Which T14 school to avoid if not want competitive enviroment Forum

[Nebby]

People try really really hard but the ridiculous thing is that it has no correlation to success. The people I know who killed it were resoundingly not the ones lining up in front of the professor during a break to ask more questions. But seeing those people asp out can really fuck with your head. It took a while for me to get over that shit.

[ymmv]

I admit there are some very special people that go to my school. But that doesn't really go towards the question of competitiveness.

True. They are all competitive, and the difference is at the margins. U of C has some AMAZING margins, though.

Lol yeah. I think at any t14 you're going to feel wholly inadequate and like you're an idiot at some point in the year. It's just the nature of law students in general not having any social grace and the adverse selection problem of law school classes-meaning people only raise their hands when they know an answer but that makes you feel like the whole class knows what the hell is going on and you are the only one not getting it. People try really really hard but the ridiculous thing is that it has no correlation to success. The people I know who killed it were resoundingly not the ones lining up in front of the professor during a break to ask more questions. But seeing those people asp out can really fuck with your head. It took a while for me to get over that shit.

Eh, IDK, my best grades were from classes where I liked the professors most and talked to them frequently. My worst were from the professors I hated and where I said virtually nothing in or after class.

But given the crapshoot nature of law exams this could be a purely coincidental correlation.

[Mal Reynolds]

That wasn't my experience but I'm not ruling that out. My overall point is that the atmosphere of law schools trends towards social retardation, and that can make people feel crappy or like it's an overly contemptuous place. When really that's just law students. I was just using people houndng a professor during a damn five minute break as an example of par for the course behavior.

[ymmv]

That wasn't my experience but I'm not ruling that out. My overall point is that the atmosphere of law schools trends towards social retardation, and that can make people feel crappy or like it's an overly contemptuous place. When really that's just law students. I was just using people houndng a professor during a damn five minute break as an example of par for the course behavior.

I also don't know that law schools are any more representative of social retardation than anywhere else. At least not compared to other grad schools. Nearly every MBA student I have ever met was fucking intolerable. Med students seem to have elevated aspie to an art form. Need we even mention PhDs?

I think all we're observing here is that when you organize any given large group of people, at least some of them will invariably suck.

[Mal Reynolds]

That wasn't my experience but I'm not ruling that out. My overall point is that the atmosphere of law schools trends towards social retardation, and that can make people feel crappy or like it's an overly contemptuous place. When really that's just law students. I was just using people houndng a professor during a damn five minute break as an example of par for the course behavior.

I also don't know that law schools are any more representative of social retardation than anywhere else. At least not compared to other grad schools. Nearly every MBA student I have ever met was fucking intolerable. Med students seem to have elevated aspie to an art form. Need we even mention PhDs?

I think all we're observing here is that when you organize any given large group of people, at least some of them will invariably suck.

Yes. Which is why asking which t14 schools are more/less competitive is worthless. And things won't be exactly equal. You're really gonna turn down scholarship money somewhere because you've heard it's more competitive?

[bjsesq]

That wasn't my experience but I'm not ruling that out. My overall point is that the atmosphere of law schools trends towards social retardation, and that can make people feel crappy or like it's an overly contemptuous place. When really that's just law students. I was just using people houndng a professor during a damn five minute break as an example of par for the course behavior.

I also don't know that law schools are any more representative of social retardation than anywhere else. At least not compared to other grad schools. Nearly every MBA student I have ever met was fucking intolerable. Med students seem to have elevated aspie to an art form. Need we even mention PhDs?

I think all we're observing here is that when you organize any given large group of people, at least some of them will invariably suck.

Yes. Which is why asking which t14 schools are more/less competitive is worthless. And things won't be exactly equal. You're really gonna turn down scholarship money somewhere because you've heard it's more competitive?

Why does one turn down a bunch of scholarship money????

[Mal Reynolds]

ASW meet and greets mostly.

