Chapman (Full ride; conditional) vs USD ($33k; conditional)?? Forum

(Applications Advice, Letters of Recommendation . . . )
Post Reply

Chapman or USD

Chapman (full ride; conditional)
3
38%
U of San Diego (33k scholarship; conditional)
5
63%
 
Total votes: 8

fab99

New
Posts: 4
Joined: Sun Apr 10, 2022 5:53 pm

Chapman (Full ride; conditional) vs USD ($33k; conditional)??

Post by fab99 » Sun Apr 10, 2022 6:57 pm

Please help me decide between Chapman and University of San Diego - I am so torn!

I am an OC resident and have narrowed down my choices for 2022 to Chapman and USD. Their tuition is about the same. I received a higher scholarship from Chapman, which is closer, but USD has a higher ranking.

Chapman:
-40 min (one way) commute
-medium ranking in both OC and California, #118 in US
-Full ($59,500) scholarship, renewable for the 2nd and 3rd years IF I keep grades at or above a 2.9 GPA. Curve is set at 2.8.

USD:
-over 1 hour (one way) commute or need to relocate - relocation would be expensive
-medium/high ranking in California, #64 in US
-extremely beautiful campus and architecture, ranked most beautiful campus in the nation
-$33,000 scholarship, renewable for the 2nd and 3rd years IF I keep grades at or above a 2.86 GPA.
-75% of students had a 2.86+ GPA (in recent years)

What are your opinions on the two schools?
I wanted to go to UCI so badly, I'm afraid I am just not getting excited about Chapman. Friend and family say it's a great school. The fact that USD is ranked much higher in the US is quite enticing. But I have never even heard about University of San Diego Law before applying. What kind of reputation does it have? Attending there would require a major life shift and would put a lot of strain on my relationship. Also, I'm not thrilled about the conditional scholarships, but at least they allow us a fair comparison of the two schools in terms of financial risk.

Thank you in advance!

(Please do not recommend that I take the LSAT again. I got a 164 and have prolonged this process long enough.)

Fireworks2016

Bronze
Posts: 143
Joined: Thu May 05, 2016 1:17 pm

Re: Chapman (Full ride; conditional) vs USD ($33k; conditional)??

Post by Fireworks2016 » Sun Apr 10, 2022 11:20 pm

The Chapman offer is a trap.

nixy

Gold
Posts: 4446
Joined: Fri Feb 16, 2018 8:58 am

Re: Chapman (Full ride; conditional) vs USD ($33k; conditional)??

Post by nixy » Mon Apr 11, 2022 1:55 am

Fireworks2016 wrote:
Sun Apr 10, 2022 11:20 pm
The Chapman offer is a trap.
Yeah, don’t go anywhere where a conditional scholarship requires being above the curve. Not that any conditional scholarship is acceptable, but requiring being in the top 75%-ish is still much better than Chapman’s requirement.

RecruiterMan

New
Posts: 73
Joined: Wed Feb 07, 2018 10:58 am

Re: Chapman (Full ride; conditional) vs USD ($33k; conditional)??

Post by RecruiterMan » Mon Apr 11, 2022 9:23 am

Run for the hills, these are both traps. Keep at it until you get yourself into UCI or something similar or better.

User avatar
cavalier1138

Moderator
Posts: 8007
Joined: Fri Mar 25, 2016 8:01 pm

Re: Chapman (Full ride; conditional) vs USD ($33k; conditional)??

Post by cavalier1138 » Mon Apr 11, 2022 9:50 am

Agreed that these are both generally bad options, but your post raises a few questions:

What is your GPA? A 164/(something decent) should generally have given you better options than Chapman and USD. And what are your career goals? When you say you've "prolonged" the admissions process, what do you mean?

Also, I'm not sure how you determined the "California" ranking for these schools, but there's no such thing. And a lot of your school criteria (commute, architecture) are setting off giant ringing alarm bells in my head. Why aren't you looking at job outcomes first?

Want to continue reading?

Register now to search topics and post comments!

