UVA Law Students Taking Questions Forum

[cornerstone]

This may have been asked before, but how much do you think you spent per semester outside of rent? Trying to decide how much to borrow for living expenses..

This is going to vary immensely depending on how often you eat out, go out for drinks, car payments, health insurance etc. You can and should borrow the full amount and then return it later on in the year (you won't incur interest or fees).

I'm not the best source for this since I'm using a combination of savings and private loans, but as far as I can remember Jennifer Hulvey (Dir. of Fin. Aid at UVA) said don't take the full value upfront because you will start incurring interest. I think you keep visiting the Fin Aid office and get regular payouts rather than all upfront to avoid interest. I'd suggest estimating your monthly budget and then talking to Jennifer Hulvey to see what the best options are. She's very helpful.

As far as my spending habits go, here's an estimated monthly breakdown:
Apartment in Ivy (2 bedroom): $530
Water/Electricity/Internet (no cable): $130
Food Costs (groceries, dining out, etc.): $400-$500 (lower during finals since I eat out less)
Bars, drinks, etc.: $100 (I drink a lot and like nice stuff, but prices in CVille are pretty cheap so you could keep this down)
Gas: ~$30 (this varies a lot, some months I don't fill up at all)
Car Insurance: $116 (this went down from when I was living in a big city)
Health Insurance: $218 (UVA plan)

Total: ~$1500 a month

Also keep in mind that there will be other expenses throughout the year:
Books: $750-$1k per semester (buy online, you can bring this cost down)
Decent Interview Suit: $200-$450 (plus ties, nice shirt, shoes, etc. if you don't have them. Not sure about the price for females)
Travel costs to/from "home" during breaks: varies
Rent/utilities in another city for your summer job: varies
Section Funds: most sections collect $ at the beginning of the semester to fund events, etc. I think the general rule is $50 if you drink, $35 if you don't, but this can vary.
Car Payments
Loan Fees
New Laptop

Taking Books/Other spending into account I probably spend closer to $1800-$1900, which is just a bit more than the total cost listed on the UVA website. Obviously this is just an example, I know people who live on much less and others who spend a lot more. It all depends on what lifestyle you are expecting now and how much you are comfortable borrowing. I hope this helps!

[TasmanianToucan]

That was super helpful thanks!

[cornerstone]

Forgot to add a security deposit for the apartment in Ivy. I think it was 1 month's rent.

[whats an updog]

so last day for grades will be monday?

[First Offense]

so last day for grades will be monday?

That's the last day they're supposed to release grades. If you're waiting on a 1L class, probably a safe bet it will be then. Otherwise? Get comfy - who knows.

[rhododactylos]

My understanding is that today is the deadline for professors to submit grades to student records, but that records has another week to upload the grades to SIS. Oh well, it's not like we need to know our GPA to get job applications ready or anything!

[UVAIce]

I'd say 95% of the time you will have all of your grades on the deadline day. Every once in awhile something crazy will happen. Forewarning, if it is something crazy you'll likely be waiting a week or so past the deadline.

[june1]

This may have been asked before, but how much do you think you spent per semester outside of rent? Trying to decide how much to borrow for living expenses..

This is going to vary immensely depending on how often you eat out, go out for drinks, car payments, health insurance etc. You can and should borrow the full amount and then return it later on in the year (you won't incur interest or fees).

I'm not the best source for this since I'm using a combination of savings and private loans, but as far as I can remember Jennifer Hulvey (Dir. of Fin. Aid at UVA) said don't take the full value upfront because you will start incurring interest. I think you keep visiting the Fin Aid office and get regular payouts rather than all upfront to avoid interest. I'd suggest estimating your monthly budget and then talking to Jennifer Hulvey to see what the best options are. She's very helpful.

As far as my spending habits go, here's an estimated monthly breakdown:
Apartment in Ivy (2 bedroom): $530
Water/Electricity/Internet (no cable): $130
Food Costs (groceries, dining out, etc.): $400-$500 (lower during finals since I eat out less)
Bars, drinks, etc.: $100 (I drink a lot and like nice stuff, but prices in CVille are pretty cheap so you could keep this down)
Gas: ~$30 (this varies a lot, some months I don't fill up at all)
Car Insurance: $116 (this went down from when I was living in a big city)
Health Insurance: $218 (UVA plan)

Total: ~$1500 a month

Also keep in mind that there will be other expenses throughout the year:
Books: $750-$1k per semester (buy online, you can bring this cost down)
Decent Interview Suit: $200-$450 (plus ties, nice shirt, shoes, etc. if you don't have them. Not sure about the price for females)
Travel costs to/from "home" during breaks: varies
Rent/utilities in another city for your summer job: varies
Section Funds: most sections collect $ at the beginning of the semester to fund events, etc. I think the general rule is $50 if you drink, $35 if you don't, but this can vary.
Car Payments
Loan Fees
New Laptop

Taking Books/Other spending into account I probably spend closer to $1800-$1900, which is just a bit more than the total cost listed on the UVA website. Obviously this is just an example, I know people who live on much less and others who spend a lot more. It all depends on what lifestyle you are expecting now and how much you are comfortable borrowing. I hope this helps!

