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If anyone has any questions about Illinois, I am happy to answer them

Hey thanks for taking the time to answer questions,

What do you think about the school so far, and is it what you expected?

How did first semester go, and what was the hardest part?

Psy123 wrote:Hey thanks for taking the time to answer questions,

What do you think about the school so far, and is it what you expected?

How did first semester go, and what was the hardest part?

The school overall has been really good. I chose UIUC over schools ranked in the T20 because of scholarship money and the fact that I want to practice in Chicago. The professors have been great for the most part. The building and classrooms leave something to be desired, but at least the library is nice.

The 1L class overall is very friendly and there is a lot of hanging out between 1Ls, 2Ls, and 3Ls. There are a lot of students that went straight through and can feel a little like HS at times, so older students should be prepared for that.

First semester went well for me. The exams were straightforward and all my professors had a lot of practice exams that you could use. I was lucky and had a very focused study group.

Overall, I am happy with my decision. If you want to practice in Chicago, I think UIUC is the best bet after Northwestern and Chicago and rest of T14. I think even ahead of WUSTL and probably even with ND. The big worry is whether or not the rankings continue their free fall. But at least so far from what I have seen with my friends that are 2Ls and 3Ls, if you are in the top 20% and want to be in Chicago, St. Louis, or Indy you will not have too much of an issue landing a big law gig.

Also a 1L. Will also answer any Qs.

I wanted to know what Some UIUC students know about housing

Where do you guys live currently/have lived, and what places do you recommend looking at?

I have looked at The Village as well as One Apartments, both seem like decent places, anyone have any idea?

Psy123 wrote:I wanted to know what Some UIUC students know about housing

Where do you guys live currently/have lived, and what places do you recommend looking at?

I have looked at The Village as well as One Apartments, both seem like decent places, anyone have any idea?

A lot of students live at The Village-it's mostly grad students. They have shuttles that run every fifteen minutes or so and it's a quick ride to campus. The units are nice enough. Don't know about One. A good number of students live at 75 Armory, but it tends to skew a bit more undergrad. Most folks live off campus in other apartment complexes/rented houses.

I live in West Urbana, but I have a car so it's convenient for me. Don't get sucked into 310 Burnham-too expensive for a law student without any tangible benefits.

Check out Craigsist or Padmapper, too.

Do you find that UIUC is fun? Are there things to do?

Also, is a car a necessity?

RLowry23 wrote:Do you find that UIUC is fun? Are there things to do?

Also, is a car a necessity?

The campus is fun. I had friends go here for undergrad, so I'm familiar with the bar scene. Most of the undergrad bars are on campus, but plenty of the law students frequent that area. Downtown Champaign has nicer bars that skew towards an older crowd, but it can get a bit more expensive.

You certainly don't NEED a car. Plenty of folks manage just fine without one. The bus/cab systems are reliable enough. If you live at The Village, you can call one of the shuttle drivers to come pick you up, but if its after hours it takes a bit longer.

The biggest issue with having a car is parking. There's no parking lot for students--everything is metered. You can buy a pass for the shuttle lot for pretty cheap, but its a ten-minute walk to campus which sucks during the winter (esp this past one).

Thanks for answering our questions!
Clearly UIUC is a great place to go if you want a big law job in Chicago. What about other markets? I'm sure part of it is self-selecting as most students who attend Illinois probably want to stay in Illinois/Chicago, but do you have a pretty sizable OCI for non-Chicago firms? Do you think it's comparable to ND and WUSTL?

Hello! Thank you very much for taking your time to answer questions!

I was fortunate enough to be accepted by UIUC with half-tuition scholarship. I'm still waiting to hear from other schools, but actually being rewarded the money made me think twice about what school I should attend.

So here are some questions...

1. Did you two by any chance negotiate to increase your scholarship? I am at median LSAT / above median GPA. Wonder if I could bring this scholarship up. I have been offered a full-ride from a school below UIUC's ranking and 65% scholarship from a school above. If I could bring the scholarship up to perhaps 75%, I would be thrilled.

2. Apartment costs: I heard that apartments within walking distance from school can cost between $300~800-ish. Is that true? What does the low cost entail? (My undergrad was in an urban environment so a shitty studio was about $1000/month).

