Was deciding last year between BC/BU/GW. Picked BU. You'll get a better experience here and it's not as competitive at GW. Lots of gunners there I heard.
GW is much more national than BU. Also, if you could get into GW, you should also have been able to get into BC.
i recently graduated from gw law. i think that it's generally fair to describe it as a "gunnertopia," a term that seems applicable in the sense that many gw law students are relatively type a and at least, in some non-marginal capacity, competitive. does this mean that if you're a semi-decent and reasonably nice person you're doomed de facto to 3 years of misery and loneliness? hardly. i made some excellent friends there with whom i still converse with on an almost daily basis. and even if you struggle to find friends at gw law, the fact remains that you are still in DC. law school does not have to be the conducive crutch by which the entirety of your social life is maintained. is the overly crowded to the point that students are "crammed in" like sardines? no. yes, the student body is large and yes, the leather lounge and 2nd floor reading areas become crowded during peak periods. is it so bad that the facilities are inaccessible? again, no. i never once had a problem finding a decent and quiet area to study at in the library. "i bet you were at laest rubbing elbows with the guy next to you .. right?" again, no. it just isn't that bad. and besides, we're comparing the facilities to those of bu. i haven't been there, but my friend who graduated from there describes the building as "archaic" and "awful." i don't know if either term is fair, or if they even describe the crowding situation, but i doubt that the situation at gw law is awful doom and gloom thunder and lightning and bu law presents nothing but capacious open fields with rivers of golden honey. i suggest that you take a tour of both before deciding.gw vs. gt: yes, gt is the better school. yes, gt will always be the better school. yes, gw law has awful lay prestige. no one has heard of gw on the west coast. my friends think that i either attend george mason or georgetown. my thoughts on this 1) if you're attending for the cocktail party "wow" factor, i suggest that you reevaluate your decision to attend law school in its entirety, 2) it's relatively safe to say that gw is a "great" if not "elite" law school. how so? look at the #ers: over the course of the past 15 years or so, we have consistently been a t20 school, our median LSAT and GPA #ers are higher than all other non t14 schools (sig higher than bu's, slighlty higher than ucla, ut, and vandy), we place 40% of our graduating class into NLJ 250 firms (more so than bu's - the notion, btw, that "half" of gw biglaw attnys are patent prosecution qualfied is absurd; only a very small % of my class had the requisite technical background to receive the IP "bump;" those attempting to break into IP (patent lit, TM, (c)) without tech backgrounds face a serious uphill battle given the difficulty of breaking into "soft" IP), we host the #3 IP program (does bu have any comparatively well-respected specialty program?), and, geographical preferences aside, we're located in the heart of a "superior" legal market, and 3) i have never once felt disadvantaged by gw's poo lay prestige in the legal world. the judge who i clerked for respected my opinion and published my work with only insignificant minor revision. @ teh nyc biglaw firm that i summered at, i was treated the same (in terms of workload and quality of work) as those from t14 schools and those from t30 schools with superior lay prestige and general name recognition. anyway, the point is that those who "know" (i.e. practicing attorneys and the like) give gw law (from my experience) its due. yeah, the associated lay prestige would have been nice, but is it really necessary for the advancement of my career? i stand to earn 195k this year. you tell me. LASTLY: am i feeding you the company line? am i asking you to drink the claque-brewed corporate kool-aid? no. facts are facts: if you want guarantees, go to HYS. oh wait, you didn't get a 177 on the LSAT? yeah, me neither. if you want a guarantee coming out of gw law, you must finish in the top 15%. top 35% will give you an excellent shot at success, but top 15% is your only guarantee. anything less than top 35% places you in the "iffy" zone [note: this pertains to biglaw "market rate" prospects]. can you still achieve market rate coming out of the this section of the class? yeah, but it's a crap shoot. is 180k in debt worth a possible crap shoot? that's up to you.why the tirade? because i feel as if gw generally receives a bad rap. the person who transferred to uva from gw obviously **hated** his / her time there. fair enough, it happens. all the same, i'd be hesitant to rely on his/her opinion alone. at least now you have a counterpoint.lastly lastly, bu and gw aren't really national to begin with. that having been said, both schools have regional interview programs (CA regiona, NY regional, FL regional .. maybe a couple others, i'm not sure). if you're curious to see how the schools stack up against one another, request a list of firms that participate in the regional interview programs from both schools. also, if you're interested in one firm in particular, vist http://www.nalp.org/ and look to see where that firm recruits from. i seriously doubt that there is a "dominance" to be seen (looking @ NY and CA firms), but if i had to bet, i'd put my money on GW showing up more often than BU ..
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