Top Law Schools

Ok guys,sorry if you've seen a previous post of mine, but I've narrowed my two schools down to Washington and Lee and Pepperdine.
Washington and Lee is tied for 24th and gave me 25K in merit scholarships, renewable every year, and jumped 6 spots after this months new release of rankings. Located in Lexington. VA.
Pepperdine is also on the rise, one of the youngest laws schools to be in the top 50, currently ranked 49, formerly 54. Ranked 1st in Dispute Resolution and located in Malibu, CA.

If you absolutely had to, which would you choose. I am going to visit both, but I'd like to see what people think before hand. Region is not an issue.

Any scholarship money from Pepperdine? You're going to be competing with some higher ranked schools in that same region.

Aeroneous wrote:Any scholarship money from Pepperdine? You're going to be competing with some higher ranked schools in that same region.

Check those sTTTips. Go to W&L.

moneybagsphd wrote:

Aeroneous wrote:Any scholarship money from Pepperdine? You're going to be competing with some higher ranked schools in that same region.

Check those sTTTips. Go to W&L.

I fucking hate it when people put three "T"s in a sentence like they are being clever... its not clever, its dumb. Seriously its just stupid. Stop.

Anyway, I digress. Visit each school and weigh your options while considering scholarship offers. If you do that, you'll make the right decision for you.

MTBike wrote:

moneybagsphd wrote:

Aeroneous wrote:Any scholarship money from Pepperdine? You're going to be competing with some higher ranked schools in that same region.

Check those sTTTips. Go to W&L.

I fucking hate it when people put three "T"s in a sentence like they are being clever... its not clever, its dumb. Seriously its just stupid. Stop.

Anyway, I digress. Visit each school and weigh your options while considering scholarship offers. If you do that, you'll make the right decision for you.

HaTTTer.

OP, it really depends on where you see yourself working. Both are regional schools. If you really don't have a preference between the east coast and the west coast it sounds like you should go to W&L with money since you didn't mention any scholarship from Pepp.

JDizzle2015 wrote:

MTBike wrote:

moneybagsphd wrote:

Aeroneous wrote:Any scholarship money from Pepperdine? You're going to be competing with some higher ranked schools in that same region.

Check those sTTTips. Go to W&L.

I fucking hate it when people put three "T"s in a sentence like they are being clever... its not clever, its dumb. Seriously its just stupid. Stop.

Anyway, I digress. Visit each school and weigh your options while considering scholarship offers. If you do that, you'll make the right decision for you.

HaTTTer.
quote]

Lol

akutrolli wrote:Pepperdine is also on the rise, one of the youngest laws schools to be in the top 50, currently ranked 49, formerly 54. Ranked 1st in Dispute Resolution and located in Malibu, CA.

I don't mean to be rude, but all of that is essentially meaningless in the context of your decision.

akutrolli wrote:Region is not an issue.

W&L all the way in your case.

ETA: I tried to look at the employment stats to compare the two but Pepperdine has absolute garbage on their site: It's only for the class of 2009, has no context for salaries, and no private practice statistics.
http://law.pepperdine.edu/careers/curre ... -stats.htm
W&L was much more transparent:
http://law.wlu.edu/deptimages/Admission ... 0Month.pdf

But guys Malibu girls are hot...

Sorry guys. Forgot to add that Pepperdine gave me 25K as well.

I visited both. Have you visited them yet? Pepperdine has pretty dumpy old facilitieis but it's in a beautiful place. It would be nice to spend 3 years in Malibu. But, I think cost of tuition might be around $40K/year. After adding COL you're looking at $60K/year for Pepperdine. Less your scholarship, that's still going to cost a pretty penny (assuming you can keep your scholly). It's an hour from Santa Monica and probably just as far from any real airport in case you want to fly somewhere else to see your family now and then.

W&L is in a small town. Students there seemed a lot less plastic and more down to earth FWIW. That school's big on small community. COL would be much cheaper and total cost of attendance would probably be at least $20K less over three years (assuming you keep your scholly). Same deal with airport being an hour away.

It comes down to what you want. Neither school will guarantee a job. But no school will, so my vote would be with W&L.

EDIT: I think I underestimated Malibu COL. Rent alone will be at least $1,000/month in Malibu.

akutrolli wrote:Ok guys,sorry if you've seen a previous post of mine, but I've narrowed my two schools down to Washington and Lee and Pepperdine.
Washington and Lee is tied for 24th and gave me 25K in merit scholarships, renewable every year, and jumped 6 spots after this months new release of rankings. Located in Lexington. VA.
Pepperdine is also on the rise, one of the youngest laws schools to be in the top 50, currently ranked 49, formerly 54. Ranked 1st in Dispute Resolution and located in Malibu, CA.

If you absolutely had to, which would you choose. I am going to visit both, but I'd like to see what people think before hand. Region is not an issue.

bolded everything that does not matter

srfngdd6 wrote:

akutrolli wrote:Ok guys,sorry if you've seen a previous post of mine, but I've narrowed my two schools down to Washington and Lee and Pepperdine.
Washington and Lee is tied for 24th and gave me 25K in merit scholarships, renewable every year, and jumped 6 spots after this months new release of rankings. Located in Lexington. VA.
Pepperdine is also on the rise, one of the youngest laws schools to be in the top 50, currently ranked 49, formerly 54. Ranked 1st in Dispute Resolution and located in Malibu, CA.

If you absolutely had to, which would you choose. I am going to visit both, but I'd like to see what people think before hand. Region is not an issue.

bolded everything that does not matter

Really, don't pay attention to the rankings. What matters is how these schools do regionally. And as someone else said, there are better schools in southern California, so Pepperdine is kind of risk (although it's a bit better with the scholarship). What should matter is where you're from.

MTBike wrote:

moneybagsphd wrote:

Aeroneous wrote:Any scholarship money from Pepperdine? You're going to be competing with some higher ranked schools in that same region.

Check those sTTTips. Go to W&L.

I fucking hate it when people put three "T"s in a sentence like they are being clever... its not clever, its dumb. Seriously its just stupid. Stop.

Anyway, I digress. Visit each school and weigh your options while considering scholarship offers. If you do that, you'll make the right decision for you

No.
If you want VA, go to W&L
If you want CA, retake.
1.) Even if Pepperdine matches W&L's scholarship offer, they still have the same top 1/3 (or 1/4 or whatever) stip on their schollys as the TTTs. That means if you get a scholarship you have a 2/3 (or 3/4 or whatever) chance of losing it. Not exactly great odds.
2.) Pepperdine is a non-peer school in a very saturated market. You will (not) be competing with UCLA/USC grads for jobs (forgetting UCI, for a moment, or the N. Cal school food chain: Stanford>Berkeley>UCD/UCH.)