3. Cost of Living: I'm assuming that I won't have time to cook in law school (it involves grocery shopping -> cooking -> eating -> cleaning up = at least 2 hours of your precious time as 1L), so I'll probably end up eating whatever that's available. Perhaps meal plan? (Is it any good?) If not, I'll probably eat something that's available near campus, which means I'll be constantly eating out. With that in mind, how much would I end up spending per month?

4. How is the gym? :p


I guess my questions can be a bit disappointing (very non-academic), but looking forward to hearing back your responses.

mx23250 wrote:Thanks for answering our questions!
Clearly UIUC is a great place to go if you want a big law job in Chicago. What about other markets? I'm sure part of it is self-selecting as most students who attend Illinois probably want to stay in Illinois/Chicago, but do you have a pretty sizable OCI for non-Chicago firms? Do you think it's comparable to ND and WUSTL?

St. Louis actually sends a decent number of firms to OCI (a few STL firms were here for 1L OCI last week), but they look primarily for people with ties to that area. Indy also does OK. You'll find that most students are from IL/MO/IN, but for some reason my class has a number of people from out west--CA/AZ/WA. I'm not sure what their plans are, but firms in those states don't really recruit from here.

I'm not sure how WUSTL or ND run OCI, but, based on the most recent LST reports, we place about the same % of students into big law as do those schools. That said, I wouldn't say this is a great place to go for Chicago big law, but its certainly attainable, and OCS is doing everything they can to improve that (though I'm not sure what the tangible benefits will be).

screwtapeletters wrote:Hello! Thank you very much for taking your time to answer questions!

I was fortunate enough to be accepted by UIUC with half-tuition scholarship. I'm still waiting to hear from other schools, but actually being rewarded the money made me think twice about what school I should attend.

So here are some questions...

1. Did you two by any chance negotiate to increase your scholarship? I am at median LSAT / above median GPA. Wonder if I could bring this scholarship up. I have been offered a full-ride from a school below UIUC's ranking and 65% scholarship from a school above. If I could bring the scholarship up to perhaps 75%, I would be thrilled.

2. Apartment costs: I heard that apartments within walking distance from school can cost between $300~800-ish. Is that true? What does the low cost entail? (My undergrad was in an urban environment so a shitty studio was about $1000/month).

3. Cost of Living: I'm assuming that I won't have time to cook in law school (it involves grocery shopping -> cooking -> eating -> cleaning up = at least 2 hours of your precious time as 1L), so I'll probably end up eating whatever that's available. Perhaps meal plan? (Is it any good?) If not, I'll probably eat something that's available near campus, which means I'll be constantly eating out. With that in mind, how much would I end up spending per month?

4. How is the gym? :p


I guess my questions can be a bit disappointing (very non-academic), but looking forward to hearing back your responses.

1. I didn't have to, but I think bobs did pretty well, and I know of others that have been pretty successful negotiating. What other schools have you applied to? If you have scholly offers from WUSTL/ND/Indiana/Minnesota, I would certainly try to negotiate up to 75%.

2. Sounds about right. There are certainly places within walking distance that are manageable ($400-500). Check out The Village/75 Armory: a lot of students live there and seem to love it. I live in West Urbana and pay $710 for a two bedroom, but you'd certainly need a car if you live that far off campus.

3. No meal plan. For reasons that would out me, I'm not the best person to answer this Q. You can PM if you want more details. I spend about $500 on groceries and I rarely ever eat out (that's probably on the high end of costs). One big myth about law school is that you don't have time to do anything. As a 1L, you have nothing but time, you just need to manage it properly. I'm able to cook all of my meals, but I'm used to doing that. It can certainly get expensive if you eat out a lot. There's really nothing within a quick walk of campus. There's a cafe in the building that's OK, but the selection leaves something to the imagination and gets old quickly.

4. Its awesome. I go before class, around 7a, when its empty. If you go later, around 5p-7p, it can get really crowded.

Chardee_MacDennis wrote:

screwtapeletters wrote:Hello! Thank you very much for taking your time to answer questions!

