I agree with pretty much all of this. Go to a school you want to go to in an area you want to be in. You only live once and there is more to life than money. Also solid advice on attending the ASW.the lantern wrote:real talk: you have a 160 and a 2.7. even if you are a URM, it sounds incredibly entitled to think that you should be able to just call up a school and expect them to offer them more $ for you. Go to the school that gives you the best career options or is located where you want to work. There are lots of people who clearly came to CU because it was either the highest ranked school or offered them the most money, and I don't think many of these people are happy. I came to CU because I wanted to come to CU, and I love it here and everything has worked out great for me.tch562 wrote:So, how do you tell the Dean Weiser that you love the school, but that you're gonna need more money to accept without sounding entitled (which I'm NOT nor do I feel i am), sleazy, or like you're begging? I keep getting emails and calls from professors and student leaders, and now the Dean saying how they really would like me to go there, but I'm not sure I can turn down a full-ride (though the school isn't similarly ranked). Any suggestions?
If you care, here is what I"d recommend. Hold off on requesting a bigger scholarship. Go to an Accepted students day. I'm not sure if they offer to pay for travel for certain applicants -- they didn't for me. After your ASD, email and tell them how you really, really enjoyed the visit and really liked the school, but you are facing a difficult choice because of a full scholarship offer from another school. I think if you come at them from this angle, it might come off sounding a lot better than just calling up and demanding more money (or you will go somewhere else). Also, an extra benefit is that maybe you'll get to Boulder and realize you either love it or hate it, and this could make any decision you ultimately have to make a little easier.
Edit: I just looked a little more at your profile. If the choice you're struggling to make is between a full ride at MSU and a partial scholarship at CU, I think you're not basing your decision on the right factors. MSU and CU are NOT going to place you outside of their immediate geographic area (unless you're in the top 5-20% and are lucky enough to get hired by the small number of national firms that interview at CU). I grew up in northern Ohio, know the area, etc. I now live in Boulder. These two places (the economy, the people, the type of things people do for fun, the culture, etc.) are ENTIRELY different, like night and day. I would encourage you to look beyond money/ranking and consider other factors as well. Going to CU or MSU for free will still be a shitty decision if you can't get (1) the type of job you want in (2) the region that you want.
http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNL ... aw_Schools
If you look at this ^^, you will see that both MSU and CU placed FIVE (5) graduate in NLJ 250 firms (read: 5 people *potentially* left the area). Now, there are going to be others who leave the geographic area due to personal connections, federal government work, or sheer dedication to finding work outside of the Mountain West, but you should go to a school like CU or MSU under the assumption that your marketability (and potential to obtain post-graduation employment) will be greatest in your immediate geographic region.
Oh, and on a personal note, I would rather set my money on fire than willingly live in East Lansing/Michigan generally.
On a completely unrelated side-note regarding the link you posted, the NLJ go-to law school thing pretty much sucks. Not only does it skew towards areas with larger firms, but it is filled with inaccuracies. You can plainly see from CU's ABA data that at least 8 students were in NLJ 250 firms in 2011 instead of the 3 we were credited with last year, as there were 8 graduates in firms of 250+ and the 250th firm in the NLJ 250 only has 160 graduates... This came up at a CSO meeting a few weeks ago and they seemed to think we had 13, but I don't know how they arrived at that number of five for 2012. Again this is all irrelevant to choosing between MSU and CU as you probably won't end up at these firms from either school, but the lack of fact checking from the national law journal is pretty shocking, and the fact that the "go-to" list has been trumped up on TLS as much as it has deserves some review.
