Top Law Schools

Hi everyone,

I'm currently an applicant for the 2009-2010 cycle, and I haven't been admitted to the schools that I want to attend (top 20). Although I applied pretty late in the cycle (February-March), I've been able to gain admissions to a couple of T2 and T3 schools with sizable scholarship offers. At this point, I'm trying to determine whether to 1) attend one of these schools with the hope of transferring to a tier one school after my 1L year or 2) reapply in the fall and submit my applications as early as possible.

To help me make this decision, I've been trying to figure out what challenges transfer students can expect to or should be prepared to face. Specifically, I found this LSAC resource outlining some of the potential pitfalls/disadvantages to transferring after 1L year: http://www.lsac.org/applying/transferri ... chools.asp

I would love to know what everyone's thoughts on these issues are. I know every school has a different transfer policy so there's no clear protocol for addressing or ameliorating these potential trade-offs (e.g., not getting into a journal or a moot court team or being able to participate in OCI). But I wonder if there is a tried-and-true way to gauge the point at which the advantage of graduating from a better law school outweighs the consequences of missing out on journal/moot court/OCI participation? Or vice versa? Plus, are there some schools that are better/easier to transfer into and better/easier to transfer out of?

Thanks in advance for your help.

guggenheim wrote:Hi everyone,

I'm currently an applicant for the 2009-2010 cycle, and I haven't been admitted to the schools that I want to attend (top 20). Although I applied pretty late in the cycle (February-March), I've been able to gain admissions to a couple of T2 and T3 schools with sizable scholarship offers. At this point, I'm trying to determine whether to 1) attend one of these schools with the hope of transferring to a tier one school after my 1L year or 2) reapply in the fall and submit my applications as early as possible.

To help me make this decision, I've been trying to figure out what challenges transfer students can expect to or should be prepared to face. Specifically, I found this LSAC resource outlining some of the potential pitfalls/disadvantages to transferring after 1L year: http://www.lsac.org/applying/transferri ... chools.asp

I would love to know what everyone's thoughts on these issues are. I know every school has a different transfer policy so there's no clear protocol for addressing or ameliorating these potential trade-offs (e.g., not getting into a journal or a moot court team or being able to participate in OCI). But I wonder if there is a tried-and-true way to gauge the point at which the advantage of graduating from a better law school outweighs the consequences of missing out on journal/moot court/OCI participation? Or vice versa? Plus, are there some schools that are better/easier to transfer into and better/easier to transfer out of?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Seriously,
Why the duplicate posts? One is enough...

The conventional wisdom, that I can almost guarantee 99% of people here will agree with, is don't go to a school that you wouldn't be happy graduating from. It is much easier to do better on the LSAT and get admitted to a school than it is to do well enough in law school to transfer to said school.

Reapply in the fall, if the LSAT held you back take it again and study like hell for it. Even though applying late might have hurt you this time around, I would be hesitant to apply again to the same schools without at least improving something about your application.

blhoward2 wrote:

guggenheim wrote:Hi everyone,

I'm currently an applicant for the 2009-2010 cycle, and I haven't been admitted to the schools that I want to attend (top 20). Although I applied pretty late in the cycle (February-March), I've been able to gain admissions to a couple of T2 and T3 schools with sizable scholarship offers. At this point, I'm trying to determine whether to 1) attend one of these schools with the hope of transferring to a tier one school after my 1L year or 2) reapply in the fall and submit my applications as early as possible.

To help me make this decision, I've been trying to figure out what challenges transfer students can expect to or should be prepared to face. Specifically, I found this LSAC resource outlining some of the potential pitfalls/disadvantages to transferring after 1L year: http://www.lsac.org/applying/transferri ... chools.asp

I would love to know what everyone's thoughts on these issues are. I know every school has a different transfer policy so there's no clear protocol for addressing or ameliorating these potential trade-offs (e.g., not getting into a journal or a moot court team or being able to participate in OCI). But I wonder if there is a tried-and-true way to gauge the point at which the advantage of graduating from a better law school outweighs the consequences of missing out on journal/moot court/OCI participation? Or vice versa? Plus, are there some schools that are better/easier to transfer into and better/easier to transfer out of?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Seriously,
Why the duplicate posts? One is enough...

+1

I'm currently an applicant for the 2009-2010 cycle

stopped reading here

can we PLEASE have a sticky addressing people applying to law school as a 0L and planning to transfer? i feel like every thread gets the same exact copy/paste response, then the OP makes the same response ignoring the advice and then we have the same argument and it ends the same way every time

Agreed. Honestly, there should be a sticky just telling people not to respond to these. Thats the real problem.

stinger35 wrote:Agreed. Honestly, there should be a sticky just telling people not to respond to these. Thats the real problem.

Yeah, that'll work.