I was fortunate enough to be accepted by UIUC with half-tuition scholarship. I'm still waiting to hear from other schools, but actually being rewarded the money made me think twice about what school I should attend.

So here are some questions...

1. Did you two by any chance negotiate to increase your scholarship? I am at median LSAT / above median GPA. Wonder if I could bring this scholarship up. I have been offered a full-ride from a school below UIUC's ranking and 65% scholarship from a school above. If I could bring the scholarship up to perhaps 75%, I would be thrilled.

2. Apartment costs: I heard that apartments within walking distance from school can cost between $300~800-ish. Is that true? What does the low cost entail? (My undergrad was in an urban environment so a shitty studio was about $1000/month).

3. Cost of Living: I'm assuming that I won't have time to cook in law school (it involves grocery shopping -> cooking -> eating -> cleaning up = at least 2 hours of your precious time as 1L), so I'll probably end up eating whatever that's available. Perhaps meal plan? (Is it any good?) If not, I'll probably eat something that's available near campus, which means I'll be constantly eating out. With that in mind, how much would I end up spending per month?

4. How is the gym? :p


I guess my questions can be a bit disappointing (very non-academic), but looking forward to hearing back your responses.

1. I didn't have to, but I think bobs did pretty well, and I know of others that have been pretty successful negotiating. What other schools have you applied to? If you have scholly offers from WUSTL/ND/Indiana/Minnesota, I would certainly try to negotiate up to 75%.

2. Sounds about right. There are certainly places within walking distance that are manageable ($400-500). Check out The Village/75 Armory: a lot of students live there and seem to love it. I live in West Urbana and pay $710 for a two bedroom, but you'd certainly need a car if you live that far off campus.

3. For reasons that would out me, I'm not the best person to answer this Q. You can PM if you want more details. I spend about $500 on groceries and I rarely ever eat out (that's probably on the high end of costs). One big myth about law school is that you don't have time to do anything. As a 1L, you have nothing but time, you just need to manage it properly. I'm able to cook all of my meals, but I'm used to doing that. It can certainly get expensive if you eat out a lot. There's really nothing within a quick walk of campus. There's a cafe in the building that's OK, but the selection leaves something to the imagination and gets old quickly.

4. Its awesome. I go before class, around 7a, when its empty. If you go later, around 5p-7p, it can get really crowded.

Thank you so much for your response!!

I got into Indiana but they haven't offered me $$ yet. Hopefully it will come soon. Still waiting to hear from the other three you have listed. I applied broadly so it's kinda hard to list them all, but it's in the 20~50s range.

As for the apartments, when will I have to sign a contract? I'm currently in Asia and probably won't be flying into the US until the end of July / early August, and am worried that all of the apartments near school will already be filled (and both The Village / 75 Armory look really nice!!!).

But I guess there aren't really good restaurants around school huh... that's kinda sad (I'm a big fan of eating :p). But glad to hear that the gym is nice.

Hopefully I'll be able to negotiate, bring the $$ up and attend! The living cost is making it sound really attractive

screwtapeletters wrote:

Chardee_MacDennis wrote:

screwtapeletters wrote:
As for the apartments, when will I have to sign a contract? I'm currently in Asia and probably won't be flying into the US until the end of July / early August, and am worried that all of the apartments near school will already be filled (and both The Village / 75 Armory look really nice!!!).

But I guess there aren't really good restaurants around school huh... that's kinda sad (I'm a big fan of eating :p). But glad to hear that the gym is nice.

I didn't actually sign my lease until August, but I did reserve a unit before then, May-ish. If you're really interested in one of those complexes, contact the leasing office and explain your situation. I'm sure its happened before.

Most of the good restaurants are in downtown Champaign. There's nothing around the school that I would consider "fine dining." Black Dog in Urbana is fantastic. There are a number of good sushi places. Seven Saints has a great spirits selection and pretty great sliders.

How far is campus and the recommended living spots from downtown?

Also, academically - what's the atmosphere like? Cut throat or friendly? Are professors very open?

RLowry23 wrote:How far is campus and the recommended living spots from downtown?

Also, academically - what's the atmosphere like? Cut throat or friendly? Are professors very open?

