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Say full ride at T20-T25 school vs whatever debt you have at your current school. If you had to do it again, would you still go to your T14 or take the full ride with less prestige and presumably less job prospect?

A paralegal at my work has great numbers for law school but is seriously debt averse. Our firm is in a large market on the west coast. I am curious to know the answer to this.

didn't you already make this thread?

grand inquisitor wrote:didn't you already make this thread?

i did not but if there is a same thread i apologize i will delete it.

If full ride, you must take the t-30. If partial it gets tricky since you have to value increased chances of unemployment versus lower debt.

Pokemon wrote:If full ride, you must take the t-30. If partial it gets tricky since you have to value increased chances of unemployment versus lower debt.

OP here. Considering most biglaw associates call it quits soon after they are able to pay down their debt, isn't this a factor to consider? I guess the advantage of T14 is that there is more likely chances of being employed than going to T30.... but it seems like it's also a steep price to pay for years to pay down the debt.

Anonymous User wrote:Say full ride at T20-T25 school vs whatever debt you have at your current school. If you had to do it again, would you still go to your T14 or take the full ride with less prestige and presumably less job prospect?

A paralegal at my work has great numbers for law school but is seriously debt adverse. Our firm is in a large market on the west coast. I am curious to know the answer to this.

Depends on so many things, but probably the full ride honestly. I didn't go to a T14 and I have massive debt so I guess I picked the option marked "neither"

I'm a 3L at a bottom-half T-14 (#8-14) with a half-ride scholarship and I chose this over multiple full rides at schools around #20. I'm doing well in school and am an SA at a biglaw firm right now.

I think if I could do it again, I'd take a full ride. The freedom associated with no debt is hard to beat. With that said, had I gone to the lower ranked school, done worse in classes, and struck out at the decent job options, I'd be kicking myself for not going T-14. So I think most of the answers you get are going to be colored by experiences that a prospective student can't expect to match (whether that be striking out or doing great - you simply don't know).

Took 165 T-20 over 150 T-14 and 45 T-6 and don't regret it For what I want to do and where I want to work my school is fine and I'm super debt averse
That being said I don't think I'd regret the T-14 either and it would have provided added security

Anonymous User wrote:I'm a 3L at a bottom-half T-14 (#8-14) with a half-ride scholarship and I chose this over multiple full rides at schools around #20. I'm doing well in school and am an SA at a biglaw firm right now.

I think if I could do it again, I'd take a full ride. The freedom associated with no debt is hard to beat. With that said, had I gone to the lower ranked school, done worse in classes, and struck out at the decent job options, I'd be kicking myself for not going T-14. So I think most of the answers you get are going to be colored by experiences that a prospective student can't expect to match (whether that be striking out or doing great - you simply don't know).

OP here.

Thanks for this post. I learned from my friends who took out sticker at T16/T17ish school that it took them 7 years on average paying $2000 a month to get rid of the debt. That's just for law school. He has been doing biglaw for all these years. He truly had no other option it seems than to do biglaw. I remember he would go into work by 9AM the latest and usually got off work at 7PM-8PM, sometimes at 6PM if he has to go to some networking function.

It's hard to imagine a long term life like that.

I did T14 with debt and don't regret it, but I'm also on PAYE and mostly don't care about the debt sitting there.

Strive til I die.
Stryve 4 Lyfe.

Took the full ride over 25% scholarship at T14s. I'm a very risk averse person, and not having the pressure of debt was a godsend. I'm a bit more limited in my career options, but given my goals at the beginning of the process it was the right move -- and I've been fortunate enough to do well and open up the doors that I would have wanted to have open by going the T14 route anyway.

As a poster stated above, though, the outcome could have been different -- i.e. not do very well with a full ride -- and I may have regretted not taking the T14.

I'm only a rising 2L, but I also took a full ride at a T30 over 25% at T6 and I don't regret it. Friends that took on debt to go to T6 are trapped doing biglaw, but I don't have that burden. That said, I had no interest in biglaw and knew that going in. Also, I was conscious that I had to not only network hard but also do really well in my classes.

I'd take T14 with 40% scholarship all over again, because I'm an obscenely lazy student and, even accounting for the fact that it would theoretically be easier, don't think I'd have done well enough at the T20 to have a high chance at getting the job I landed.

Would you rather be a big fish in a small pond, or are you energized and perform better with strong competition?

If a school offers you a full ride or close to it, I'd assume you would be coming in with a high LSAT relative to your classmates and would do better than median grades wise if you put in the work. Would this be a fair assumption to make? OL here

Pomeranian wrote:Would you rather be a big fish in a small pond, or are you energized and perform better with strong competition?

If a school offers you a full ride or close to it, I'd assume you would be coming in with a high LSAT relative to your classmates and would do better than median grades wise if you put in the work. Would this be a fair assumption to make? OL here

I wouldn't exactly call a T20 a "small pond." There's very little difference (if any) between your average Vandy student and your average Cornell student.

Eta: Woof!

Pomeranian wrote:Would you rather be a big fish in a small pond, or are you energized and perform better with strong competition?

If a school offers you a full ride or close to it, I'd assume you would be coming in with a high LSAT relative to your classmates and would do better than median grades wise if you put in the work. Would this be a fair assumption to make? OL here

To some degree you can obviously judge your own ability and work ethic compared to the average person at a school, but this is very difficult for a number of reasons. First, many people are not great at self-evaluating and may be inclined to overestimate their academic ability, especially if they are trying to justify going to a lower ranked school but still expecting to do well. Second, I think people often underestimate how driven everyone else will be to do well. GPA and LSAT are somewhat correlated with performance in first year classes, but it is not a perfect correlation and there are plenty of people with high stats who don't do well, and people below the 25th percentile LSAT and GPA who end up in the top 25%.

Personally, I did feel like I would be able to do well compared to others at my school, and I did, but I could have just as easily been wrong and ended up without a biglaw job and a ton of debt. I know people with full merit scholarships (and presumably had better stats than I did) who struck out at OCI, and I'm sure they started thinking they were in a good position based on their LSAT and GPAs.

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