UCLA Class of 2012 Forum

misteranthro · Post by **misteranthro** » Mon May 18, 2009 6:46 pm

waldodanto wrote:I've been MIA from this thread for a bit. Anybody not living at weyburn? I decided to decline my offer and find housing elsewhere so I can save some money and live with a friend or two. Probably law school social suicide, but hopefully you'll all still socialize with people outside of weyburn

I just got a place off-campus, just a couple of blocks south of Wilshire. There is a pretty sweet neighborhood with tons of apartments right there between Veteran and Westwood. It's about a mile and a half to the base of the law school, which would take 10 minutes via Big Blue Bus. I am hoping that keeps me close enough to be involved socially, but far enough away that I can escape when I need to. The places are pretty expensive, but there are 1 Bedroom+Loft apartments that are huge going for $1700 around there. It isn't ideal for privacy, but they could pretty easily be two bedrooms if you needed to stretch your budget.

Squints · Post by **Squints** » Tue May 19, 2009 2:04 am

waldodanto wrote:I've been MIA from this thread for a bit. Anybody not living at weyburn? I decided to decline my offer and find housing elsewhere so I can save some money and live with a friend or two. Probably law school social suicide, but hopefully you'll all still socialize with people outside of weyburn

I'm lot living at Weyburn, and my understanding is that a lot of law students don't. Brentwood and south of Wilshire in Westwood are popular. I prefer the beach.

ecclaw07 · Post by **ecclaw07** » Wed May 20, 2009 9:24 am

Hey guys, did anyone else see the new proposed in-state fees for the next three years? I really didn't think it would go over $40,000, but 3L will be $43,811. Wow.
Edited for clarification.

misteranthro · Post by **misteranthro** » Wed May 20, 2009 11:27 am

ecclaw07 wrote:Hey guys, did anyone else see the new proposed in-state fees for the next three years? I really didn't think it would go over $40,000, but 3L will be $43,811. Wow.
Edited for clarification.

I saw this too. It is pretty frustrating, but we can thank other Californians for screwing us. The ballot measures yesterday were an epic fail because people here refuse to pay for the services they demand and pass the blame for a bankrupt state on to Sacramento. How does that affect us? Now the cuts to the UC are going to be $81 million more than the already planned $240 million ($321 million total). So our tuition skyrockets. Fortunately, when the FinAid Office generated our award letters, they planned on the ballot measures losing. The people who are going to be hurting most are the out-of-staters. They could damn near go to Columbia for the same price as our 3rd year tuition!

ecclaw07 · Post by **ecclaw07** » Wed May 20, 2009 12:49 pm

misteranthro wrote:
ecclaw07 wrote:Hey guys, did anyone else see the new proposed in-state fees for the next three years? I really didn't think it would go over $40,000, but 3L will be $43,811. Wow.
Edited for clarification.
I saw this too. It is pretty frustrating, but we can thank other Californians for screwing us. The ballot measures yesterday were an epic fail because people here refuse to pay for the services they demand and pass the blame for a bankrupt state on to Sacramento. How does that affect us? Now the cuts to the UC are going to be $81 million more than the already planned $240 million ($321 million total). So our tuition skyrockets. Fortunately, when the FinAid Office generated our award letters, they planned on the ballot measures losing. The people who are going to be hurting most are the out-of-staters. They could damn near go to Columbia for the same price as our 3rd year tuition!

Sadly I am one of those out of staters

I had already accounted for the extra cost 1L, but I was hoping that in state tuition would kick in for 2L and I'd be able to save some money.

Squints · Post by **Squints** » Thu May 21, 2009 4:51 am

ecclaw07 wrote:Hey guys, did anyone else see the new proposed in-state fees for the next three years? I really didn't think it would go over $40,000, but 3L will be $43,811. Wow.
Edited for clarification.

