Regret choosing your law school? Forum

[sigil]

0L here. I haven't started law school yet, but...

does anyone regret choosing the law school they're currently attending, or the one they graduated from? If so, why?

And, if not... What do/did you like best about your law school?

[tflan19]

0L here. I haven't started law school yet, but...

does anyone regret choosing the law school they're currently attending, or the one they graduated from? If so, why?

And, if not... What do/did you like best about your law school?

Maybe go to the "ask a law student" section of the forum. I don't think many of them hang out here.

[sigil]

0L here. I haven't started law school yet, but...

does anyone regret choosing the law school they're currently attending, or the one they graduated from? If so, why?

And, if not... What do/did you like best about your law school?

Maybe go to the "ask a law student" section of the forum. I don't think many of them hang out here.

Ah, good point. Thanks. Is there a way to ask one of the mods to move this thread? Don't want to double-post.

[A. Nony Mouse]

I moved it for you (you can always PM us or report the post).

I don't regret the school I chose because I enjoyed my classmate and profs, it got me where I wanted to be, and it fit my personal circumstances. I regret not studying better for the LSAT and retaking it again so I could have paid less to go there.

[Hikikomorist]

Not sure, but the latest employment numbers have certainly pushed me in that direction.

[unsweetened]

I don't regret choosing my law school.
I like living in the region where I go to school because it's close to friends and family, close to the city where I want to work, it's affordable, it helped me with getting a summer job, my classmates are generally excellent people, and the faculty is great.

What I do regret is only taking the LSAT once and not doing a better job negotiating scholarship $$$.

[Nonconsecutive]

I haven't regretted my decision on a school, or going to law school for that matter.

I also maximized my LSAT score by retaking it (ok I guess I technically wasn't a 180, but I was close enough for my purposes), which was definitely the right move in that not only did it make my LSAT score over 10 points higher, it also delayed law school by another year and gave me another year of work experience and time to think about law school.

What I do regret is my cumulative GPA throughout my nearly decade long, on and off again undergraduate career across three institutions. It essentially boned me on scholarships. But in the end I was poor, and got more in need-based aid at HLS and SLS than I had been offered in merit aid anywhere else. But I would have totally taken a T14 full ride if I had snagged one.

[sigil]

Thanks for moving the post, Nony.

And, thank you to everyone else who has also posted so far. Many valuable thoughts here, and a lot for me to consider when moving forward with my law school decisions.

[jbagelboy]

I dont regret my law school choice at all, but echoing what others have said, I do regret paying as much as I did for it.

[star fox]

My biggest regret to this point is not taking more substantive classes for my 1L electives so I had a better idea of what I was talking about during OCI.

[WhiteCollarBlueShirt]

I regret school, cost and attending in the first place--but you're probably not looking for responses from jaded attorneys.

I don't really regret my LSAT. I probably would have needed 175+ to have changed anything, and I don't think I would have had a better outcome than where I am now for trading up a USNWR ranking.

[psu2016]

I regret settling for a TTT when I could have worked a little harder on the LSAT and gotten into a T14 with money. Ended up fine, with no debt, but there are jobs that I will *never* be able to get because of the school on my resume, and that stings a bit. Also would have liked to have taken more interesting, nuanced courses in things that aren't offered outside of the very top.

[Londonbear]

I dont regret my law school choice at all, but echoing what others have said, I do regret paying as much as I did for it.

Seconded. I think you won't regret law school if you're able to get employment post-grad in what you want to do and that won't make your debt seem like a never ending weigh to carry for the rest of your life. What I like best about law school is after 1L, you can make what you want of your last 2 years that they force you to have.

[zot1]

I don't regret the school I chose because I enjoyed my classmate and profs, it got me where I wanted to be, and it fit my personal circumstances. I regret not studying better for the LSAT and retaking it again so I could have paid less to go there.

My answer would be the same as Nony's.

[Auxilio]

I regret not taking a year off, I think I under performed my numbers and really wish I had held out and tried for a Hamilton etc. If I miraculously manage to repeat my first semester grades I will probably get over this regret.

I don't regret my choice of school, although occasionally I think H would have been nice.

[whysoseriousbiglaw]

I regret going to law school, period, although law school itself was pretty fun. Practicing is not by any means.

[Troianii]

thanks all for the responses - I find this question interesting. So, from what I've read in responses, it sounds like people don't really regret not going to a better school. It sounds like the main regret that people have is acquiring so much debt.

If I can take the original question further - do you guys tend to find that this is true of most of the people you studied with? Or does this just reflect a small sample size?

[sprezz]

nah. some of my friends regret the school they went to as much as / more than the debt load. you're just more likely to see people key in on the debt here because this board skews towards being more focused on the debt axis and opportunity cost of waiting out a cycle than the other parts of the LS experience.

i regret nothing. other than waiting until today to mail my taxes. this post office line, man...

[texasrangersjb]

I regret settling for a TTT when I could have worked a little harder on the LSAT and gotten into a T14 with money. Ended up fine, with no debt, but there are jobs that I will *never* be able to get because of the school on my resume, and that stings a bit. Also would have liked to have taken more interesting, nuanced courses in things that aren't offered outside of the very top.

What jobs are you referring to, Big Law? Even excluded from these jobs if you do well at your 30-50 ranked school?

[A. Nony Mouse]

Depends on how well is well. And PSU isn't ranked 30-50. Beyond that, there are some employers that won't look beyond certain top schools (elite firms, many judges, legal academia, maybe certain government/PI gigs).

[bretby]

thanks all for the responses - I find this question interesting. So, from what I've read in responses, it sounds like people don't really regret not going to a better school. It sounds like the main regret that people have is acquiring so much debt.

If I can take the original question further - do you guys tend to find that this is true of most of the people you studied with? Or does this just reflect a small sample size?

I took a full ride to a much lower ranked school and I sometimes regret it. I'm still in school, though, and I suspect the regret is short term and that having no debt will be a good feeling in the long run.

[Cow]

Still in my first year, but thus far I don’t really regret my school choice aside from the lousy weather and overpriced rent. I’m at a T14 with money; low debt/good employment prospects on the horizon so I have a lot to be grateful for. Admittedly, I have fleeting thoughts about “prestige” from time to time, wondering if I should have picked a higher-ranked school; but then I look at what six-figures of debt actually means and that feeling passes.

I like that it’s competitive, but not a cut-throat competitive where you wish ill upon your classmates. Most of my classmates seem like genuinely decent people, though most people try to pretend they don’t care about grades/prestige even though we all obviously do. As a whole, I don’t find law students to be the most interesting sort of people to be around but I guess that’s not really school-specific. Also, another general law school complaint is that it always feels like there’s pressure to do more and be more and get involved with more stuff…mostly because that’s what everyone else is doing and no one wants to feel like they’re somehow falling behind their peers in some aspect of law school.

All in all though, I’m not entirely sure if I would go to law school if I knew a year ago what I know now – not that law school is completely terrible, but it definitely changes your perspective on what it means to be a lawyer. Additionally, I think the long-term stress/work-life imbalance in this profession is something that I could have minimized in a different career.