majority of school funded jobs, that's still on par with/better than other top 20 schools like USC, WUSTL or Vanderbilt. If you play your cards right, you could graduate completely debt-free from a very solid institution.

[bizzybone1313]

As shitty as all of that story was, it was pretty funny that she mentioned affirmative action at one of the few schools where it's expressly not allowed.

I have attracted a lot of racism in my young life for whatever reason.

When I was applying to undergrad, this clerk (a White woman) at my high school was trying to sabotage my application to where I ultimately graduated from. I didn't realize it at the time until later on what she was trying to do to me.

During my senior year in high school, I was focused on varsity basketball, so I didn't end up applying to schools until January. This clerk intentionally kept sending unofficial transcripts to my undergrad college. One time, she didn't sign the transcript, which makes it unofficial. One time, she didn't put the seal of my high school, which makes it unofficial. One time, she didn't put the class rank on my transcript, which makes it unofficial. Finally, I got my transcript and made sure everything was right and I mailed it myself. I didn't mail this transcript until late spring of my senior year. I didn't get admitted to my undergrad until June-- two months before school was set to start. I visited my undergrad during the summer and attended two months later that August.

About a year or two after this occured, I visited my high school during the summer. I was sitting in the principal's office and that clerk lady was sitting there. So the principal proceeds to ask me what I ended up doing after high school. I said, "I am at such and such college and am studying such and such major." As soon as I said that, that clerk's head snaps up and stares at me. Her acts of attempted sabotage hadn't worked and she was pissed.

[okaygo]

What was your LSAT?

162.