[teachmehowtoraji]

Cornell is pretty competitive. We take graded LR and 4 substantive courses each 1L semester. Then 2L/3L classes are curved. Not enough journals for everyone.

I felt like people here were competitive. Shit got shady towards finals.

I'd be surprised if anyone can give you a good answer because very few people attend 2L t14's for law school let alone during 1L, the most important year.

I disagree strongly here. Yeah, people started taking shit seriously around finals and putting in a ton of hours, but that's the nature of law school. I don't know what kind of "shady" behavior you're talking about, but just about everyone I've encountered at Cornell (with the exception of a few super-gunners) has been friendly/helpful; I can't think of a single instance where someone exhibited even some sort of "out to screw you over" behavior.

[First Offense]

We have a keg in the courtyard weekly at UVA, and a lot of softball. But when it comes to the academics, everyone goes hard.

[jbagelboy]

Yale, probably. But it will still feel competitive out of class (journal publications, court of appeals clerkship sniping, research assistant subterfuge).

Everywhere else will still be "competitive". Maybe Berkeley a little less? Idk, felt that way, but you never know. Law students work really, really hard. Honestly, I'd want to avoid the competition for getting any job at OCI by going to a school where people aren't all that freaked out about striking out. I know the poster ITT said georgetown wasn't a competitive environment; maybe not in terms of tenor? but with 600 students and less than half of them landing a summer gig at OCI, I would imagine some competitive shit going on.

[Crowing]

There are more serious Mal posts ITT than I have seen in the entirety of TLS in the past two years. This is fucking weird.

[igo2northwestern]

If I were to order it from least to most competitive, (and I've ordered from least to most competitive within each group as well):

Yale - BerkeleyStanford - DukeNYUNorthwesternMichigan - HarvardVirginiaPenn - ChicagoColumbiaGeorgetownCornell

[ymmv]

There are more serious Mal posts ITT than I have seen in the entirety of TLS in the past two years. This is fucking weird.

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 0&t=232601

[ymmv]

If I were to order it from least to most competitive, (and I've ordered from least to most competitive within each group as well):

Yale - BerkeleyStanfordHarvard - DukeNYUNorthwesternMichigan - VirginiaPenn - ChicagoColumbiaGeorgetownCornell

IDK about anywhere else, but Penn is not really competitive. At all.

[Crowing]

There are more serious Mal posts ITT than I have seen in the entirety of TLS in the past two years. This is fucking weird.

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 0&t=232601

Well then. You won't hear me complaining. But I'm way too sappy/conciliatory to be a law student.

[Mal Reynolds]

I've generally replied seriously to on topics. But maybe this change has increased my participation.

[BigZuck]

lol @talking to profs outside of class just cuz you want to debate the issues or hear yourself talk

I've only been to one law school and it's not even a T14 but I think Mal is right. It's all the same crap. Some people will suck, some people will be really cool, most people will be totally fine. Just put your head down and work, no one is going to like tear pages out of books or anything. You'll be fine.

[bdubs]

I heard that Harvard is kind of competitive in a relative sense. It's a huge class and a lot of people who think very highly of themselves. Maybe was from a biased source though (transfer).

[jbagelboy]

If I were to order it from least to most competitive, (and I've ordered from least to most competitive within each group as well):

Yale - BerkeleyStanford - DukeNYUNorthwesternMichigan - HarvardVirginiaPenn - ChicagoColumbiaGeorgetownCornell

The way my friend at SLS described her 1L year it seemed just as 'competitive' and stressful as my time at columbia. It's probably more of a personality thing, not sure a list like this is at all informative.

[elterrible78]

Mal is pretty much spot-on with his curiously serious posts, at least with regards to U of C. Beep, too, now that I think of it. And I highly doubt the experience is meaningfully different anywhere else. Most of the competitiveness/stress is in your own head, and it's what you make of it.

