Deleted. Forum

[barley]

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[twenty]

Quality of life has significantly less to do with the school and significantly more to do with the circumstances you attend the school under, barring some notable outliers (i.e, if you despise cold weather, maybe don't go to Cornell or Michigan). If you go to a regional school with the expectation of biglaw/transferring, you're going to be absolutely miserable trying to "gun" for top grades. If you go to a T14 school with the feeling that you can't afford to strike out because of your debt load, you're not going to have a good time.

[swampman]

The poll won't be reliable, just people voting for their own schools. In reality, UVA is the only T14 school that has a high quality of life and happy students.

[barley]

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[pancakes3]

Happiness comes from within.

TCR is UVa though.

[rnoodles]

Not sure how accurate this will be for law school, but a friend's brother went to Columbia med and he was absolutely miserable there. Also, I think I remember reading somewhere that Cornell had one of the highest suicide rates in the country unfortunately (for UG, I believe).

Regionally, when I was applying I applied to SMU and they kept noting how they were ranked #1 in student satisfaction.

[GreenEggs]

You can't possibly compare med school experiences to law school. Also Col med is like in inwood

[kaiser]

How could people possibly answer this unless they have gone to multiple of these schools to compare?

[swampman]

Happiness comes from within.

TCR is UVa though.

That's true, but I think it's equally true that unhappiness sometimes comes from without. And while it is almost certainly true that UVa has the happiest students, it's also true that it doesn't have the unhappiest students. All things that OP should consider.

[landshoes]

The students I know who went to NYU liked it.

One miserable (despite a great fedgov job) Columbia alum told me "the students at NYU have a lot of fun...maybe too much fun."

Anyway, you shouldn't pick what school to go to based on this. If you even got into all of these schools, your overall quality of life after law school has to be balanced with a highly subjective (and constantly changing) sense of "fit".

[sandwhich]

The students I know who went to NYU liked it.

One miserable (despite a great fedgov job) Columbia alum told me "the students at NYU have a lot of fun...maybe too much fun."

Anyway, you shouldn't pick what school to go to based on this. If you even got into all of these schools, your overall quality of life after law school has to be balanced with a highly subjective (and constantly changing) sense of "fit".

http://youtu.be/uHKujqyktJc

[smaug]

this is a bad way to compare schools, but earnestly:

where people are most likely to get a job they want

i still don't understand where the CLS students are miserable mythos comes from

[barley]

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[Holly Golightly]

NU was a pretty drunk and happy place until finals.

[thatsnotmyname]

How could people possibly answer this unless they have gone to multiple of these schools to compare?

Because people are treating the question as: "Which school do you perceive as having the happiest students?" I'd imagine it's really difficult to do any sort of accurate, scientific study on which schools have the happiest students anyways. How do you measure happiness? Anyways, as an 0L I can tell you that I based my responses entirely off of my visits to T14 schools, talking to current students, alumni, and faculty. Really, anecdotes is all I could base this off of and all that I think anyone else could base their response off of.

So my perception of happiness at these schools based off of anecdotes (which does not even encompass all of the T14):

UChicago: Probably the school where the students seem to be most unhappy. The alumni that I know don't look back on their time very fondly and openly admit that they think it is a much more intense experience than other top schools. Definitely not the right environment if you're looking for a fun place and happy students. However, if you're the type of person who enjoys/thrives off of intellectual discussions outside of the classroom and a competitive/stressful academic environment this place would be a great fit for you.

Columbia: Very similar to UChicago. Also a very studious bunch who enjoy continuing intellectual discussions well beyond the walls of the classroom and thrive in a competitive academic environment. I think the Columbia students are as close to being as unhappy as the UChicago bunch.

NYU: Definitely the happiest students out of CCN by a large margin. The NYU kids I met during ASW just overall seemed much more social, outgoing, and less pretentious than the CC kids (definitely less pretentious than the Columbia kids). I have the perception that NYU is overall less of a pressure-cooker academic environment and that NYU kids went out and partied a lot more and were into talking about things other than school/academics.

Berkeley: Based on ASW and talking to alumni definitely got the feeling that this was a relatively laid back school compared to its peers where it was definitely possible to have fun. I was actually shocked by how laid back it was based on the alumni who I spoke to, it seems like a lot of kids do the bare minimum required. Also, spoke to alumni about the perceived liberal bend of the school and they told me that it's very real. It also helps a lot that the school is in perfect weather all the time California and a short-drive from San Francisco. Overall, I actually think Berkeley could be the school that a lot of prospective law students could be the happiest at. I think it's also the type of school where certain types could be alienated at if they are very conservative.

Virginia: Definitely the most "frat hard" and alcohol-centric top law school which for a lot of college kids would translate into the most fun school. This was the school where current students and alumni talked the most about how much they loved their school. I heard the mantra "work hard, party hard" on multiple occasions when people described UVA. It definitely seems that either they or Berkeley party the most out of any of the top law schools. I will say that UVA Law students seemed to have much more school spirit than Berkeley students though for whatever reason. I think UVA definitely has worse weather than Berkeley but definitely better than the harsh winters you can get at CCN, Northwestern, Michigan, or Cornell. UVA is also in the middle of nowhere Virginia whereas Berkeley is right outside of San Francisco. UVA students also have a much more politically diverse set of views compared to Berkeley. Virginia's student body, however, is not as ethnically diverse as Berkeley's. Basically the point that I'm getting at is I think you could make an argument for Berkeley or UVA as happiest students depending on what you're looking for and where you might fit in better.

