Is Iowa a national or regional school?

[Ninja1]

Lots of schools have a few alumni everywhere. FSU claims to have alumni in every state except South Dakota, for example.

[SamE397]

According to ABA data only a third of the 2007 graduating class stayed in Iowa but FWIW Iowa was the biggest placement market and there was 7% unemployment. I wouldn't say it's crazy to go Iowa and aim to land to a job in say Chicago but if you're primarily interested in big markets outside of Iowa it's hard for me to see what Iowa would offer that would make it better than a school that's closer to or in one of those markets like Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin, or IU Bloomington. 

[likewise]

According to ABA data only a third of the 2007 graduating class stayed in Iowa but FWIW Iowa was the biggest placement market and there was 7% unemployment. I wouldn't say it's crazy to go Iowa and aim to land to a job in Chicago but if you're primarily interested in big markets outside of Iowa it's hard for me to see what Iowa would offer that would make it better than a school that's closer to or in one of those markets like Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin, or IU Bloomington. 

FWIW, Minneapolis / St. Paul and Bloomington are all further from Chicago than Iowa City.

Iowa is highly regarded in the Chicago market.

[mmc]

I'm an Iowa Law alum.  Some of my law school friends practice in Iowa - Des Moines, Quad-Cities, etc.  Some went to Phoenix, some to Minneapolis, some to Austin, some to DC, some to NYC, one was an assistant DA in Boston, and I'm in-house corporate counsel at a Fortune 500 company in Silicon Valley. 

While many stay in the midwest, some of us do escape.  (I'm actually fond of the midwest.)

The alumni notes give a sense of where some Iowa alum are now:  http://www.law.uiowa.edu/advocate/ISSUES/volume-47/summer-08/pdfs/alumni-news.pdf

[vap]

Iowa is not a national school because, if you don't have stellar grades, you must have ties to an area outside the Midwest to get a job in that area.

For example, you could go to a top 10 school and probably get a job in any major market without prior connections to that market and without stellar grades.

The same can not be said for Iowa nor any other generic tier 1 school.

[SamE397]

According to ABA data only a third of the 2007 graduating class stayed in Iowa but FWIW Iowa was the biggest placement market and there was 7% unemployment. I wouldn't say it's crazy to go Iowa and aim to land to a job in Chicago but if you're primarily interested in big markets outside of Iowa it's hard for me to see what Iowa would offer that would make it better than a school that's closer to or in one of those markets like Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin, or IU Bloomington. 

FWIW, Minneapolis / St. Paul and Bloomington are all further from Chicago than Iowa City.

Iowa is highly regarded in the Chicago market.

The Bloomington comparison was a mistake and I was thinking of Minneapolis/St. Paul as also being a larger market in the context of my statements. Granted it's not Chicago but it's not Des Moines either.

I'm sure Iowa's a solid school but if your target is to be in  a big firm it's hard for me to see what it offers that would make it better than most other similarly ranked schools. IMO the major benefit from a career prospective of going to Iowa would be that it would give you better positioning in Iowa. On the other side there are of course other issues that are not strictly speaking career related such as debt that should factor into where one chooses to go to school.

I guess what I felt like I was hearing from the original poster and the question being asked was basically that he liked university of Iowa but didn't want to stay in Iowa after graduation. If that's the case money aside I say why not just go somewhere else where you would be more happy staying after graduation? 

I'm sure it's possible to go to Iowa and land a job outside of Iowa but that shouldn't be the question the question should be how does one school stack up versus another in terms of helping someone achieve goals. 

[iahurricane]

According to ABA data only a third of the 2007 graduating class stayed in Iowa but FWIW Iowa was the biggest placement market and there was 7% unemployment. I wouldn't say it's crazy to go Iowa and aim to land to a job in Chicago but if you're primarily interested in big markets outside of Iowa it's hard for me to see what Iowa would offer that would make it better than a school that's closer to or in one of those markets like Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin, or IU Bloomington. 

FWIW, Minneapolis / St. Paul and Bloomington are all further from Chicago than Iowa City.

Iowa is highly regarded in the Chicago market.

The Bloomington comparison was a mistake and I was thinking of Minneapolis/St. Paul as also being a larger market in the context of my statements. Granted it's not Chicago but it's not Des Moines either.

I'm sure Iowa's a solid school but if your target is to be in  a big firm it's hard for me to see what it offers that would make it better than most other similarly ranked schools. IMO the major benefit from a career prospective of going to Iowa would be that it would give you better positioning in Iowa. On the other side there are of course other issues that are not strictly speaking career related such as debt that should factor into where one chooses to go to school.

I guess what I felt like I was hearing from the original poster and the question being asked was basically that he liked university of Iowa but didn't want to stay in Iowa after graduation. If that's the case money aside I say why not just go somewhere else where you would be more happy staying after graduation? 

I'm sure it's possible to go to Iowa and land a job outside of Iowa but that shouldn't be the question the question should be how does one school stack up versus another in terms of helping someone achieve goals. 

Well, the main reason I am interested in Iowa was because it is ranked the highest by far out of the 3  schools I applied to (SMU and Houston are the other). I also get instate tuition for Iowa.

From the searches I've done on this board it seems like tey do have some alumni that go to places like Phoenix, Miami, and Las Vegas- all 3 places I wouldn't mind practiing. However, if these placements require being near the top of the class, I would probably go to a Texas school instead. I would be satisfied if I finished in he middle of the class and practiced in a midsized firm in Texas. I would not be satisfied if I graduated in the middle of the class at Iowa and had to stay in the midwest. So my main question I guess was whether or not the middle of Iowa's class had mobility outside the midwest.

[Bosox]

Don't go to Iowa unless you want to work in Iowa.  You are not going to get BigLaw fro Iowa.  You should try to get into BC GW or ND if you can.  Iowa does not have the placement that these similarly ranked schools have.

[nealric]

There only 14 true national schools and some might even argue that Georgetown is really not a national school.

You can carp all you want about the placement at GULC as compared to the rest of the T14, but it is most certainly a national school in the sense that it allows for placement anywhere in the country. It is more national than Cornell (which sends a huge percentage of grads to New York).

[CTL]

There only 14 true national schools and some might even argue that Georgetown is really not a national school.

You can carp all you want about the placement at GULC as compared to the rest of the T14, but it is most certainly a national school in the sense that it allows for placement anywhere in the country. It is more national than Cornell (which sends a huge percentage of grads to New York).

They are both national.  I don't think one is MORE national than another.  You're either national, or you're not, if having national reach means '[allowing] for placement anywhere in the country'.  It's not fair to say Georgetown or Cornell are MORE national than one another.  And yea, GULC is without a doubt a national school.  Anyone who says that it isn't is seriously misinformed.