A.Nony.Mouse's point about schools higher up the chain being less competitive absolutely should be true, theoretically, but I think reality is probably somewhat different, if not just because of the nature of the students who get into those schools. Whereas you might get competition at a lower ranked school for a small handful of firm jobs, or clerkships, at the higher ranked schools the "prize" just takes a different shape, so you get people competing for a small handful of jobs at Wachtell, or a SCOTUS clerkship, or something.

Again, though, I think the competition is what you make of it. If you can keep some perspective, you'll be fine. You're never going to see anything like people ripping pages out of books in the library or any of that shit. What has tended to get to people is stuff like the people in that library until midnight, or people running their yaps in class like they're fucking Cardozo, etc.

The people I know who did best 1L year (and I'll caveat this by saying I only know how a small % of us did) were absolutely not the ones talking in class incessantly, pestering the professor on breaks, clogging up office hours, or living in the library.

All this to just say, one final time, that the "competitive environment" is always going to be there, in any school. How it manifests itself in your life is very much up to you, though.

[Cicero76]

I'm pretty sure all law schools are competitive to some extent, just some have more of a veneer of collegiality than others. At Yale, for example, I can easily see why there was unrest that led to grading reform back in the sixties. If we had grades here, we would be the absolute worst people in the world. It really does make all the difference. As is, most people are super cooperative about classes and whatnot, but I'd be lying if I said there weren't nutty gunners going absolutely all-out on clerkship and professor relationships and clinics. I made the mistake of taking a class that attracted mostly these kind of people last semester, and it was pretty unpleasant at times. A lot of raising your hand and expounding on the depth of your knowledge and insight for ten minutes at a time. If you pick your classes better you can avoid a lot of that though.

[suzige]

this thread made me lol. totally WRONG field to be going into if you desire to avoid overly competitive pple.

[star fox]

Law schools are all the same.

I'm going to guess this is correct. You'll find striver trash and chill people everywhere. Random makeup of class personality types is probably going to change year to year. Sorry about chances of reaching your professional goals and debt.

[BullShitWithBravado]

Cornell is pretty competitive. We take graded LR and 4 substantive courses each 1L semester. Then 2L/3L classes are curved. Not enough journals for everyone.

I felt like people here were competitive. Shit got shady towards finals.

I'd be surprised if anyone can give you a good answer because very few people attend 2L t14's for law school let alone during 1L, the most important year.

I found the opposite to be true (but I've heard that each class is different). At least in my section a lot of people shared notes and helped each other out during 1L. The mandatory curve during 2L and 3L sucks, but you can avoid difficult curves by choosing your classes wisely. I am curious to know how shit got shady during finals though...

[igo2northwestern]

If I were to order it from least to most competitive, (and I've ordered from least to most competitive within each group as well):

Yale - BerkeleyStanford - DukeNYUNorthwesternMichigan - HarvardVirginiaPenn - ChicagoColumbiaGeorgetownCornell

The way my friend at SLS described her 1L year it seemed just as 'competitive' and stressful as my time at columbia. It's probably more of a personality thing, not sure a list like this is at all informative.

Yeah, I agree, the list by itself doesn't say very much. But I think this thread has covered a great deal about the schools' reputations so there's a lot of context. OP can probably see that I put Y there because of the lack of grades, Berk for the CA reputation that another poster noted as well, NU/NYU/Mich/Duke I have there mostly from ASWs and the feel I got from the students. You disagreed with Stanford, which is understandable from your friend's experience, but I put them close to the front because I actually have a lot of friends there who tell me a different story (and my school visit gave me that vibe).

I think HLS and Virginia are pretty reasonable placements, and comments in this thread confirm it for the most part. Four friends at Penn + a few school visits gave me the sense that it's pretty competitive there, although another poster disagreed. And the last group of schools seem to have a reputation that people would probably confirm.

At the end of the day, it all comes down to my personal experience visiting schools and the friends that I have there. I'm pretty sure I have a greater exposure to those schools than most people, so I think it was a fair shot at putting something together. Pretty sure anyone's comments/judgments come from friends & ASWs, so I'm not sure my explanations would add any more value than what's been said.