Capital or Toledo

[siba.1]

So, my choices are between Toledo or Capital Law.  I realize that Toledo is ranked significantly higher than Capital.  However, there are a few factors: 1st of all, I have absolutely no desire to go to Toledo.  It was the least of all evils from my choices, so I chose to go there.  I applied to Capital for the heck of it much later and only just found out that I was accepted.  I just graduated from Ohio State and unfortunately was no accepted.  I work for the state senate and have the beginning of quite a significant network building in Columbus.  The city of Columbus seems to offer more opprotunities than Toledo.  My hometown is Cleveland, so the two are equidistant from that.  Toledo is about 14,000 dollars cheaper, though I have not heard what my financial aid award at either school would be yet.  I have looked at this forward and backward, and professionally, it seems to me that staying in Columbus and attending Capital makes more sense.  I may even try to transfer to OSU just for the heck of it. How much more is a Toledo degree respected than a Capital law degree?  I just had an awards dinner this past weekend, and the speaker was a federal judge who graduated from Capital.  It seems like the name recognition helps, but it's also what you make of yourself.  Personally, I always knew Capital had a law school, but I didn't know Toledo did until I started researching.  It would help me a lot of an outsider could look at this situation and give me their honest opinion.  I appreciate any help I can get!  Thanks!

[hth715]

You are literally in the same boat as me, even to the extent of wanting to transfer to OSU. I had to choose between Capital and Toledo and ending up choosing Capital for a number of personal reasons, but I liked Columbus much better than Toledo. There just seems to be more opportunity in Columbus and there are more ties to Cleveland here, which is where I went for my undergrad. I received a $10,000 scholarship at Capital which helped reduced their high private school tuition. Toldeo is ranked higher than Capital but a huge part of law school is what you make of it and how far you are willing to go to succeed. If you think you have enough drive to graduate higher at Capital than at Toledo, or meet OSU transfer qualifications, Id say go for it and welcome to the club.

[big - fat - box]

Correct. If you are an Ohio resident, go to Toledo. It doesn't make sense to pay more for Capital. Going to Capital isn't going to improve transfer prospects either.

To transfer, even to a school middling school like OSU, you will need high 1st year law school grades. If for some reason you do get high grades (unlikely b/c of the curve), you will probably have better transfer options than OSU anyway.

If you are really disatisfied with your choices, my advice would be to retake the LSAT and reapply. If you still can't get into OSU but the idea of Toledo gets you down, work hard to try to get into Cleveland State.

Even the worst schools have federal judges, so that isn't a barometer of anything. It is highly unlikely you will ever become a federal judge out of any law school (even Harvard) so it's really a non-factor.

Whichever is cheaper, period.  Employment prospects coming out of both right now are complete poo.

[ondeadlin]

I'm a rising 1L at Toledo and had a terrific experience. I'd highly recommend the school.

But it sounds like you really want to be in Columbus, and if that's where you want to be, you should probably go to Capital. If you go to Toledo just to save $$$, you'll just be miserable, and life's too short to be miserable. FWIW, Toledo has a good history of sending transfers to OSU. A classmate just told me this week of two, neither of which was in the top 10 percent of the class, one of which had almost mediocre grades.

[big - fat - box]

While you may feel better about Capital now because of the location consider these facts:

1. Neither school offers outstanding job prospects for the average student

2. When your loans go into repayment, you'll wish you would've sliced your debt in half by going to a state school.

[PSUDSL08]

I attended Capital before transferring to and graduating from a T2 school. I still keep in touch with a fair amount of people that I met at CULS during my 1L year. There are a lot of people from CULS who are unemployed. The ones who are employed outside the top 10% are either doing non-legal work or have document review positions.

Toledo is a higher ranked school and you'll save at least $42K by going there (basically $132/month before interest over 30 years), not including any reduction in the cost of living in Toledo vs. Columbus. Long story short, don't go to Capital...from a professional standpoint you have nothing to gain by going there, even if you want to work in Columbus.

[linquest]

How much more is a Toledo degree respected than a Capital law degree? 

Would you ever want to practice out of state?  I've met Toledo grads working in IL and DC, but have yet to meet someone from Capital.  Not that that's evidence of much, just thought I'd throw it out there.

I don't think there's any way you could go wrong with going to the school that's in an entirely higher tier and that's also substantially cheaper.  Definitely agree with big - fat - box on Point 2.