Thank you, this is great! Also, I spoke with Financial Aid the other day and they told me that you could get all interest and fees incurred rebated as long as I returned the unused portion within 120 days of dispersal. So it doesn't hurt to guess high for the federal loans.

[cornerstone]

Thank you, this is great! Also, I spoke with Financial Aid the other day and they told me that you could get all interest and fees incurred rebated as long as I returned the unused portion within 120 days of dispersal. So it doesn't hurt to guess high for the federal loans.

It's good that you can have the interest/fees rebated, but you will still pay interest on all of the money you keep from the date you originally received the loan, rather from when you need it. If you take the money for what you think you'll need in three months, you will be paying interest on money that is just sitting in your bank account (for the portion that you don't return at least). If you take smaller amounts when you need them, you won't have to return them later on and you will save on interest that can add up quickly. Sure, taking $1800 out a month earlier than you need it only gives you an extra ~$7.5 in interest accrued (based on 5% interest rate), but that adds up over the course of three years. In general there's no reason to borrow money just to have it sit around.

[sl5uw13]

I'm a 1l and I'm still missing two grades

[whats an updog]

I'm a 1l and I'm still missing two grades

luckily i'm only missing one right now, but i'm guessing yours are from your electives too?

[sl5uw13]

I'm a 1l and I'm still missing two grades

luckily i'm only missing one right now, but i'm guessing yours are from your electives too?

one doctrinal and one elective

[asundialwatch]

A bunch of grades went up.

[UVAIce]

Based on the course evals, I'm surprised that there aren't more 1L grades submitted at this point. I guess a lot folks will be sweating it for the next week waiting for the registrars office to put in the numbers. Sadly, we can no longer blame Cart Bennett.

[swampman]

Based on the course evals, I'm surprised that there aren't more 1L grades submitted at this point. I guess a lot folks will be sweating it for the next week waiting for the registrars office to put in the numbers. Sadly, we can no longer blame Cart Bennett.

My 1L course just got posted but evals for it still aren't up. They must be switching up the system.

[whats an updog]

Based on the course evals, I'm surprised that there aren't more 1L grades submitted at this point. I guess a lot folks will be sweating it for the next week waiting for the registrars office to put in the numbers. Sadly, we can no longer blame Cart Bennett.

My 1L course just got posted but evals for it still aren't up. They must be switching up the system.

Evals always come up a day later I think. Still waiting on my elective, guess it'll be a week or whatever. I actually think it's more satisfying to blame Dugas since I don't really know who Bennett was.

[Yardbird]

The notification email that grades have been posted and that evals have been uploaded has been coming days later in some cases.

[rhododactylos]

Can confirm. Received one grade last night and two this morning and no course evals or emails for any of them yet.

[sundance95]

Evals always come up a day later I think. Still waiting on my elective, guess it'll be a week or whatever. I actually think it's more satisfying to blame Dugas since I don't really know who Bennett was.

Be thankful.

[cornerstone]

I'd say 95% of the time you will have all of your grades on the deadline day. Every once in awhile something crazy will happen. Forewarning, if it is something crazy you'll likely be waiting a week or so past the deadline.

Any idea on why we would have to wait a week? Is this just from your experience? Do you mean that if we don't have a grade yet that we will have to wait a week for sure, or that we should be prepared for the possibility of waiting a week for grades that are not yet up?

[Chrysogonus]

Any idea when we hear about law review?

[Yardbird]

I'd say 95% of the time you will have all of your grades on the deadline day. Every once in awhile something crazy will happen. Forewarning, if it is something crazy you'll likely be waiting a week or so past the deadline.

Any idea on why we would have to wait a week? Is this just from your experience? Do you mean that if we don't have a grade yet that we will have to wait a week for sure, or that we should be prepared for the possibility of waiting a week for grades that are not yet up?

They had a major update to SIS over the weekend, so profs might not have been able to upload grades since access was down for everyone.

Any idea when we hear about law review?

The official list came out late-July last year, so I expect the calls probably went out the week or so before that. You'll know before your bids are due.

[uvheylaw]

Anyone have any idea what rising 3Ls need gpa wise to grade on to LR?

[cornerstone]

Any guesses on where the VLR cutoff might be for us this year? Since they are still taking 25 students for grade on but our class size is 305-307 (I believe 2 dropped?), I'm guessing it will move down a bit. If you assume that the percentile will shift to 8.14-8.2% (not 6.94% like a class of 360) and use the LSN rank estimator (http://mylsn.info/rank-estimator/) it looks like the cutoff might dip below 3.7. Thoughts?

[sprezz]

rising 3L cut off is probably ~3.72 ish

not sure about cut off for rising 2Ls, but it makes sense to me that it would dip. possibly just south of 3.7, but that's no more than a guess. i don't think you could reasonably use an estimator to get that info because in order to get an output your input would just be assumptions. the median won't be 3.3 and the 25% cutoff won't be 3.48, but we don't know what they will be.