Top 2% @ DCNG. Got into Harvard. Worth it? Forum

[Anonymous User]

Paying sticker at DCNG. Harvard can't get me my financial aid package until after I accept (wth).

Harvard needs an answer by Friday. No journal results yet. Waiting on Yale.

Love my current school. Already have an SA for next summer lined up.

Hope to work in biglaw out of law school and then clerk.

Freaking the fuck out.

[Nebby]

Can you try to get some money from your current school? You're a 100% lock for your desired employment if you transfer or don't.

[Longtimecoming19]

huh

[Nebby]

Do you qualify for need-based aid? Ie. Does you and your parents combined income exceed $80k?

[Anonymous User]

Parents exceed 80k. I make nothing. Will I get nothing?

[Anonymous User]

I'm also worried about giving up my gpa. Is there any reason other than harvard prestige to start over and risk being mediocre at a new (albeit better) school?

[Danger Zone]

If you want to clerk (which you say you do), probably best to stay where you are.

[Nebby]

Need-based aid consideration includes your parents’ income; otherwise every single law student would qualify for it.

[lhanvt13]

If dcng doesn't budge on $, go to H. Otherwise, you should stay and keep ur rank.

[sambeber]

You need to think about your long-term career goals (or at least write more here). Virtually no doors are closed to you at this point if you stay, so if the finances are equal, you're giving up quite a bit by transferring.

[rogerrogerson]

go to Harvard, enjoy the high pass/pass etc. system, hope for aid, and enjoy the prestige for life

[jumpin munkey]

I think the T14 to Harvard transfer is usually a pretty dumb idea. If you're not going to get aid from Harvard and if you will likely be giving up LR, don't transfer.

The danger isn't that you're going to go from top 2% to median at HLS, it's that you're giving up a lot of institutional support and what sounds like an environment you like. I honestly don't know what the benefits are. Even setting aside stereotypes about HLS students, being a transfer student at a school the size of HLS sounds miserable. While I'm sure you'd still get a clerkship, it's probably going to be harder to do if you transfer than if you hadn't.

An HLS degree is understandably treated as a rare prize, but I would rather be magna from Duke.

[onionz]

I'm in a similar boat and I'm mostly hoping for $, but it's hard to turn down.

As some of the above-posters have hinted about, I think some of it depends on long-term career goals.

I think if you want to do transactional law and eventually exit to some corporate world where you don't deal with other lawyers as much, Harvard layman prestige as its called might have some benefits.

If you plan on doing litigation work, other biglaw/government litigators will be less inherently impressed with Harvard.

At least, these are the things I tell myself going into this decision...

[Michael Ju]

Hi, I am the co-president of the HLS Transfer Organization. Feel free to PM me.