Top Law Schools

Hi guys I am a 1L at Cooley its a tier 4 law school and am getting 50% scholarship here, in the top 10% of the class(3.5 gpa) they grade on a C curve.

I am considering transferring to MSU but I was just wondering if it is worth the extra $60,000 i d have to pay to attend MSU over the next few yrs as it is only a tier above cooley. At this point i dont really know where I want to practice I might even go back to Canada cause thats where I am from originally.

So what do you guys recommend or are there any others schools better suited for Candians wanting to go back to Canada that you guys would advice transfering to.

thanks

sanam wrote:Hi guys I am a 1L at Cooley its a tier 4 law school and am getting 50% scholarship here, in the top 10% of the class(3.5 gpa) they grade on a C curve.

I am considering transferring to MSU but I was just wondering if it is worth the extra $60,000 i d have to pay to attend MSU over the next few yrs as it is only a tier above cooley. At this point i dont really know where I want to practice I might even go back to Canada cause thats where I am from originally.

So what do you guys recommend or are there any others schools better suited for Candians wanting to go back to Canada that you guys would advice transfering to.

thanks

Unless you have some compelling reason you want to remain in Michigan, you really should be shooting your sights out higher than MSU. At top 10% I would say definitely broadly apply to t30/t50 schools in a market that you want to work because you'll get in somewhere. If you want to remain in the US to practice law, I would transfer -- Cooley just has a terrible stigma attached to it.

I think a Tier 2 is a possibility. Probably not a Top 50. And yes, transfer.

I mean, if we were talking Thomas Jefferson or Willamette or some other kind of t4 that just sucks b/c it is a t4, I might say consider staying but since we are talking about Cooley I'd even recommend transferring to t2 or even other t3/4's just to get away from that name.

XxSpyKEx wrote:

sanam wrote:Hi guys I am a 1L at Cooley its a tier 4 law school and am getting 50% scholarship here, in the top 10% of the class(3.5 gpa) they grade on a C curve.

I am considering transferring to MSU but I was just wondering if it is worth the extra $60,000 i d have to pay to attend MSU over the next few yrs as it is only a tier above cooley. At this point i dont really know where I want to practice I might even go back to Canada cause thats where I am from originally.

So what do you guys recommend or are there any others schools better suited for Candians wanting to go back to Canada that you guys would advice transfering to.

thanks

Unless you have some compelling reason you want to remain in Michigan, you really should be shooting your sights out higher than MSU. At top 10% I would say definitely broadly apply to t30/t50 schools in a market that you want to work because you'll get in somewhere. If you want to remain in the US to practice law, I would transfer -- Cooley just has a terrible stigma attached to it.

I agree with this poster. MSU and Cooley you are basically looking at about the same job prospects. Which if you were going to stay in Michigan would be mid law firm or government job. And I agree with previous poster you should be looking at T30-T50 if you want to transfer.

lovelaw27 wrote:

XxSpyKEx wrote:

sanam wrote:Hi guys I am a 1L at Cooley its a tier 4 law school and am getting 50% scholarship here, in the top 10% of the class(3.5 gpa) they grade on a C curve.

I am considering transferring to MSU but I was just wondering if it is worth the extra $60,000 i d have to pay to attend MSU over the next few yrs as it is only a tier above cooley. At this point i dont really know where I want to practice I might even go back to Canada cause thats where I am from originally.

So what do you guys recommend or are there any others schools better suited for Candians wanting to go back to Canada that you guys would advice transfering to.

thanks

Unless you have some compelling reason you want to remain in Michigan, you really should be shooting your sights out higher than MSU. At top 10% I would say definitely broadly apply to t30/t50 schools in a market that you want to work because you'll get in somewhere. If you want to remain in the US to practice law, I would transfer -- Cooley just has a terrible stigma attached to it.

I agree with this poster. MSU and Cooley you are basically looking at about the same job prospects. Which if you were going to stay in Michigan would be mid law firm or government job. And I agree with previous poster you should be looking at T30-T50 if you want to transfer.

