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I'm currently on a full-tuition scholarship at a tier 1(25-30). After 1st semester, I am likely around top 10% of the class or so. Since I worked a few years before coming to law school, I will graduate completely debt free. My career goal is BigLaw.

My school, overall, has decent job placement rate, but the focus is on public interest. OCI is lacking on the BigLaw front AND I have no desire to be in any of the pretty small markets that recruit here. Also, I'll be honest, I want the prestige. NU was my dream school since forever but when I got my free ride here I decided to take the money & run; I still vacillate on whether or not that was a good decision. While I love the idea of being debt free & snagging BigLaw from here (which some have done), I'm not loving the odds that it will actually happen for me.

Keeping the obvious debt increase in mind, I'm most strongly considering a transfer to UofC or NU since my parents live in the Chicago suburbs & I could live at home for free & commute. (Unless I could get HYS) Based on my own savings, cost of tuition, etc. I'm thinking that would put me in the neighborhood of $100-115K in loans.

Essentially, I'm wondering if the transfer is worth it. Is the prestige worth going 100K in the hole when I could be graduating debt from a good, but not great, law school?

Wow, why would you transfer in that situation. You'll get biglaw.

I don't think it makes sense to transfer
The money difference is great, you have a good chance at biglaw now, and if you transfer it's not even a guarantee you would get biglaw

eriedoctrine wrote:Wow, why would you transfer in that situation. You'll get biglaw.

Not saying transferring is the right call but it sounds like OP is at Iowa. I doubt top ~10% is necessarily biglaw secure at a school that only places about 15% in biglaw.

Not sure how useful the advice you get is going to be if we don't know the school. Correlation between Biglaw placement and USNWR rankings fall off much earlier in the rankings.

Transfer to Chicago.

I would transfer. I don't think top 10% is biglaw secure by any means so the added boost to biglaw chances plus satisfying your prestige desire is probably worth it. $100k-115k for a NU/UChi degree is a pretty great deal if you ask me.

I wouldn't transfer, but I'm risk adverse. If the school is BU or ND, I'd definitely stay. Otherwise, Chicago is certainly not a bad option. You just may save some cash by getting essentially the same outcome at your current school.