VISIT UDC BEFORE YOU MAKE ANY KIND OF DECISION!fatpeopleavenger wrote:Everyone wants to live in NYC. Plus slightly higher median salary (I know I know, schools aren't honest with their numbers and/or misleading) than UDC (except a lot of people don't regard COL). I HAVE to think the move to T3 is helping them get more apps thrown their way, whether this impact is little or big I do not know.paradox wrote: 4. My question: why does it appear that applications to CUNY have increased but the University of the District of Columbia (of which I know little) located in the District of Columbia has not seen the surge of applications despite what appears to be a curriculum and price point are similar to CUNY?
Thanks.
If my LSAT doesn't improve significantly and get rejected from CUNY, I'm going to have to consider UDC really hard considering they're a PI school as well. Except I don't think UDC has nearly the same reputation that CUNY has.
I say this because I visited UDC for their open house a few months back, and I can honestly say it was one of the most depressing places I've ever been. First, I've visited both CUNY and UDC at this point (thanks scrowell! Take him up on the tour offers, dude was awesome!) so I think I can speak to both. I went into the visit thinking UDC was going to be a DC version of CUNY. Wrong. UDC is a fourth tier school and it shows. I'd say maybe 90% of the people at the open house were prospective students over forty. And they were incredibly stupid. The school itself was miserable. I took a tour and was astonished to see that their law library is, and I kid you not, a basement room maybe forty by forty feet (with a ceiling ten feet high - it's in the basement), with a few couches and study cubicles, ONE RACK OF LAW BOOKS, and two old PCs. I asked what library functions it had. I was told the computers had an internet connection to Lexis and WestLaw. And there was a printer. LIBRARY!
Furthermore, the pitch for UDC was pretty bad. The dean of admissions spent a good deal of time trashing other schools in the city, mostly Howard and GW, because they don't require clinics for graduation as UDC does. She also dodged a question I asked her about the terrible employment stats of the school and the thirty-something percentage pass rate of a recent class. The dean of admissions was also bemoaning the fact that the city government had forced UDC Law to move buildings - they're in a new building (actually probably built in the 60s) this year that used to be a high school and they seem to fit awfully. The old building was apparently better, which I never saw.
Plus, UDC simply has a different philosophy. Yeah, their thing is public interest, and yes they require you to do a law clinic. But That's where the similarities stop. The UDC system is not CUNY; CUNY is a giant university system (3rd biggest in the country), whereas UDC is essentially the city's single community college. UDC Law (before it was called UDC Law) itself was a for-profit law school until big UDC bought it. Also, it has a TERRIBLE reputation in DC, which is the only place you'll be able to practice (CUNY is really well regarded in NYC, as others have pointed out). Finally, there's no alumni network to take advantage of.
I was going to apply, but the visit convinced me that was a terrible idea. Don't compare the two schools, because I think that's precisely what UDC wants - they've clearly seen CUNY's recent success and wanted to mirror it (i.e. the focus on PI...) despite having substantially less resources and academic talent to do so.
Also Scrowell, I got into Loyola today so my predicament is already in motion haha. But yeah everyone take a tour of CUNY, he'll give you a no BS look at the school.
*Side note* If someone from the NY area take photos of the new building (interior and exterior) and posts them in this thread, I'm sure everyone will love you.
