last i heard gw law has more money than it knows what to do with as it doesn't have to share the alumni gifts and donations that it receives with the undergrad campus (which is a feature that is somewhat unique to gw law; most law schools have to share what they get with the rest of the university). i doubt that the school would have extended the # of scholarships that it did if so doing would have bankrupted the institution within a year [forcing the school to take a huge # of transfers ... it's not like the school would have room for the inflated transfer class had the 1Ls not left en masse].

i think that maybe the exodus stems from the fact that economy has tightened up a bit and gw law students might be worried that their degree (and others similarily situated like BU, ND, Emory, etc) might be first on the chopping block in terms of law firm hirings and have thus run to programs with more prestigious names. i really have no clue though - just speculating.

with regards to our OCI, i think that it (the high # of transfers) is going to have the unfortunate impact of stunting our OCI job placement #ers. usually the top 35% or so are a "lock" for OCI placement; remove half of that 35% to other schools and all of a sudden our nlj 250 placement is going to be anemic at best [given that you are replacing a sig % of our top 20% with t2 and t3 transfers who are going to probably be placed at our near the median] which is going to have the unforatunate result of harming our overall ranking, etc etc. if the transfer problem is as severe as it seems to be this year, it'd be nice to see the admin enact an equitable result of some sort to protect our OCI - i dunno, maybe remove all of those who transferred out from the bell curve and reestablish it (i.e. bump everyone up to account for what is now a very stuntend curve). all in all, it's not good for the school.

normally i'd suggest gw as i'm biased having had recently graduated from there. however, it appears as if our current 1L class has enacted some sort of mass migration from the place and as such the school has admitted the entire western hemisphere to attend as a transfer student. you can rest assured that if i know about this the HR depts at the various firms which will be attending GW (i.e. formally george washington - now george washingTTTon [i know, i'm a bastard ]) oci certainly know about it too. i can't say that that bodes well for you (i.e. all gw law transfer generally). still, i don't know if emory is the better option re NYC biglaw. it's a tough call... 

uh yeah the fiendish guardians of all things OCI will castrate your father and consume your first born - what else could possibly happen?

i tend to think that it is. i think that maybe the whole "you shouldn't do it if you're not interested in the SM" thing is a lil overblown. log onto any firm website and start scrolling through the bios of partners. there is really only one thing from law school that seems to endure through the years: journal membership, whether law review or secondary. yeah, it may not pay dividends now, but there must be a reason as to why it follows attnys for the rest of their careers...

what's up with gw taking so many transfers this year? filling the coffers eh?