No way Top 10% at Cooley will make a Tier 1 transfer.

Look at yahoo transfer database

Then you're obviously no expert on Cooley, either.

Bankhead wrote:Then you're obviously no expert on Cooley, either.

+1.

If you are a Canadian citizen, you might want to see if there is someway you can get admitted to a Canadian law school, even if that means starting LS over from scratch. I would start calling admissions departments at those schools and see what they say. Since you'd be a special case, you want to talk to someone higher up (like the dean or asst. dean of admission), not just an office assistant.

If you can't pull off getting into a Canadian school some way, I would just apply broadly. I would just hit any schools that have taken Cooley transfers in the past, and let the decisions roll in.

If you must go transfer to a tier 2/3 school, or even a school that's below top 25 or so because you have no other options, I'd look into schools that would give you in-state tuition for your final year to save some $. If you have dual US/CA citizenship, you might be able to make that work.

Bankhead wrote:

lovelaw27 wrote:

XxSpyKEx wrote:

sanam wrote:Hi guys I am a 1L at Cooley its a tier 4 law school and am getting 50% scholarship here, in the top 10% of the class(3.5 gpa) they grade on a C curve.

I am considering transferring to MSU but I was just wondering if it is worth the extra $60,000 i d have to pay to attend MSU over the next few yrs as it is only a tier above cooley. At this point i dont really know where I want to practice I might even go back to Canada cause thats where I am from originally.

So what do you guys recommend or are there any others schools better suited for Candians wanting to go back to Canada that you guys would advice transfering to.

thanks

Unless you have some compelling reason you want to remain in Michigan, you really should be shooting your sights out higher than MSU. At top 10% I would say definitely broadly apply to t30/t50 schools in a market that you want to work because you'll get in somewhere. If you want to remain in the US to practice law, I would transfer -- Cooley just has a terrible stigma attached to it.

I agree with this poster. MSU and Cooley you are basically looking at about the same job prospects. Which if you were going to stay in Michigan would be mid law firm or government job. And I agree with previous poster you should be looking at T30-T50 if you want to transfer.

No way Top 10% at Cooley will make a Tier 1 transfer.

I haven't done a ton of research on what class rank correlates to what transfer prospects for Cooley, but I have a hard time believing that top 10% at Cooley wouldn't be sufficient to get into a t50.

XxSpyKEx wrote:I haven't done a ton of research on what class rank correlates to what transfer prospects for Cooley, but I have a hard time believing that top 10% at Cooley wouldn't be sufficient to get into a t50.

There are something like fifty thousand students in the top ten percent at Cooley.

...

This thread, surprisingly, hasn't gotten as bad as I thought it would. Normally, any mention of Cooley tends to create mass mayhem and all out douchary. Good job TLS! We're growing

IBMM&AOD

In before picture of PCL w/ dude and baby.

Try Case Western. They accept a lot of transfers.

Thanks for the response. I have NO compelling reason to stay in Michigan, the only reason I came to Cooley was cause of their 50% scholarship. My reason for transfering to MSU was cause of their JD/LLB program where by you get a JD as well as a canadian degree in 4years. But I was just wondering if it was worth it or should I just apply to a higher ranked school in the USA. Which option would be better since I am not sure where I want to practice yet.

thanks

I am not sure where I want to practice yet.

Sanam, I would answer this question as quickly as possible if I were in your shoes. Unfortunately, though top 10% performance as a 1L is impressive, you will probably not be going to a T1 school. It's an outside possibility, but I wouldn't bank on it.

Conventional wisdom holds that for T2, you need to focus on schools that have strong regional prospects - which means choosing a place where you would like to live and practice after law school.

I'm not sure what a LLB from MSU will get you, but if it's the only way you can practice in Canada and you want to be there then I would choose MSU. Top 10% from Cooley should get you in - assuming your professors won't pull the bait-and-switch and refuse to write you recommendations.

