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I'm looking for advice from people who transferred to USC or UCLA (or even Boalt or NYU). How did OCI go? Do you think the transfer helped or hurt?

I'm currently at a Tier 2 SoCal school and doing very well. I like it there, but I do not want to regret staying down the road. Your law school name stays on your transcript forever. If I stayed local to LA, my housing would remain free, but I'd have to pay full tuition at either USC or UCLA (which I could still do without any loans). If I transferred to Boalt or NYC, my costs would go up a lot due to rent/housing etc (LOANS would be needed).

I really want to do Big Law for a few years and then move in-house to some sort of corporate position. I'm def. thinking transactional law, and I have a business background (was working for awhile before returning to school).

Any thoughts or suggestions???

Anonymous User wrote:I'm looking for advice from people who transferred to USC or UCLA (or even Boalt or NYU). How did OCI go? Do you think the transfer helped or hurt?

I'm currently at a Tier 2 SoCal school and doing very well. I like it there, but I do not want to regret staying down the road. Your law school name stays on your transcript forever. If I stayed local to LA, my housing would remain free, but I'd have to pay full tuition at either USC or UCLA (which I could still do without any loans). If I transferred to Boalt or NYC, my costs would go up a lot due to rent/housing etc (LOANS would be needed).

I really want to do Big Law for a few years and then move in-house to some sort of corporate position. I'm def. thinking transactional law, and I have a business background (was working for awhile before returning to school).

Any thoughts or suggestions???

your tier 2 school in socal is very unlikely to bring you biglaw, though it may if you are inside the top 5%. if you strike out at OCI though, the value of transferring jumps quite a bit because looking for a job after graduation out of usc/ucla, and even more so from boalt/nyu, will be much better than if you had graduated from your tier 2.

personally, transferring turned out to be a great decision, one that basically salvaged my decision to go to law school.

Anonymous User wrote:I'm looking for advice from people who transferred to USC or UCLA (or even Boalt or NYU). How did OCI go? Do you think the transfer helped or hurt?

I'm currently at a Tier 2 SoCal school and doing very well. I like it there, but I do not want to regret staying down the road. Your law school name stays on your transcript forever. If I stayed local to LA, my housing would remain free, but I'd have to pay full tuition at either USC or UCLA (which I could still do without any loans). If I transferred to Boalt or NYC, my costs would go up a lot due to rent/housing etc (LOANS would be needed).

I really want to do Big Law for a few years and then move in-house to some sort of corporate position. I'm def. thinking transactional law, and I have a business background (was working for awhile before returning to school).

Any thoughts or suggestions???

Transferring was pretty much the best decision I could have made. You are right that your law school name stays with you forever, and even if you strike out at OCI at your new school, I really believe that having USC/UCLA on your resume is a million times better than a T2 school. This is especially true with USC if you want to practice in Southern California.

As for OCI, it worked out fine for me. I got a big law job at my top choice firm and I don't think I would have gotten this job if I had stayed at my old school -- this firm doesn't even interview at my old school, for that matter. USC's transfer class did pretty well this year. Almost every transfer I have talked to either got a big law job through OCI or has another job lined up for the summer. Last year's transfer class apparently didn't do so well at OCI, though, so it's hard to know how the next transfer class will fare.

I'm happy to answer any more specific questions if you want to PM me.

thelibear wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:I'm looking for advice from people who transferred to USC or UCLA (or even Boalt or NYU). How did OCI go? Do you think the transfer helped or hurt?

I'm currently at a Tier 2 SoCal school and doing very well. I like it there, but I do not want to regret staying down the road. Your law school name stays on your transcript forever. If I stayed local to LA, my housing would remain free, but I'd have to pay full tuition at either USC or UCLA (which I could still do without any loans). If I transferred to Boalt or NYC, my costs would go up a lot due to rent/housing etc (LOANS would be needed).

I really want to do Big Law for a few years and then move in-house to some sort of corporate position. I'm def. thinking transactional law, and I have a business background (was working for awhile before returning to school).

Any thoughts or suggestions???

Transferring was pretty much the best decision I could have made. You are right that your law school name stays with you forever, and even if you strike out at OCI at your new school, I really believe that having USC/UCLA on your resume is a million times better than a T2 school. This is especially true with USC if you want to practice in Southern California.

As for OCI, it worked out fine for me. I got a big law job at my top choice firm and I don't think I would have gotten this job if I had stayed at my old school -- this firm doesn't even interview at my old school, for that matter. USC's transfer class did pretty well this year. Almost every transfer I have talked to either got a big law job through OCI or has another job lined up for the summer. Last year's transfer class apparently didn't do so well at OCI, though, so it's hard to know how the next transfer class will fare.

I'm happy to answer any more specific questions if you want to PM me.

USC transfers this year had a great time at OCI. Likewise, almost every transfer I've talked to got big-law.