Absolutely FREE!


fab99

New
Posts: 4
Joined: Sun Apr 10, 2022 5:53 pm

Re: Chapman (Full ride; conditional) vs USD ($33k; conditional)??

Post by fab99 » Mon Apr 11, 2022 12:25 pm

cavalier1138 wrote:
Mon Apr 11, 2022 9:50 am
Agreed that these are both generally bad options, but your post raises a few questions:

What is your GPA? A 164/(something decent) should generally have given you better options than Chapman and USD. And what are your career goals? When you say you've "prolonged" the admissions process, what do you mean?

Also, I'm not sure how you determined the "California" ranking for these schools, but there's no such thing. And a lot of your school criteria (commute, architecture) are setting off giant ringing alarm bells in my head. Why aren't you looking at job outcomes first?

I. My GPA is a 3.56, so both my GPA and LSAT score are on the low end of what they accept. The LSAT scores are through the roof this year, as are the number of applicants, so a 164 is not as strong as it used to be. The lowest LSAT/GPA they now accept is 163/3.50. Had I applied in 2019 or earlier, I would have likely gotten in. Also, my undergrad school was not prestigious.

II. My career goals are uncertain because I'm interested in so many different types of law, so I want to remain flexible. I may plan on going one direction and end up taking a class that makes me want to go a different direction. Transactional law appeals to me because it seems clean-cut (i.e., less emotional), but I might also excel in an anti-human trafficking fellowship or as an environmental lawyer. I want to learn more about different types of law and what is involved in their work before making a commitment. Chapman has a great career center and lots of networking opportunities.

III. I've prolonged the admissions process in that I got my bachelor's degree years ago.

IV. The rankings cited are according to the U.S. News Rankings. California rankings = U.S. News Rankings with the California filter on.

V. See above (II). I am interested in many different fields of law. Both schools have programs that appeal to me. Career outcome was a major factor in applying to Pepperdine, which has its Sudreau Global Justice Institute (anti-human trafficking, advocate for systemic changes, international justice for developing worlds, etc.), but I was waitlisted there and it would be too expensive to attend without a scholarship. Factors like commute and looks of the campus are not important to the outsider, but are they factors to me. I appreciate good architecture. Commute has an everyday impact on scheduling and family obligations. I'm not free to move to any area. They have realistic impact on whether or not I would thrive for the next 3 years.

nixy

Gold
Posts: 4446
Joined: Fri Feb 16, 2018 8:58 am

Re: Chapman (Full ride; conditional) vs USD ($33k; conditional)??

Post by nixy » Mon Apr 11, 2022 4:41 pm

Commute/inability to move is a reasonable thing to consider, but architecture isn’t unless everything else is absolutely equal (and it usually isn’t).

Individual programs are much less significant than overall employment statistics. The latter is what measures a school’s placement power, which is what you should be most interested in. What kinds of jobs are most grads from these schools getting and do you want to do those jobs?

fab99

New
Posts: 4
Joined: Sun Apr 10, 2022 5:53 pm

Re: Chapman (Full ride; conditional) vs USD ($33k; conditional)??

Post by fab99 » Mon Apr 11, 2022 10:57 pm

nixy wrote:
Mon Apr 11, 2022 4:41 pm
Commute/inability to move is a reasonable thing to consider, but architecture isn’t unless everything else is absolutely equal (and it usually isn’t).

Individual programs are much less significant than overall employment statistics. The latter is what measures a school’s placement power, which is what you should be most interested in. What kinds of jobs are most grads from these schools getting and do you want to do those jobs?
Thank you Nixy, I agree that architecture is a minor detail. Chapman excels in Entertainment Law. I believe USD's concentration is on Corporate. I am open to both of these fields. Thank you for giving me this to think about.

nixy

Gold
Posts: 4446
Joined: Fri Feb 16, 2018 8:58 am

Re: Chapman (Full ride; conditional) vs USD ($33k; conditional)??

