Dear Current Students who took Money over Presitge..Please Help!

[premieraw]

I think we'd all agree that the moral of this whole thread is:

Weigh your options and consider the market/debt/prestige ratio when deciding where to go.  If you want to stay in Cleveland, or MidWest I guess, then maybe Case is a better choice.  Otherwise, though, save your purse and opt for the $$!

Thanks for making this a great thread everyone. In a way i guess it really is a lottery, although for whatever reason i feel as though going in towards the top of the admitted applicant pool will give me some kind of edge, which many of you have dismissed and i find that interesting.  I guess i'm really curious to see the correlation between the "top" of the applicant pool (at a t2-3 school where there could be measurable difference between students) and 1L grades... In the end i'm going to keep reading your thoughts and weighing my options, hopefully i'll have a decision here soon!

[NYC2L]

  And, most 1 year BIGLAW associate positions hover around $125K or so I believe.  Then odds get even slimmer... 

Market rate at BIGLAW is $160 + bonus. $125 is the rate from a few years back.

[wrhssaxensemble]

I think we'd all agree that the moral of this whole thread is:

Weigh your options and consider the market/debt/prestige ratio when deciding where to go.  If you want to stay in Cleveland, or MidWest I guess, then maybe Case is a better choice.  Otherwise, though, save your purse and opt for the $$!

Thanks for making this a great thread everyone. In a way i guess it really is a lottery, although for whatever reason i feel as though going in towards the top of the admitted applicant pool will give me some kind of edge, which many of you have dismissed and i find that interesting.  I guess i'm really curious to see the correlation between the "top" of the applicant pool (at a t2-3 school where there could be measurable difference between students) and 1L grades... In the end i'm going to keep reading your thoughts and weighing my options, hopefully i'll have a decision here soon!

I am not sure how much of a correlation there actually is. I went to a large research university which is usually ranked pretty high. I graduated Phi Beta Kappa and Summa Cum Laude and was one of the highest people applying to my law school in terms of GPA and LSAT (at least I assume so based on the numbers they post on the incoming classes). I did well I guess but I wasn't the top of my class. Ultimately law school is VERY different from graduate or undergraduate schools.

[big - fat - box]

At any school, a surprising number of students with below average or dead average GPA/LSAT numbers will end of at the top of the class.

At my old tier 2, less than half of the incoming scholarship students kept their money after the first year. These were students with numbers at the top of the incoming 1L class. The majority of them wound up with average or below 1L grades.

3 students (myself included) managed to do well enough to transfer to T14 schools. One of us had above average pre law stats, but myself and another student had numbers that were very average, or maybe even below average for the school. The number one student (not me) was a guy everyone thought was "dumb" based on his comments/questions in class.

The story is the same at other schools based on what I've heard from many other law students. Basically, it's impossible to predict who will come out on top. If you attend any school banking on being at the top of your class, I think you're in for a rude awakening.

[big - fat - box]

One more thing: middling 35-50 ranked "tier 1" schools do not hold a lot of weight, generally, when looking for jobs. For the average student with average grades at schools like these, the job opportunities are going to be substantially the same as if they had gone to a tier 2/tier 3 school and earned average grades there.

[Lampshade Punk]

it doesn't matter what your numbers were that got you in.  The only thing that matters in law school is your test answer.  The amount of studying, practice tests and preparation won't even guarantee good grades.  Its about solving the "test answer mystery." I have not solved it even after doing that stupid LEEWS crap.   

[vap]

One more thing: middling 35-50 ranked "tier 1" schools do not hold a lot of weight, generally, when looking for jobs. For the average student with average grades at schools like these, the job opportunities are going to be substantially the same as if they had gone to a tier 2/tier 3 school and earned average grades there.

Very true.  I would expand that bracket, though.

[T. Durden]

if i were in your position, i would accept the money at t2 / t3 school. case western just doesn't have sufficient clout in the legal world to justify taking it at full price over the t2 or t3. in all likelihood, you'd have to place in the top 5-15% of CW to land the so called "market rate" job. at whichever t2/t3 you're considering, you'd probably have to place in the top 1-5%. you should be thus asking yourself 2 questions at this point: 1) do i even want to the market rate biglaw gig, and 2) if so, is taking CW at full price (i.e. paying 120-150k before interest) worth the additional 10% or so in "fudge factor" with regards to obtaining that biglaw job [and when you factor in the "enhanced" competition at the superior school, the greater margin becomes even less than what the hard #ers alone would indicate]?

3 years ago, i was faced with the decision of deciding between several t20s at essentially full price and a # of schools in the 30-50 for free / @ a large discount. though at the time the decision appeared to be difficult, in retrospect, it was really the easiest decision of my life. easy - why? because i had to chose between law schools that placed 40-50% of their graduating class into market rate law firm jobs vs. schools that placed 10 to maybe 20% of their graduating classes into such jobs. yes, there is the aforementioned "fudge factor" but the higher ranked schools place a decent # into clerkshps and the like (which sort of balances this out) and carry a namesake value that is, in my opinion (after spending 3 years in law school and working for both a judge and a law firm), worth every penny. it may not be fair, but it's how the game is played these days. prestige is worth its weight in gold.

all the same, i digress. if you were asking "vanderbilt at full price vs. AU with $$$?," i'd say vandy all the way. the law lends a semi-ridiculous amount of favor to the more elite schools. but your situation is CW v. t2/t3, which is, without much uncertainty, a very different issue. my advice: take the $$$$ and run

[huhwhat]

I took money to go to a low T2 over a T1 and have been very happy.  The lower the debt, the better.

[nealric]

liberal elitists

I don't want to wade into this tired debate again (T1 v. T3 with $$$), but WTF does being liberal or conservative have to do with any of this?