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I will be applying ED to UVA this September. It is a bit of a reach for me but I am hoping for the best. IF I get in I will surely get little to no scholarship money. Do those who have experience or practical knowledge of the school reccomend UVA at sticker price?

debt sucks, but i would take UVA at sticker. It's unlikely that you will have much better options if it is truly a "reach".

Hard to give more accurate advice than that w/out knowing your actual #'s

170 LSAT and 3.1 GPA. Figure I won't get in unless I ED and even then it is questionable. If I get the reject I might ED to Georgetown right after. Other then that I am looking at Wake, UC Boulder, Washington and Lee, WUSTL, Indiana Bloomington and Fordham. I figure I will only get partial schollys to all these schools so if I am gonna pay through the nose I might as well shoot high. The debt scares me a lot though. If I get into UVA all totalled I will probably be 200 k in debt after 3 years.

colbarfran wrote:170 LSAT and 3.1 GPA. Figure I won't get in unless I ED and even then it is questionable. If I get the reject I might ED to Georgetown right after. Other then that I am looking at Wake, UC Boulder, Washington and Lee, WUSTL, Indiana Bloomington and Fordham. I figure I will only get partial schollys to all these schools so if I am gonna pay through the nose I might as well shoot high. The debt scares me a lot though. If I get into UVA all totalled I will probably be 200 k in debt after 3 years.

ED to UVA sounds like a good decision for you, especially if you want NYC / DC / the south. 200k debt is very scary, but from UVA you have a very realistic shot at paying it back. As long as you're making market in NYC or 100k+ in a secondary market with low cost of living, you won't have an issue paying back your loans. If not, their LRAP is decent enough that as long as you find some kind of PI work that you won't have to worry too much about it.

duckmoney wrote:

colbarfran wrote:170 LSAT and 3.1 GPA. Figure I won't get in unless I ED and even then it is questionable. If I get the reject I might ED to Georgetown right after. Other then that I am looking at Wake, UC Boulder, Washington and Lee, WUSTL, Indiana Bloomington and Fordham. I figure I will only get partial schollys to all these schools so if I am gonna pay through the nose I might as well shoot high. The debt scares me a lot though. If I get into UVA all totalled I will probably be 200 k in debt after 3 years.

ED to UVA sounds like a good decision for you, especially if you want NYC / DC / the south. 200k debt is very scary, but from UVA you have a very realistic shot at paying it back. As long as you're making market in NYC or 100k+ in a secondary market with low cost of living, you won't have an issue paying back your loans. If not, their LRAP is decent enough that as long as you find some kind of PI work that you won't have to worry too much about it.

What about EDing to Michigan instead of Georgetown? Also, being a splitter, check out LSN and see where others with similar stats went. My advice is to apply broadly and hope to get lucky. Really work on yur PS and "Why X" essays. All you need is one school to take a chance.

You are going to basically get two camps of people responding.

Camp A wrote:It's worth it (and this logic applies to basically any lower T14). UVA places around half of its class into biglaw jobs as well as a chunk of people into jobs that qualify for PSLF. Is there a chance you get screwed? Of course there is but you have quite a good chance of being debtfree in 10 years.

Camp B wrote:It's not worth it and no school other than HYS is worth sticker price. The job market is rough and having a 50% chance of being drowned by soulcrushing debt is an awful thing to do. Even at a T14 you should be getting a scholarship to make it financially feasible since biglaw isn't a guarantee and if you shoot for biglaw and miss it isn't necessarily that easy to fallback on PSLF jobs since those are still rare and want some kind of commitment.

Personally I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle. I'd agree that in general you should probably take a large scholarship to a strong regional school or go to a state school for cheap over sticker at a T14 because sticker at a T14 is basically like playing roulette with 6 figures worth of loan money.

That being said, as a splitter (and I was one myself) you don't have much of a choice. You're not going to get large scholarships to strong regional schools and the only places that will give you scholarships are T2 with murky job prospects. Plus even if there are certain strong regional schools you could go for cheap they don't necessarily place in the job market you want to work in (e.g. if you want to work in CA it doesn't matter that UGA is cheap). Because of that your best case scenario really is sticker at a T14 for a splitter. Is it ideal? Fuck no it's not but if you want to be a lawyer then it is the best debt to job prospects ratio deal you are going to get at any school.

bk187 wrote:You are going to basically get two camps of people responding.

Camp A wrote:It's worth it (and this logic applies to basically any lower T14). UVA places around half of its class into biglaw jobs as well as a chunk of people into jobs that qualify for PSLF. Is there a chance you get screwed? Of course there is but you have quite a good chance of being debtfree in 10 years.

