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Info dump: Barely T1 - in a school in the 40s. I am top 5 in my class. I was determined to attempt to transfer earlier this semester and the school has tendered me a full ride offer. My goal is to do biglaw and honestly have the most flexible career options possible. I am not at all tied to the city my school is in. A professor has scheduled me a meeting with the dean regarding an appellate clerkship (which I do not even know if I want to do). I guess my dilemma is that all I want is the most prestigious (highest ranking) big law job possible after school so that I can have the most flexible employment options way down the line. Also, of personal note, I do not like my classmates or my school . It actually makes me unhappy.

I voted for a transfer based purely on the last two sentences of your info dump. Go be happy.

you have a chance to be much happier and attend a top ranked school. Yes, there will be some debt, but biglaw will take care of that

clshopeful wrote:you have a chance to be much happier and attend a top ranked school. Yes, there will be some debt, but biglaw will take care of that

And yet when you read many of the biglaw threads, you hear about how miserable people are in biglaw.

OP, it's not an easy decision. If you keep your grades up in the second semester, you'll have a good shot at the vast majority of the t14. But giving up a substantial scholarship to take on all that debt isn't an easy decision. Obviously, you being unhappy at your current school will make it a bit easier. But there's no guarantee you'll be happy at your new school and no guarantee you'll enjoy biglaw. But transferring will improve your shot at biglaw and flexibility for sure. If you can deal with all the debt, I'd say transfer. That all said, I highly recommend exploring your options at your current school and seeing if anything changes this semester.

Transfer

And please remove the word prestigious from your vocabulary. Biglaw is not prestigious

lawman84 wrote:OP, it's not an easy decision. If you keep your grades up in the second semester, you'll have a good shot at the vast majority of the t14. But giving up a substantial scholarship to take on all that debt isn't an easy decision. Obviously, you being unhappy at your current school will make it a bit easier. But there's no guarantee you'll be happy at your new school and no guarantee you'll enjoy biglaw. But transferring will improve your shot at biglaw and flexibility for sure. If you can deal with all the debt, I'd say transfer. That all said, I highly recommend exploring your options at your current school and seeing if anything changes this semester.

From someone who was in a similar situation, and did transfer last year, let me just say that lawman84 is right. There is no guarantee you'll enjoy your new school. I loved my 1L school, and certainly didn't love my new school for most of the first semester. It's getting better, and I think I made the right choice by transferring, but I still don't love my new school as much as I did my 1L school.

A good t14 school definitely opens up more doors (especially if you do well there) than a 30s or 40s school. But the debt takes away some of that flexibility, at least for awhile.

I decided to transfer, mostly because I wanted to clerk and figured that my new school would never hold me back from anything. Ironically, looking back, I could've gotten the same biglaw summer gig and clerkship coming from my old school as I did from my new school, but there are future opportunities that are now available to me that probably would not have been (second clerkship, etc). Over all, I'm very happy with my decision to transfer.

If I were you, I'd keep doing what you're doing. Either way, you want to maximize your grades this semester. And then talk to people (professors, attorneys, etc) about your situation and goals and see how possible it is to reach them from where you are. I'd still apply to transfer, and see what your options are, and then make a final decision this summer. The good news is that there's probably no "wrong" answer - near the top of your class at a T1 is a great position to be in, transferring would probably also go great, so it's just up to you to decide between two good options.

1) Everyone will get better after 1L. People you absolutely hate now will be more tolerable a) when you don't have every single class with them, and b) when they're under a lot less pressure. People are also a lot easier to avoid. Classes will be diluted with people from other sections and 3Ls next year.
2) If your school increased your scholarship to a full ride, it sounds like you didn't have a full ride before. That means if you transferred to a T14, you'd be taking on sticker debt for the last two years plus the debt your first year didn't cover. Your biglaw salary is going to decrease by a lot if you have to pay off that much in loans.
3) You'll probably get biglaw from transferring, but you'll also probably get biglaw from staying. No one will give a shit about your school once you have a few years of biglaw under your belt.

I had a lot of these same feelings during 1L. It will absolutely get better. Work hard, do what you did last semester, and tough it out.

I would stay if you keep up the same performance this semester.