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I am a rising 2L at a tier 3/4 school in a big market city. I have been accepted into American and Wake. My current school has offered to triple my scholarship which would be about 1/2 tuition. Wake and American offer no funding... Thoughts?

Drop out unless you can get them to give you a full ride

Total estimated debt after graduation at each?

Target market?

American is a no.

Where is your current school?

Tell us more about your career goals (the realistic ones -- you're probably not getting biglaw at this point).

I'm in Chicago. I want to go public interest appellate advocacy work. Wake and American have clinics in the fields Im interested in my current school does not. NOT interested in BigLaw, but very interested in judicial clerkship opportunities.

Anonymous User wrote:I'm in Chicago. I want to go public interest appellate advocacy work. Wake and American have clinics in the fields Im interested in my current school does not. NOT interested in BigLaw, but very interested in judicial clerkship opportunities.

You don't have a realistic chance at Article III Fed clerkships from any of those schools without a high class rank, so unless you have reason to believe you can graduate in the top 10% or so I wouldn't factor clerkships into the decision unless you're interested in state clerkships. As far as public interest work, do you know what kind of LRAP AU and Wake offer, since you'll be upping your debt a lot to attend?

As an aside, while public interest is an achievable goal, I think "public interest appellate advocacy" is a pretty narrow niche that not many people can claim as a full-time practice.

Total estimated debt after graduation at each?

Class rank? Law review? And for the love of god,

Nova wrote:Total estimated debt after graduation at each?

.

Only T3/4 in Chicago is John Marshall (Loyola, Kent, DePaul are technically T2) and places only 2% in Fed Clerk, so federal clerkship is out of the question. You might be able to get some kind of state clerkship, but those are hard to predict. Honestly, you are at a tough spot. I think the most rational thing to do is negotiate with JM and see if they will raise the scholy to as close to a full ride as you can get it.

I don't know much about American and Wake, but I don't think they're worth sticker. I don't know what your 1L grades were, but a plus for transfer is you get to start with a clean slate. Do you think you can work harder than ever and get a decent GPA at the new school? If yes, and you are financially supported (affluent parents/grandparents). Maybe, just maybe should you consider those schools. If you are taking out a loan, absolutely not.

The third option is reevaluate just how much you want to be a lawyer. If you still have doubts about it, dropping out is always an option. Not an easy one, but sometime it might be worth considering if you have to take out a huge loan to stay at JM.

I must say your odds of success at Wake from Chicago are slim due to lack of ties.  Plus, the deadline has passed for the first two rounds of OCI. There are only like 6-8 employers left to bid on now.

Your grades basically need to have been good enough to transfer into better options than Wake plus have other eye catching employability indicators on your resume, but have chosen Wake due to NC ties, for Wake to be worth sticker. Most private employers have grade cutoffs around top 25 percent for Wake students, so unless you're better than top 10 percent at your current school and have other eye catching characteristics, you literally may not get a single look from anything but the smallest firms. And even then you'll have to get those looks from mass mailing and hustling since OCI is practically over, which will be difficult in NC without ties.  In Chicago, I have no clue how difficult it would be, but my gut says very difficult.

As for public interest, clerkship and government work that would qualify you for loan forgiveness, I wouldn't count on it. North Carolina is one of the most saturated states in the country with 7 law schools. You'll be competing with hundreds of applicants for each opening, a good percentage of which are from NC.

It seems to me that Wake isn't worth the $120k for two years in your situation.

Anonymous User wrote:I am a rising 2L at a tier 3/4 school in a big market city. I have been accepted into American and Wake. My current school has offered to triple my scholarship which would be about 1/2 tuition. Wake and American offer no funding... Thoughts?

Take Wake. Decent school compared to DePaul.

Sorry, my math was way off in my last post. If the school you're currently at is DePaul and 1/2 scholly is all you've got, a transfer is probably worth it unless you have a solid job prospect from DePaul. The ~$40K difference in tuition may be balanced out some by the lower COL in winston-salem. You could save $7200 a year on rent alone if you're currently paying $1K per month. Wake may be worth the $26K difference after COL compensation if 1/2 scholly is the max they give you. That is, of course, if staying in law school is actually a good idea considering the $140K+ debt load.