Top Law Schools

Need to transfer to HYS for location (personal reasons that have to do with family, etc.)

Do I have a shot at all? If so, how much?

What type of geographic family situation makes you have to transfer to either CA, MA, or CT?

Clearly wrote:What type of geographic family situation makes you have to transfer to either CA, MA, or CT?

Maybe he has in-laws at CCN?

OP here.

It's complicated but I need to be close to my family for the next year or two. Instead of traveling home every couple weeks during school, I'd rather be at a school in my home state.

Would my grades be enough?

His mom wants to be able to tell people that her son goes to Harvard law.

Any serious answers?

Anonymous User wrote:Any serious answers?

Probably depends on which of HYS you want to transfer to.

.

so, since you're already anonymous, there's no point in saying HYS, but doing so makes you sound extremely disingenuous. I'm not making any judgments, just letting you know why you're not getting any serious answers

hichvichwoh wrote:so, since you're already anonymous, there's no point in saying HYS, but doing so makes you sound extremely disingenuous. I'm not making any judgments, just letting you know why you're not getting any serious answers

Thanks. I see. I didn't realize HYS had a noticeable variance in admissions criteria (except maybe Y).

I'm looking to transfer to S.
Couldn't care for prestige or what not. I made lots of friends here and it sucks to leave them but I'm in a bit of a bind.

Anonymous User wrote: I'm looking to transfer to S.
Couldn't care for prestige or what not. I made lots of friends here and it sucks to leave them but I'm in a bit of a bind.

It's possible to transfer to S from CCN with top 25% grades. But SLS doesn't take a ton of transfers; I wouldn't count on it.

You should also apply to Boalt. If your family situation will make it preferable for you to work in NorCal after graduation, then B > CCN.

rpupkin wrote:

Anonymous User wrote: I'm looking to transfer to S.
Couldn't care for prestige or what not. I made lots of friends here and it sucks to leave them but I'm in a bit of a bind.

It's possible to transfer to S with top 25% at CCN. But SLS doesn't take a ton of transfers; I wouldn't count on it.

You should also apply to Boalt. If your family situation will make it preferable for you to work in NorCal after graduation, then B > CCN.

Yeah thinking about it. I'm concerned though. I only need to stay in CA for the next year or two, and I don't want to be shut out of NYC Biglaw.

Will going to a lower ranked school shut me out of NYC Biglaw? It might seem suspicious and my interest in NYC might seem disingenuous later on since they might think I'll just leave again.

.

Anonymous User wrote:

rpupkin wrote:

Anonymous User wrote: I'm looking to transfer to S.
Couldn't care for prestige or what not. I made lots of friends here and it sucks to leave them but I'm in a bit of a bind.

It's possible to transfer to S with top 25% at CCN. But SLS doesn't take a ton of transfers; I wouldn't count on it.

You should also apply to Boalt. If your family situation will make it preferable for you to work in NorCal after graduation, then B > CCN.

Yeah thinking about it. I'm concerned though. I only need to stay in CA for the next year or two, and I don't want to be shut out of NYC Biglaw.

Will going to a lower ranked school shut me out of NYC Biglaw? It might seem suspicious and my interest in NYC might seem disingenuous later on since they might think I'll just leave again.

It's not the "lower ranked school" that would be your problem. Your potential trouble would be, as you suggest, the fact that you left NYC to go to Cali. Frankly, this would also be a problem for you if you transferred to SLS.

I'm sure you don't want to get too specific or personal, but NYC firms might hesitate to offer your a spot if you have a potentially long-term family problem in Cali to which you must attend. If it's really clear to the firms that the problem will go away in a year, then I suppose it won't be a big deal if you transfer to SLS or Boalt. Where do you plan to spend your 2L summer?

rpupkin wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:

rpupkin wrote:

Anonymous User wrote: I'm looking to transfer to S.
Couldn't care for prestige or what not. I made lots of friends here and it sucks to leave them but I'm in a bit of a bind.

It's possible to transfer to S with top 25% at CCN. But SLS doesn't take a ton of transfers; I wouldn't count on it.

You should also apply to Boalt. If your family situation will make it preferable for you to work in NorCal after graduation, then B > CCN.

Yeah thinking about it. I'm concerned though. I only need to stay in CA for the next year or two, and I don't want to be shut out of NYC Biglaw.

Will going to a lower ranked school shut me out of NYC Biglaw? It might seem suspicious and my interest in NYC might seem disingenuous later on since they might think I'll just leave again.

It's not the "lower ranked school" that would be your problem. Your potential trouble would be, as you suggest, the fact that you left in NYC to go to Cali. Frankly, this would also be a problem for you if you transferred to SLS.

I'm sure you don't want to get too specific or personal, but NYC firms might hesitate to offer your a spot if you have a potentially long-term family problem in Cali to which you must attend. If it's really clear to the firms that the problem will go away in a year, then I suppose it won't be a big deal if you transfer to SLS or Boalt. Where do you plan to spend your 2L summer?

