FIU or Case Western?

[pastor of muppets]

Put me in the FIU camp.  The fact that it is in the region you want to live in is reason enough, yet alone when you factor in the substantial difference in cost.  9K/year for law school is a screaming good deal.

[biomed engineer]

I spent four years at Notre Dame.  I now live in Florida (Tallahassee).  I can tell you that the midwest is MUCH colder than Miami, FL.  I have noticed that people from Miami struggled with the moderate decrease in temperature during the winter at Tallahassee.  Can you imagine how those same people would feel if they had to spend a winter at Toledo or Cleveland or South Bend or Chicago? 

If you were accepted at Northwestern or Michigan or U of Chicago, then they would be harder to ignore.  They would seem viable despite the cold.  But between Case Western and FIU, the latter seems much better.  Perhaps you can do some kind of LLM after you graduate or a clerkship.  Or you could do a year there and transfer if you stay in the top 5% or so if you decide you don't like it (saving money in the meantime).   

[signed publius]

Weather shouldn't be a deciding factor in your law school decision.  However, I think that we Clevelanders - at least us Case undergrads - did have a propensity toward SAD during the city's six-month winters.  People adapt, and looking back, I think that part of our griping stemmed from occasional bouts of misery over our schoolwork.  I think that Case's grad students are much more well-adjusted.  Case's peculiar undergraduate population is a function of its students' focuses on engineering and pre-med.  So make your decision with your education in mind, discounting things like the weather.

[->Soon]

id say the above is totally untrue

if you dont like a certain type of weather, moving somewhere youd be miserable would not be a good idea


if i got a free ride at harvard (never happening) i couldnt go, just because the weather would make me so miserable i know id drop out.

[guizot]

FIU will certainly be an accredited law school soon and will easily be Tier 3.  It may nose up to the lower reaches of Tier 2 before long.  If you want to practice in FL, go there.  For everywhere else, I repeat, Case Western Reserve is a major, prestigious university.  Every well-educated person I have ever met knows that.  If you get a good scholarship to mitigate the outrageous tuition, go there.  The reputation of the outstanding university rubs off on the merely good law school.

No one outside of Florida knows FIU from a hole in the ground, nor will FIU ever become a top university.  Florida State is consistently ranked below Case Western Reserve.  Where does that leave FIU?

[caveman924]

FIU will certainly be an accredited law school soon and will easily be Tier 3.  It may nose up to the lower reaches of Tier 2 before long.  If you want to practice in FL, go there.  For everywhere else, I repeat, Case Western Reserve is a major, prestigious university.  Every well-educated person I have ever met knows that.  If you get a good scholarship to mitigate the outrageous tuition, go there.  The reputation of the outstanding university rubs off on the merely good law school.

No one outside of Florida knows FIU from a hole in the ground, nor will FIU ever become a top university.  Florida State is consistently ranked below Case Western Reserve.  Where does that leave FIU?

FIU will certainly be an accredited school and soon be Tier 3??? It's been fully accredited already since about 2004 and was instantly given Tier 3 by USNews. One of the only schools to first appear on their ranking system at Tier 3. But it is true FIU is not well known outside of Florida. However, FIU is making a big deal of their graduate programs. They invested a lot into the school with a new building which is really state of the art. And they plan on opening a medical school soon as well. With this being said, while not necessarily well known now I believe it will be in about 5-10 years or so. Case on the other hand I do not know too well about them but I do know about them. What I mean is that I only stumbled across FIU while seeing what is located in Miami, Case Western I have heard of from numerous people in Detroit, New York and Toronto, CANADA. So Case does carry better outside of it's geographical location.