Maryland In-state + 30k vs. UNC sticker vs. BU sticker Forum

[thegolgiapparatus]

Hi I was just looking to get some advice about the above schools. I am interested in health law and have a pretty good offer from Maryland and have a few faculty members I know there personally and are interested in doing research with me. My plan is to work in academic Bioethics after law school and complete an MPH as a joint degree. I was curious if anyone could speak to the reputation of UNC or BU and whether it either school would justify paying sticker for over a solid offer from Maryland. Thanks in advance!

[sundontshine]

Where do you want to live after graduation?

[bulinus]

What is 'academic bioethics', job-wise? I doubt very much that you can score more than a part-time adjunct professorship with JD/MPH from Maryland.

[03152016]

You'd have better luck in the Choosing forum: http://top-law-schools.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=1

[thegolgiapparatus]

By academic bioethics I mean a center like http://medicalethics.med.upenn.edu/. I worked at a similar center for 4 years and have a handful of publications. I plan on publishing while in school and applying to postdoctoral fellowships after. I would prefer living in the DVM area but I have family in the South so NC would not be bad. I am also considering practicing law full time as I am realistic about the difficulty of landing postdoc fellowships in the field. Thanks for all the advice so far!

[bulinus]

Yeah, but look at the training for the people who work at that place.

http://medicalethics.med.upenn.edu/people/faculty

The handful of JDs all have PhDs. Since writing about bioethics is something you like and want to continue to do, it's not clear to me why you aren't doing a PhD in philosophy or bioethics. Law school is a very oblique approach to that goal. Moreover, the PhD programs are at least largely going to be funded, and it looks like your prior WE and publiciations would be respected by grad school admissions officers, which is not the case for LS. And, yeah, getting an NIH post-doc might be a long shot, but at the very least you wouldn't be swimming in debt if you missed.