2L summer, I'd rather have CA but NY is great too.
I was hoping to go to SLS so firms would just think I'm a "prestige whore" (which is better than precluding me from NY firms haha)

I don't have any special insight into this, but I did find that Stanford accepted just 10 transfers last year. I don't know what their transfer standards are, but using Harvard as a peer for comparison, they say that successful transfers were usually "very near the top of their class", and are often students who would have been waitlisted or even accepted as 1L applicants based on their pre-law school qualifications.

The calculus may change somewhat based on the fact that you're trying to move up from a T6; those standards may be addressing someone attempting to transfer from a school lower in tier one.

.

Anonymous User wrote: 2L summer, I'd rather have CA but NY is great too.
I was hoping to go to SLS so firms would just think I'm a "prestige whore" (which is better than precluding me from NY firms haha)

But if you have a critical family situation in CA, why would you want to spend three months in NYC?

And you said a few posts back that "you couldn't care for prestige or what not," yet you now apparently care about the "prestige" of SLS.

No offense, but you sound like someone with a not very serious family situation who is using that situation as an excuse to move from the CCN tier to the HYS tier. You should just admit that to yourself and stop playing games.

brotherdarkness wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:

rpupkin wrote:

Anonymous User wrote: I'm looking to transfer to S.
Couldn't care for prestige or what not. I made lots of friends here and it sucks to leave them but I'm in a bit of a bind.

It's possible to transfer to S with top 25% at CCN. But SLS doesn't take a ton of transfers; I wouldn't count on it.

You should also apply to Boalt. If your family situation will make it preferable for you to work in NorCal after graduation, then B > CCN.

Yeah thinking about it. I'm concerned though. I only need to stay in CA for the next year or two, and I don't want to be shut out of NYC Biglaw.

Will going to a lower ranked school shut me out of NYC Biglaw? It might seem suspicious and my interest in NYC might seem disingenuous later on since they might think I'll just leave again.

Boalt doesn't preclude NYC biglaw (many of my classmates are heading to NYC this summer). However, your point about your interest in NYC seeming disingenuous is warranted and, I believe, enough of a reason to stay put if possible (assuming you want NYC biglaw).

Going to Boalt doesn't, transfering to Boalt might.

.

rpupkin wrote:

Anonymous User wrote: 2L summer, I'd rather have CA but NY is great too.
I was hoping to go to SLS so firms would just think I'm a "prestige whore" (which is better than precluding me from NY firms haha)

But if you have a critical family situation in CA, why would you want to spend three months in NYC?

And you said a few posts back that "you couldn't care for prestige or what not," yet you now apparently care about the "prestige" of SLS.

No offense, but you sound like someone with a not very serious family situation who is using that situation as an excuse to move from the CCN tier to the HYS tier. You should just admit that to yourself and stop playing games.

Ok I should elaborate.
I don't care about prestige. I'm saying I'd rather have the firm think I care, instead of thinking I'd rather have CA market and using NY as back up.

Second, I said my fam situation was temporary. It occurred after I started law school.

As for my market preferences, I want Biglaw anywhere >>> Biglaw CA > Biglaw NY. I understand that it's more difficult to get biglaw in CA so I still would like the opportunity to have a biglaw job in NY later on

I wonder if this poster is who I think it is...

Anyway, weird thread is weird. Gotta pick a region you're targeting and stick with it IMO.

Anonymous User wrote:
As for my market preferences, I want Biglaw anywhere >>> Biglaw CA > Biglaw NY. I understand that it's more difficult to get biglaw in CA so I still would like the opportunity to have a biglaw job in NY later on

If that's the case, then I wouldn't hesitate to transfer to Berkeley, which gives you at least as good of a shot at SoCal big law as CCN and a better shot at NorCal big law. You should of course try to get into SLS. But if that doesn't work, and if you get into Boalt, then go there. The "prestige" difference between Boalt and CCN, if it exists at all, is small. (And it's non-existent in Cali.)

I meant to add: if you're top 25% at CCN, and if you transfer to Berkeley (which shows how serious you are about living in Cali full-time), then you shouldn't have any trouble landing a big law job in California at Boalt's OCI.

BigZuck wrote:Gotta pick a region you're targeting and stick with it IMO.

don't do this

BigZuck wrote:I wonder if this poster is who I think it is...

Anyway, weird thread is weird. Gotta pick a region you're targeting and stick with it IMO.

This is terrible advice.

OP: a transfer to CA for family reasons won't significantly hurt your NYC chances as long as your grades stay up and being at a CA school will significantly improve your CA chances. NYC firms will not blink twice at anything on your resume short of doing a pre-law school internship with the American Nazi Party if you have top 25% grades at CCN 1L year and are alive throughout the entire 30 minutes of your interview.