The law building is about a 5-7 minute drive from downtown.

We certainly have gunners, but you'll find that anywhere. Some of the 2Ls have joked that we have a very intense/gunner-ish/anti-social class relative to them. I think that's partly because we understand the job market isn't great and everyone's trying to get good grades. I don't totally buy into that characterization of our class, but I understand why they say it.

Most of my classmates are cool. I don't think I've heard any stories of someone being an asshole at the expense of a classmate.

Is there a manifested commitment to PI at UIUC? If so, how is that seen?

ltrego wrote:Is there a manifested commitment to PI at UIUC? If so, how is that seen?

Not particularly. There's a public interest student group, but neither the administration nor OCS places much of an emphasis on it.

Chardee_MacDennis wrote:

ltrego wrote:Is there a manifested commitment to PI at UIUC? If so, how is that seen?

Not particularly. There's a public interest student group, but neither the administration nor OCS places much of an emphasis on it.

Good to know. Thanks for the insight!

Yet another 1L jumping in on this.

I agree with everything stated so far. A few things I will say from my perspective:

-The school is likely anxious to get closer to the USNWR ranking it once held, so if you're numbers would give them a boost, you absolutely need to be negotiating scholarships with UIUC (especially if you have $$ from ND, IND, WashU..etc..)

-The atmosphere of the school is wonderful. I usually find that my classmates encourage me to work hard but also take time to remember there is more to life than law school.

-We can answer more questions about jobs/OCI when we are 2L/3Ls, but from where we sit now it seems like things are pretty much as they have been: top 20% and patent bar eligible students do very well for themselves, the rest are strongly encouraged to tap into UIUC's great alumni network.

Can law students take undergrad classes for any sort of certificate?

Baby_Got_Feuerbach wrote:Can law students take undergrad classes for any sort of certificate? Not looking to do a joint Jd-master's but maybe Jd-comp sci for a cert or something. Any insight? Thanks in advance

You can take up to six hours of non-law courses in the various grad schools at the university. They count as pass/fail on your transcript. The class has to bear some relevance to the law in order to count, but I don't think that's ever been much of an issue.

Chardee_MacDennis wrote:

Baby_Got_Feuerbach wrote:Can law students take undergrad classes for any sort of certificate? Not looking to do a joint Jd-master's but maybe Jd-comp sci for a cert or something. Any insight? Thanks in advance

You can take up to six hours of non-law courses in the various grad schools at the university. They count as pass/fail on your transcript. The class has to bear some relevance to the law in order to count, but I don't think that's ever been much of an issue.

Just saw that on their site, thanks! Could I audit (i.e., sit in on) other classes just for the hell of it?

Baby_Got_Feuerbach wrote:

Chardee_MacDennis wrote:

Baby_Got_Feuerbach wrote:Can law students take undergrad classes for any sort of certificate? Not looking to do a joint Jd-master's but maybe Jd-comp sci for a cert or something. Any insight? Thanks in advance

You can take up to six hours of non-law courses in the various grad schools at the university. They count as pass/fail on your transcript. The class has to bear some relevance to the law in order to count, but I don't think that's ever been much of an issue.

Just saw that on their site, thanks! Could I audit (i.e., sit in on) other classes just for the hell of it?

I'm not sure, but that seems like it would be a waste of time.

Chardee_MacDennis wrote:

Baby_Got_Feuerbach wrote:

Chardee_MacDennis wrote:

Baby_Got_Feuerbach wrote:Can law students take undergrad classes for any sort of certificate? Not looking to do a joint Jd-master's but maybe Jd-comp sci for a cert or something. Any insight? Thanks in advance

You can take up to six hours of non-law courses in the various grad schools at the university. They count as pass/fail on your transcript. The class has to bear some relevance to the law in order to count, but I don't think that's ever been much of an issue.

Just saw that on their site, thanks! Could I audit (i.e., sit in on) other classes just for the hell of it?

I'm not sure, but that seems like it would be a waste of time.

Yeah, you can audit classes, which for undergrad classes is all you could do. You only get credit for taking other grad classes i.e. MBA classes or Masters in Computer Sci, I don't believe you could get credit or certified in any undergrad classes.