Comptetitve for T-14?

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Just finished my first year at American.  I got into GULC with my first semester grades (very happy about this).

But, my second semester grades set me back a little bit and put me around the top 10-13 percent overall for my 1L year. 

Where else might I be competitive? Not wasting app fees on HYS, but are Columbia, NYU, and Chi out of the question?     

How about other schools in the T14?

Many thanks.

[ToTransferOrNot]

To be honest, I would take GULC and run in your situation. I can't see you doing too well in the T10 with 10% from American, and I can't think of any reason why you would Cornell or Duke over GULC.

[lawtransfer22]

Ok, how competitive do you all think I would be: T4 (not cooley)GPA between 3.8-3.9, top 1-2% (official rankings not out yet, between 1-5 out of ~275), a few book awards (i think others call them calis), great lors. I applied to GULC EA and was deferred now I am looking at applying to Mich, Vir, and Berkeley (huge long shoot but I am going to make them tell me no). Are these bad choices as far as within the T14, would i have a better shoot at some of the other T14 northwestern, penn, or so on? Problem here is at close to $90 a pop I really cannot afford to apply to very many of them. If not T14 what about schools like Vandy or should I focus far down the ladder (if so how far)?

[thorc954]

Ok, how competitive do you all think I would be: T4 (not cooley)GPA between 3.8-3.9, top 1-2% (official rankings not out yet, between 1-5 out of ~275), a few book awards (i think others call them calis), great lors. I applied to GULC EA and was deferred now I am looking at applying to Mich, Vir, and Berkeley (huge long shoot but I am going to make them tell me no). Are these bad choices as far as within the T14, would i have a better shoot at some of the other T14 northwestern, penn, or so on? Problem here is at close to $90 a pop I really cannot afford to apply to very many of them. If not T14 what about schools like Vandy or should I focus far down the ladder (if so how far)?

I dont normally do this, but it is "shot."  Not a typo, since you did it twice.

Congrats on the good grades.  I would suggest applying pretty broadly.  Its expensive, but it is worth it.  Transfer acceptances are incredibly random. 

[ToTransferOrNot]

I don't understand the whole "I can't afford to put in many applications" thing.

You are applying to transfer. This is one of the most important application processes of your life; to be frank, it is probably even more important than the first round, since your LSAT/UGrad GPA pretty much determined your fate then. There are more people with good numbers trying to transfer than there are slots to accomodate them. Spend the money and apply broadly. Do whatever you have to do; work a temp job for a few weeks if you need to, for christ's sake. Coming up with $1,000 is not difficult, for something as important as this.

[M_Cool]

^Agreed if you are at a T4.  You gotta spend the $$ now and get the F out of there.

Not so much agreed in cases where you aren't even sure whether it will be worth transferring if you get in.  For instance, I have a 1L SA job and also several connections in bigger firms in this area.  I really like my prospects of landing a big law job staying where I'm at.  I'm not going to go spend $2,000 on applications just because a school is ranked higher than mine.  I've targeted a few select T14 schools and if I get in, great, and if not, I'm fine.