Yep, in the last 12 months, the cost of a UCLA law degree has increased from about $90,000 to $120,000, or roughly 33 percent. It's outrageous, especially when you consider than in 2001 tuition was about $12,000. Considering the law school isn't nearly as dependent on state funding and considering undergraduate fees are only increasing 9.3 percent, I really don't understand why professional degree student fees -- Anderson and Law -- are jumping about 13 percent this year and then about 11 percent each of the next two.

ari20dal7 · Post by **ari20dal7** » Thu May 21, 2009 11:17 am

Squints, they're raising tuition because you'll pay it. There's really no mystery here. The demand for a legal education is essentially infinite: lots and lots of people want to be somewhat wealthy and don't have a unique idea. Since med school is hard, they default to law school. I would think very, very hard about paying sticker.

Think about it: tuition rates have tripled at UCLA since 2001. Have salaries tripled? Have career prospects tripled? Are they even better? They realize what anyone who examines this site on the most casual level should know. There are lots and lots and lots of people who want to go to law school and for every person who figures out that sticker might not be a great investment, twelve more take an LSAT prep course and get median-ish numbers, allowing the school to raise rates, admit some of them, and keep the ranking that perpetuates the fee increases.

Since the market for law school is not rational (as is true of most markets), rational players must be particularly careful about betting the farm on a career path that may not be so golden right now. I like UCLA fine. But I have good grades and got a significant scholarship. Are you ready to wager 200K on the possibility that some firm will allow you to work 70 hours a week for 160K? Even if you win that game, are you ready to wager seven years of your life on the prospect that you'll make partner and finally get a big ROI? Because if you go into that kind of debt and get a biglaw job in which you stay for five years, you'll probably do little more than pay off your debt and put a good line on your resume. Not the worst thing in the world, but it's also not what I see people salivating over in the lounge here.

Squints · Post by **Squints** » Thu May 21, 2009 1:01 pm

ari20dal7 wrote:Are you ready to wager 200K on the possibility that some firm will allow you to work 70 hours a week for 160K? Even if you win that game, are you ready to wager seven years of your life on the prospect that you'll make partner and finally get a big ROI? Because if you go into that kind of debt and get a biglaw job in which you stay for five years, you'll probably do little more than pay off your debt and put a good line on your resume. Not the worst thing in the world, but it's also not what I see people salivating over in the lounge here.

Actually, that is exactly what I plan to do. I figure that the increased earning of three years in Big Law will cover three years of lost income as a journalist and that now ridiculously high tuition. So six years from now I'll be back to where I am today, except hopefully in an industry that actually has a future.

ari20dal7 · Post by **ari20dal7** » Thu May 21, 2009 1:15 pm

Squints, good luck to you. That's an expensive lottery ticket.

Of course, UCLA's a good enough school that your chances of winning that lottery are pretty decent. But you should know that half of us will finish below the median. For that half, the chance of getting what you say you want is not all that great. There are a lot of folks who are very worried about what OCI will be like this year. I'm not saying that to warn you off of coming to UCLA or law school in general. I am saying that law school is not a golden ticket right now, particularly if you're at a good, but not great school. Even for those above the median, those 160K jobs are going to be scarcer than before, and I'm supposing that firms will cut their hires from us before they cut them from Chicago, Berkeley, or Columbia.

If it were guaranteed that you'd get 160K, then there wouldn't be any gamble about it. But what if you make 115? That's still really good money by any reasonable measure. But you're only taking home about 70K of that, allowing you to pay off 40K in debt per year if you're exceptionally frugal, which basically no new graduate salivating over biglaw money will be. Since 200K in student loan debt will generally accumulate around 13-14K per year in interest alone......well.....you do the math. I'm not saying it won't work. I'm just saying you should be sure this is something you want to do before you commit your financial future to it.

waldodanto · Post by **waldodanto** » Thu May 21, 2009 1:41 pm

What are the tuition figures for the three years we will be attending, exactly?

ecclaw07 · Post by **ecclaw07** » Thu May 21, 2009 1:48 pm

waldodanto wrote:What are the tuition figures for the three years we will be attending, exactly?

http://theshark.typepad.com/files/feeincreases-1.pdf
That's where I found the proposed fee increases for 2010-2012.

waldodanto · Post by **waldodanto** » Thu May 21, 2009 2:02 pm

ecclaw07 wrote:
waldodanto wrote:What are the tuition figures for the three years we will be attending, exactly?
http://theshark.typepad.com/files/feeincreases-1.pdf
That's where I found the proposed fee increases for 2010-2012.