I wouldn't hold unrealistic expectations about the MSU/Ottawa joint program either, as that's essentially like trasferring twice. Only a handful of students are accepted every year, and the median GPA and LSAT scores at Ottawa are higher than at MSU: 3.7/156 vs. 3.3/154. That median LSAT, if true (I'm a little iffy as to the source), is low compared with Ottawa's peer schools in Ontario, but that could be because the school admits so many Francophone students into joint civil/common law degree programs: in which case, if you are English, they will NOT cut you a break. UOttawa wants to pretend that they're McGill, so they don't take the LSAT very seriously, but there is evidence of distinct bias in favour of bilingual candidates. In any case, without getting into the joint program, forfeiting $60,000 to attend MSU alone doesn't seem worth it at this point.

Also:

I have NO compelling reason to stay in Michigan, the only reason I came to Cooley was cause of their 50% scholarship.

Am I missing something here? Tuition at Cooley is $28,740; with a 50% scholarship that's $14,370. Tuition at Ottawa is approximately $10,500; at Windsor it's $10,750 and at UWO it's $13,250. And only one of those figures is in American dollars. So either {LOGIC FAIL} or, more likely, the scholarship isn't the only reason you left Canada for Cooley.

[Almost any way you slice it, a 50% scholarship at Cooley means that either your LSAT or your GPA is well below the median for these Canadian schools; otherwise you’d be pulling in 75% or even "100%" at Cooley]

I have a decent gpa but my lsat is close to mid 150. Obviously I didnt get into the Canadian schools I had applied to but only reason I even considered Cooley was cause of their scholarship, all other US law schools were way too expensive for me.
But I miss whats your point MJMD?

sanam wrote:I have a decent gpa but my lsat is close to mid 150. Obviously I didnt get into the Canadian schools I had applied to but only reason I even considered Cooley was cause of their scholarship, all other US law schools were way too expensive for me.
But I miss whats your point MJMD?

I think he might be wondering why you're not using that class rank to transfer back into one of the Canadian schools you would have wanted to attend. If he's not wondering that, then I am...can you not transfer from a US school to a Canadian school? And I echo the above posters as far as shooting for a T2 and maybe even some T50s.

Thats the thing you can not tranfer from US to a Canadian law school unless you can show some really compelling reason, health problems etc. As for transfering to higher ranked US schools, I just dont have the money to afford them. Unless one of you guys know how a Canadian can get a student loan from US banks and no I dont know any US citizens.

Bankhead wrote:

lovelaw27 wrote:

XxSpyKEx wrote:

sanam wrote:Hi guys I am a 1L at Cooley its a tier 4 law school and am getting 50% scholarship here, in the top 10% of the class(3.5 gpa) they grade on a C curve.

I am considering transferring to MSU but I was just wondering if it is worth the extra $60,000 i d have to pay to attend MSU over the next few yrs as it is only a tier above cooley. At this point i dont really know where I want to practice I might even go back to Canada cause thats where I am from originally.

So what do you guys recommend or are there any others schools better suited for Candians wanting to go back to Canada that you guys would advice transfering to.

thanks

Unless you have some compelling reason you want to remain in Michigan, you really should be shooting your sights out higher than MSU. At top 10% I would say definitely broadly apply to t30/t50 schools in a market that you want to work because you'll get in somewhere. If you want to remain in the US to practice law, I would transfer -- Cooley just has a terrible stigma attached to it.

I agree with this poster. MSU and Cooley you are basically looking at about the same job prospects. Which if you were going to stay in Michigan would be mid law firm or government job. And I agree with previous poster you should be looking at T30-T50 if you want to transfer.

No way Top 10% at Cooley will make a Tier 1 transfer.

I personally know someone who was in the top 10% of his 1L class at Cooley, transfered to Duke and now works at Baker Botts. According to transferapps on yahoo it is more than possible for others to do the same.
Good luck OP!!

Are you from Vancouver?