Post by nixy » Mon Apr 11, 2022 11:17 pm

fab99 wrote:
Mon Apr 11, 2022 10:57 pm
nixy wrote:
Mon Apr 11, 2022 4:41 pm
Commute/inability to move is a reasonable thing to consider, but architecture isn’t unless everything else is absolutely equal (and it usually isn’t).

Individual programs are much less significant than overall employment statistics. The latter is what measures a school’s placement power, which is what you should be most interested in. What kinds of jobs are most grads from these schools getting and do you want to do those jobs?
Thank you Nixy, I agree that architecture is a minor detail. Chapman excels in Entertainment Law. I believe USD's concentration is on Corporate. I am open to both of these fields. Thank you for giving me this to think about.
So respectfully, I think you're not sufficiently distinguishing between the way that the schools are trying to sell themselves and the jobs that students from those schools get. Corporate isn't really a focus, in that it's an absolutely central practice area that all law schools can address and prepare students to do. No employer is going to pick a USD grad to do corporate law over students from schools with stronger placement. Entertainment law is much more niche, but the fact that Chapman offers some group of classes in that area doesn't mean that students get jobs in that field.

It is possible to specialize in law school, but that tends to work best for people who come into law school with some kind of previous experience in an area and who can build on that - say, someone who worked as a teacher going into education law, a victim's advocate going into domestic violence prevention. Outside of that context, law is a generalist degree. People tend to think about needing something like an undergrad major in law school, and you absolutely don't. You are better off taking a wide range of courses and doing as many externships/internships/jobs as you can, to get exposure to what the work of law is actually like.

To give a slightly more concrete example: I took a lot of employment law and civil rights law in law school, but figured out once I graduated and got out that practicing in those areas is very very different from studying them in school. I currently work in an area that I mostly avoided during law school, because I didn't like the courses (turns out that when you're actually working real cases, it's much more interesting, or to me, at least).

And again, don't plan your future around each school's descriptions of special academic programs. Those things are marketing tools. There probably are faculty who specialize in these areas, but just because professor at the school does research in an area doesn't mean students actually get jobs in that area.

have you looked at the Law School Transparency reports? They don't give as finely-grained info as one might like, but they do give a lot of info about where students end up, not just what the school claims to be good at.

Want to continue reading?

Register for access!

Did I mention it was FREE ?


User avatar
cavalier1138

Moderator
Posts: 8007
Joined: Fri Mar 25, 2016 8:01 pm

Re: Chapman (Full ride; conditional) vs USD ($33k; conditional)??

Post by cavalier1138 » Tue Apr 12, 2022 10:27 am

Strongly agree with everything nixy said. You need to look at objective job numbers, not the schools' publicity materials. And specialty programs are meaningless.

In general, it's fine to be unsure of exactly where you want to end up, but you should try to have an idea of your goal salary, private/public sector preference, location, etc. And if you want total flexibility, then neither of these schools fit the bill. Unless you are at the top of your class at either of these places, you will not have the ability to be that flexible in picking between job options. And as mentioned, run as fast as you can from any conditional scholarships, especially conditional scholarships that require you to perform above median.

fab99

New
Posts: 4
Joined: Sun Apr 10, 2022 5:53 pm

Re: Chapman (Full ride; conditional) vs USD ($33k; conditional)??

Post by fab99 » Wed Apr 13, 2022 3:01 pm

cavalier1138 wrote:
Tue Apr 12, 2022 10:27 am
Strongly agree with everything nixy said. You need to look at objective job numbers, not the schools' publicity materials. And specialty programs are meaningless.

In general, it's fine to be unsure of exactly where you want to end up, but you should try to have an idea of your goal salary, private/public sector preference, location, etc. And if you want total flexibility, then neither of these schools fit the bill. Unless you are at the top of your class at either of these places, you will not have the ability to be that flexible in picking between job options. And as mentioned, run as fast as you can from any conditional scholarships, especially conditional scholarships that require you to perform above median.
Thank you, Cavalier and Nixy! I appreciate the feedback.

Register now!

Resources to assist law school applicants, students & graduates.

It's still FREE!


Post Reply

Return to “Law School Admissions Forum”