Sucks. I mean, it's a lot of money, especially for a sort of education with no lab component (shouldn't it theoretically cost more to teach people to do medicine?). Still cheaper than a lot of the private schools though.

mikewilliams · Post by **mikewilliams** » Thu May 21, 2009 3:05 pm

For some reason I thought you pay the same tuition each year based on the year you enter? e.g. say tuition for next year is 35k...you pay 35k all three years? Or do you have to pay the increased tuition subsequent years?

stupid question...but not really because some schools do it the former way but it seems that the posts above speak to the latter.

misteranthro · Post by **misteranthro** » Thu May 21, 2009 3:20 pm

mikewilliams wrote:For some reason I thought you pay the same tuition each year based on the year you enter? e.g. say tuition for next year is 35k...you pay 35k all three years? Or do you have to pay the increased tuition subsequent years?

stupid question...but not really because some schools do it the former way but it seems that the posts above speak to the latter.

Unfortunately, it is the latter at UCLA. I contacted the school awhile back to find out. The fees structure they released was a worst case scenario estimate, but it looks like the worst case is where we ended up.

Squints · Post by **Squints** » Thu May 21, 2009 7:21 pm

misteranthro wrote:
mikewilliams wrote:For some reason I thought you pay the same tuition each year based on the year you enter? e.g. say tuition for next year is 35k...you pay 35k all three years? Or do you have to pay the increased tuition subsequent years?

stupid question...but not really because some schools do it the former way but it seems that the posts above speak to the latter.
Unfortunately, it is the latter at UCLA. I contacted the school awhile back to find out. The fees structure they released was a worst case scenario estimate, but it looks like the worst case is where we ended up.

Correct. There was actually a big class-action lawsuit against the UC regarding this a few years ago. UC settled last year for $33 million: http://chronicle.com/news/article/5746/ ... er-tuition

I think I got back $200 as an undergrad. But it was a much bigger burden for professional-degree students. The lead plaintiff was Mo Kashmiri a student at Boalt: http://www.educationisaright.org/

ladyshoes · Post by **ladyshoes** » Fri May 22, 2009 6:08 pm

I have many questions for resident law school guru ari:

- Does grant and scholarship money generally increase for 2Ls and 3Ls relative to their 1L awards? If so how much?

- Is the number of firms giving high paid summer internships down substantially? What percentage of the class get paid 2L summer internships?

- How good is the UCLA public interest loan repayment program? Does it apply to clerkships? Are public sector jobs easier or more difficult to obtain than private firm jobs? Is it practical to plan on working in the public sector for several years and having one's loans repaid and then getting a big law job?

- Do you actually want to be an attorney or was it a lack of "unique ideas" (although these rarely translate into anything resembling a stable career) and desire to be somewhat wealthy that led you into law school? Your equally condescending and pragmatic cost/benefit assessment of law school seems to indicate you came into it with conscientious plans/goals, so what are they?

ari20dal7 · Post by **ari20dal7** » Sat May 23, 2009 1:14 pm

- Does grant and scholarship money generally increase for 2Ls and 3Ls relative to their 1L awards? If so how much?

Not really, although you can get instate tuition if you're out of state. That's probably the biggest thing that will save you money.

- Is the number of firms giving high paid summer internships down substantially? What percentage of the class get paid 2L summer internships?

That's the word on the street. I wouldn't want to quote specific numbers since I don't know that much detail: be sure to check the OCS page for details on that. The bottom line is that you cannot simply assume you'll get such a gig: that's probably a reasonable assumption at Columbia, but not here. You'll probably do OK, but 160K is not a foregone conclusion.

- How good is the UCLA public interest loan repayment program? Does it apply to clerkships? Are public sector jobs easier or more difficult to obtain than private firm jobs? Is it practical to plan on working in the public sector for several years and having one's loans repaid and then getting a big law job?

LRAP virtually never applies to clerkships. Our program is basically the federal program at this point, so look for details on that and you'll see what we do. Public sector jobs are probably easier than some firm jobs, but it really depends on what you're talking about. Some of those are much easier to get than others. Generally speaking, it's going to be easier to get a public sector job than a job at Sullivan and Cromwell, but some public sector jobs can be nearly that competitive.

