Full tuition Roger Williams vs Partial Tuition Northeastern.

[swim15]

After reading a few other posts, figured I'd post my dilemma.

I am accepted to Northeastern with a $22,500 scholarship over three years. 
Roger Williams offered a full tuition scholarship, contingent on remaining in the top third.

I would try to buy a condo in either location, but this is much more likely to happen attending RW.

In case it matters I had a 3.75 and a 162.

I am looking to pursue public interest law, so I'm not expecting a high salary job by any means.

Thank you for any helpful opinions.  Northeastern has been my top choice for a while, but a free ride is so tough to look over.

[Sheshe]

In my opinion you should probably go with roger williams, eventhough it is considerably lower ranked than northeasern.  From what I've heard rankings only matter when it comes to biglaw. If you were looking to break into biglaw I would say northeastern, but that doesn't seem to be where your interest lies. Since you expect to be making a more modest salary, graduating free of debt should have a little more weight to you personally than a superficial ranking, prestige, or any other mumbo jumbo ppl try to feed you about avoiding lower ranked schools. One thing I would be worried about though is their bar passage rate. Its kind of on the low side. But I'm just a lowly 0L so take my advice with a grain of salt.

[snowpeach06]

I remember reading that Northeastern is big on Public Interest stuff, and you have co-op. So that would help get your foot in the door. Boston is better than Rhode Island (I did a summer program at RW when I was a kid, meh campus and area) but, overall, way more expensive. Basically, Northeastern is better, but if money is a big concern, than maybe RW.

[swim15]

Thanks for the thoughts. 

Yea, I'm trying to figure out if I'm just getting hung up on name. 

I'm hoping the bar passage rate comes second to how much a person is willing to study.  I mean, a school obviously can prepare you better than a different school, but when it comes down to it, I think bar passage rates might reflect the quality of student vs the quality of teaching.  (Sounds like I'm trying to convince myself of RW!)  Anyway, it doesn't help that I need to hear back from a couple more.  I have a feeling it'll come down to these two in the end anyway.

[BikePilot]

Law school teaching shouldn't really have anything to do with your chances on the bar - I think its really just a proxy for quality of the students attending.  I've heard a few law schools have moved to a barbri-on-steroids approach to try and boost their rankings, but this imho would be most unfortunate.