Wisconsin v. John Marshall

[theguy09]

I am admitted at both University of Wisconsin and John Marshall Law School in Chicago.  JMLS has offered me a full-ride scholarship plus $10K/year stipend.  UW has yet to make a scholarship offer.  Does anyone have thoughts/suggestions/advice?  Thanks

[petermharrington]

Go to Wisconsin.  You won't even have to take a state bar exam.

[StonewallJacksonFan]

WI does not require going to law school I beleive - why pay then?

[nerfco]

How much debt would you be in at graduation, if you chose Wisconsin? What class rank/GPA strings are tied to the JMLS scholarship?

[theguy09]

The JMLS scholarship is dependent on remaining in the top third of my class.  I figure, 18K/year tuition, plus about 12-15K/year in living expenses leaves me with around 90K in debt after three years.

[nerfco]

The JMLS scholarship is dependent on remaining in the top third of my class.  I figure, 18K/year tuition, plus about 12-15K/year in living expenses leaves me with around 90K in debt after three years.

You should find a JMLS student and determine if they do anything funky like place all students on scholarships in the same section, which would lower your chances of keeping the scholarship.

That said, I would think that Wisconsin has a much better reputation than JMLS. From talking to people in Chicago, JMLS is widely considered to be worse than Loyola/Depaul/Kent. So you'd be competing for jobs against grads of five different schools that people think more highly of than JMLS (counting UofC and NW). Sounds like an uphill battle, depending on what type of job you would like to do upon graduation.

[petermharrington]

Don't forget about University of Illinois grads...

I know a guy who took a full ride at Roger Williams instead of going to an elite school. You know what he's doing now?  He's unemployed wishing that he had went to a better school despite incurring a higher debt load.

[nerfco]

Don't forget about University of Illinois grads...

I know a guy who took a full ride at Roger Williams instead of going to an elite school. You know what he's doing now?  He's unemployed wishing that he had went to a better school despite incurring a higher debt load.

To be fair, I know at least a few people who wish they had attended a lower-ranked school on a full ride rather than amass a large amount of debt. It's a bad economy, and there are people without jobs from all sorts of schools.

[IPFreely]

The JMLS scholarship is dependent on remaining in the top third of my class.  I figure, 18K/year tuition, plus about 12-15K/year in living expenses leaves me with around 90K in debt after three years.

IIRC, Wisconsin gives you in-state tuition after your first year -- but I could be mistaken, so verify that. . . .

Don't count on being in the top third.  Everyone there is going to be trying their hardest.  Random bad luck can also kill you;  I spent a large chunk of my 1L year coughing my lungs out, and it had (ahem) a deleterious effect on my GPA.  (I was in about the bottom quarter in 1L;  my first semester this year I was in about the top third.)