Northwestern: Alumni that I spoke to really seemed to look back fondly upon Northwestern Law. Definitely an older, more mature student body where a lot of people have families and things going on outside of law school to keep them busy, so I don't think that their lives revolve around the law school the way they do at a lot of places. Because of this I got the sense that Northwestern students aren't really looking to party with one another as much as schools with younger student bodies. I didn't really get the sense that the school was a pressure cooker either where students were stressed, which may be a result of the fact that the students are older for the most part and have probably faced more stressful situations in the real world. Overall the students here seemed relatively happy or at least not unhappy.

Georgetown: Tough to say. I didn't really get the sense that Georgetown students were particularly happy or unhappy when I visited. Maybe the school and student body is so big that it's tough to get a real feel of what the "average" Georgetown student is like and what they like to do. So, overall I'd probably guess that no matter who you are you can probably find a group of similar students and be happy.

So, to recap my happiness rankings (in order from most to least happy students) are as follows:

Berkeley/Virginia
NYU
Northwestern/Georgetown
Columbia/UChicago

[Holly Golightly]

Northwestern: Alumni that I spoke to really seemed to look back fondly upon Northwestern Law. Definitely an older, more mature student body where a lot of people have families and things going on outside of law school to keep them busy, so I don't think that their lives revolve around the law school the way they do at a lot of places. Because of this I got the sense that Northwestern students aren't really looking to party with one another as much as schools with younger student bodies. I didn't really get the sense that the school was a pressure cooker either where students were stressed, which may be a result of the fact that the students are older for the most part and have probably faced more stressful situations in the real world. Overall the students here seemed relatively happy or at least not unhappy.

Except for the bolded, fairly accurate. The bolded is 100% wrong. Law school was the drunken undergrad experience I never had.

[smaug]

Yeah, I'm too lazy to champion defenses of these schools, but go to admitted students weekends, draw your own conclusions.

I only ever bristle at the contentions about NYU because I know multiple people who went there and were deeply unhappy, just as I know people who went to CLS and were unhappy.

These schools are pulling from the exact same pool of students. There's no discernible personality filter. There's no reason for one school to have a different atmosphere than another, other than differences in the institution itself (e.g., faculty) or outcome (e.g., how hard do you need to gun to get a job).

Also Chicago seems like a unique hell to me, but that's due to the grading scale/choices by the administration.

Rather than drawing these conclusions from second and third hand anecdote, look at something real. Look at whether they have graded LPW. Look at student groups. Look at jobs.

[thatsnotmyname]

These schools are pulling from the exact same pool of students. There's no discernible personality filter. There's no reason for one school to have a different atmosphere than another, other than differences in the institution itself (e.g., faculty) or outcome (e.g., how hard do you need to gun to get a job).

The schools are pulling from the exact same pool of students, however, I disagree that there's no reason for each of these schools to have a different atmosphere from one another. Each of these schools has their own culture that tends to attract certain kinds of students. I don't know how you can visit different schools and not pick up on it or disregard it. Visit UChicago and then visit Berkeley and tell me you can't tell that the experience each law school offers isn't targeted towards two very different types of personalities. Why UChicago tends to attract more conservative students who have intellectual passions and seem like they like to study all day versus why Berkeley tends to attract uber liberal students who like to go out a lot and seem to take their studies lightly relative to their peers is a different matter. But I would argue that a student's law school experience and how much they enjoyed it can be radically different depending on what school they attend. Some people will be unhappy no matter where they go and some people will be happy no matter where they go, but it doesn't mean that the personality/culture of each school is something that should be disregarded for all students in the decision making process.

Just to clarify I'm also not saying that going to UVA or Berkeley will magically make students more happy. In fact, going to one of these schools when the culture/experience that the school offers is completely the opposite of what you're looking for can make you very unhappy. I'm just saying that on average based on my anecdotal experiences that the students at these schools seemed to have enjoyed their law school experiences the most.

[smaug]

yeah and I'm saying that your very subjected method of gathering anecdotes is bogus

like, i'm glad one sales pitch appealed to you more than another, but really and truly, experiences are going to be almost identical everywhere

[GreenEggs]

I also imagine it's basically the same as undergrad. Some people will be happy no matter where they go and some people will be miserable. It's the person that matters 95% of the time.

[Ron Howard]

My guess: Berkeley and NYU (especially if you are willing to spend) and UVA (especially if you are frugal). All seem like good places to be.

[kaiser]

I can only speak for NYU objectively in saying that the students there were overall really happy, had a real chill and fun attitude, and kept a solid balance of work and fun. Can't say how that compares to other schools, but in an objective sense, it was a very high quality of life.

[twenty]

Side note, I would say that I definitely would have been objectively happier having gone to a school with ungraded LRW. Graded LRW is the worst thing ever.

[jbagelboy]

this is a bad way to compare schools, but earnestly:

where people are most likely to get a job they want

i still don't understand where the CLS students are miserable mythos comes from

srsly. there are places that breed far more unhappiness.