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Have a question about the "ties" in Chicago. It's talked about on here a lot as a market that needs more ties than DC or NYC, but is attending UChi sufficient? Recently was accepted and will be attending, and would love to practice in Chicago -- the city, from everything I've read, seen, and heard from family and friends, seems to be preferable to DC/NYC, but I don't have any strong ties to the city itself. Is this going to be a significant problem? Might be a very hard question to answer, but I'd appreciate any insight if anyone on here can offer some.

redbullvodka wrote:Have a question about the "ties" in Chicago. It's talked about on here a lot as a market that needs more ties than DC or NYC, but is attending UChi sufficient? Recently was accepted and will be attending, and would love to practice in Chicago -- the city, from everything I've read, seen, and heard from family and friends, seems to be preferable to DC/NYC, but I don't have any strong ties to the city itself. Is this going to be a significant problem? Might be a very hard question to answer, but I'd appreciate any insight if anyone on here can offer some.

Judging from people's experience at Northwestern, they are still going to ask you "why Chicago?" in interviews. Your answer should be "I fell in love with the city from day one, I came to U of C because I wanted to be in Chicago, and I have family here." That should enough.

Attending UChicago will probably be sufficient to establish ties, but you will still need to be able to convince the interviewers at OCI that you want to be in Chicago long term. "I really like the city" probably won't cut it. Still, you should be able to come up with some reasons. Spending your 1L summer in Chicago will be very helpful.

On the bright side, even if you strike out at Chicago firms, attending UChicago will give you portability to go pretty much anywhere you do have ties to. And New York City. You'll probably want to bid more than one market just in case that happens.

From anecdotal evidence, it seems like you still need a convincing answer for "why Chicago" besides attending UChi.