- Do you actually want to be an attorney or was it a lack of "unique ideas" (although these rarely translate into anything resembling a stable career) and desire to be somewhat wealthy that led you into law school? Your equally condescending and pragmatic cost/benefit assessment of law school seems to indicate you came into it with conscientious plans/goals, so what are they?

You know, it's really more the second. I don't need to make a lot of money, but I did want a job and law school was going to be relatively inexpensive at UCLA. I'm probably leaning toward government work at this point. I also thought law school would be a more intellectual experience coming in. I freely admit I didn't think about it as hard as I now advocate. However, I'm also not paying sticker or anything close. If you are, then you should carefully consider your alternatives.

vegasitb · Post by **vegasitb** » Sat May 23, 2009 10:30 pm

Hey everyone,

I've been a lurker on TLS for some time now but just today came across this thread. First of all, congrats on UCLA, everybody. I can't wait to head out to sunny LA...

A question as to housing: for those of you who didn't receive housing through the University, where are you planning on living? Not being an LA native, I'm a little unsure as to where to look for an apartment. Other than misteranthro's suggestion to look just south of Wilshire, do any of you have the inside scoop on a good grad/law student area?

Cheers,
Mack

waldodanto · Post by **waldodanto** » Sun May 24, 2009 9:20 pm

vegasitb wrote:Hey everyone,

I've been a lurker on TLS for some time now but just today came across this thread. First of all, congrats on UCLA, everybody. I can't wait to head out to sunny LA...

A question as to housing: for those of you who didn't receive housing through the University, where are you planning on living? Not being an LA native, I'm a little unsure as to where to look for an apartment. Other than misteranthro's suggestion to look just south of Wilshire, do any of you have the inside scoop on a good grad/law student area?

Cheers,
Mack

South of Wilshire is pretty solid advice, and so is the Brentwood area just west of the 405. If you do a craigslist search for "westwood" and look at the general areas/prices for those areas, you'll get a good sense of the places people will be and what places you can afford. The closer to UCLA, the more expensive it will be, generally. Westwood though is pretty packed with ucla associated individuals, so that area should be ideal.

ecclaw07 · Post by **ecclaw07** » Tue May 26, 2009 10:30 pm

Does anyone know anything about switching Weyburn apartments with someone else? And on that note, does anyone have a furnished apartment who doesn't want one?

ladyshoes · Post by **ladyshoes** » Wed May 27, 2009 2:00 pm

A youtube search on "UCLA law" yielded some entertaining results. Here's a couple favorites:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiFOFUGIhFE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rM1p3lppUws

thruruby · Post by **thruruby** » Sat May 30, 2009 10:08 pm

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... =2&t=71565

omgah, that thread makes me weep. :'(

Does anyone have any concrete plans/strategies to try and land a 1L summer paid internship?

ecclaw07 · Post by **ecclaw07** » Sun May 31, 2009 8:16 pm

Hey all, I just submitted my initial housing payment, and when the confirmation popped up it said "Parking: NO" but I definitely requested a parking spot...Does it just do that for everyone until the whole sign up thing on move-in day??

beeeker · Post by **beeeker** » Sun May 31, 2009 10:14 pm

ecclaw07 wrote:Hey all, I just submitted my initial housing payment, and when the confirmation popped up it said "Parking: NO" but I definitely requested a parking spot...Does it just do that for everyone until the whole sign up thing on move-in day??

that happened to me too...it just means that parking isn't guaranteed....i called housing and you just have to apply for parking on the day of your move in...

ecclaw07 · Post by **ecclaw07** » Mon Jun 01, 2009 11:52 am

beeeker wrote:
ecclaw07 wrote:Hey all, I just submitted my initial housing payment, and when the confirmation popped up it said "Parking: NO" but I definitely requested a parking spot...Does it just do that for everyone until the whole sign up thing on move-in day??

that happened to me too...it just means that parking isn't guaranteed....i called housing and you just have to apply for parking on the day of your move in...

Oh ok, good to know. Thanks!

Can anyone w/ a June 1 deadline access the move-in reservation page yet??

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