Top Law Schools

Just got my first year grades back. I got a 3.76 which I think is top 10% at least. I have no strong proclivity towards transferring, but I thought I'd at least look into a bit. I guess one of the top reasons I would consider transferring is because I'm paying sticker here. I figure if I'm going to pay full tuition here maybe I should pay it somewhere else. If I could talk my way into some money here I would probably stay for sure, but I remember reading somewhere that UCLA doesn't give out those types of merit scholarships.

However, I want to work in California in the future and have no ties to the state other than the past year I spent here. Thus, I doubt that transferring to a school like Columbia would really be much help in trying to land a big law job in L.A. or SF. Quite possibly worse. The other reason I might want to transfer is that I would ideally like to work in Asia in the future and having the more prestigious degree is important over there. However, if I stay here I can aim for Order of the Coif which also would help in Asia.

Overall, I think that I should probably just stay here and try to land a top firm at OCI.

Any advice, comments, suggestions?

Thanks.

I say stay for the sole reason that you want to stay in Cali. Transferring to Berkley just wouldn't really be worth the trouble/hassle + losing your gpa/law review/etc. That being said, Yale/Harvard/Stanford is still the holy trinity and something worth looking at no matter what, Stanford in particular because of Cali.

Still, Id lean towards staying.

I'm a fan of the Stanford or nada sentiments.

Thanks for the feedback. I agree that Stanford would probably be worth it. I wonder if I have a realistic shot though. It's frustrating not having Law School Numbers to guide me. The transferapps database on Yahoo is not quite thorough enough to pinpoint my chances.

newbruin45 wrote:Thanks for the feedback. I agree that Stanford would probably be worth it. I wonder if I have a realistic shot though. It's frustrating not having Law School Numbers to guide me. The transferapps database on Yahoo is not quite thorough enough to pinpoint my chances.

So throw an app at Stanford. It's what, $75-$100? People pay the same amount to go to Disneyland for one day. Just putting it in So. Cal. perspective