Camp B wrote:It's not worth it and no school other than HYS is worth sticker price. The job market is rough and having a 50% chance of being drowned by soulcrushing debt is an awful thing to do. Even at a T14 you should be getting a scholarship to make it financially feasible since biglaw isn't a guarantee and if you shoot for biglaw and miss it isn't necessarily that easy to fallback on PSLF jobs since those are still rare and want some kind of commitment.

Personally I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle. I'd agree that in general you should probably take a large scholarship to a strong regional school or go to a state school for cheap over sticker at a T14 because sticker at a T14 is basically like playing roulette with 6 figures worth of loan money.

That being said, as a splitter (and I was one myself) you don't have much of a choice. You're not going to get large scholarships to strong regional schools and the only places that will give you scholarships are T2 with murky job prospects. Plus even if there are certain strong regional schools you could go for cheap they don't necessarily place in the job market you want to work in (e.g. if you want to work in CA it doesn't matter that UGA is cheap). Because of that your best case scenario really is sticker at a T14 for a splitter. Is it ideal? Fuck no it's not but if you want to be a lawyer then it is the best debt to job prospects ratio deal you are going to get at any school.

Um... not disagreeing with whether T14 at sticker is the best choice, but is WUSTL not a strong regional school? OP would get at least 84K there

Edit: Not to mention the probably 90K to UIUC and 120K + to IUB and 60K+ to MN

Badgers2012 wrote:Um... not disagreeing with whether T14 at sticker is the best choice, but is WUSTL not a strong regional school? OP would get at least 84K there

It is a strong regional school but whether he'll get that type of money... maybe, maybe not. LSN makes it seem more like he'll get 60k or so (which still leaves WUSTL as pretty expensive though definitely cheaper than T14s at sticker). But even if he does get money to WUSTL, I addressed that here:

bk187 wrote:Plus even if there are certain strong regional schools you could go for cheap they don't necessarily place in the job market you want to work in (e.g. if you want to work in CA it doesn't matter that UGA is cheap).

If OP doesn't want to work in the midwest then WUSTL is a tough sell. Though if someone had a T14 at sticker and WUSTL with a large scholarship and that person didn't want to work in the midwest I would probably advise that person to consider changing where they were willing to work. But where people want to work isn't rational and it is hard to tell someone they should completely ignore it since it is so subjective.

It's hard to give a clear answer because there are basically only two outcomes. Either you'll get a big law job, in which case, the investment is worth it, or you won't get a big law job, in which case, you'll be severely burdened by that debt for quite a while. Depends on how much of a risk you're willing to take.

bk187 wrote: That being said, as a splitter (and I was one myself) you don't have much of a choice. You're not going to get large scholarships to strong regional schools and the only places that will give you scholarships are T2 with murky job prospects. Plus even if there are certain strong regional schools you could go for cheap they don't necessarily place in the job market you want to work in (e.g. if you want to work in CA it doesn't matter that UGA is cheap). Because of that your best case scenario really is sticker at a T14 for a splitter. Is it ideal? Fuck no it's not but if you want to be a lawyer then it is the best debt to job prospects ratio deal you are going to get at any school.

This is very true, even in markets where you have good scholarship options. Take Chicago for example. Someone with a 172/3.0 gets sticker at NU, half at WUSTL, or full tuition at UIUC fairly reliably. 200K debt from NU, 100K from WUSTL, or less than 50K debt from UIUC, all of which you can pay off if you're in the top 50% at any of the schools. And in my opinion NU v. WUSTL v. UIUC is the best case scenario for high LSAT low GPA splitters. So at best going to T14 at sticker is tied for the best option and for most markets it is the best option.

Great point being made here by BK. The standard options of "sticker at T14, half ride T25 and full ride T40" doesn't always apply to splitters. If the option is UCLA with 90K or UVA at sticker its easy to turn down the T14. But when you are not helping the GPA median until you get deep into the rankings, the lower ranked schools don't send the cash quite so aggressively.

yeah silly thread i guess, I just hope I get into UVA would be so happy with that

If you were applying last year, you would be a shoe in ED. But this year, UVA seemed to have a lot more 170+ ED and a few were rejected outright. UVA also seemed to be scrambling to find 3.9+ off the waitlist, so perhaps they will be even more cautious about accepting low GPA EDs next year. All this is based of intense LSN perusal. Of course, apply ED ASAP and cross your fingers.

cheeseismildlytasty wrote:If you were applying last year, you would be a shoe in ED. But this year, UVA seemed to have a lot more 170+ ED and a few were rejected outright. UVA also seemed to be scrambling to find 3.9+ off the waitlist, so perhaps they will be even more cautious about accepting low GPA EDs next year. All this is based of intense LSN perusal. Of course, apply ED ASAP and cross your fingers.

yeah nuthin but a luck game I guess. At a certain point you can only help yourself so much, the work has been done and I must now throw the dice. I'm trying to bang my personal statement and why x essays out of the park. Do you have any familiarity of what kind of stuff UVA specifically is looking for in these?