Take full ride & transfer later, or wait to retake LSAT?

[Administrator]

What follows is the transcript of a conversation between a student, Alex, and one of our Admissions gurus, Dave, regarding Alex's law school decision.

Alex: "Hi! I currently have a full ride offer at Case Western law school, a sticker price offer at UCONN and am waitlisted at Boulder, UMD, Northeastern, and Temple. I really want to go into either public policy or corporate BIGLAW once I graduate and I was wondering if I'm not too thrilled about my options would I be better off taking the full to case and try to transfer out if I don't like it or wait a year and retake the LSAT."

Dave Killoran: "Hey Alex, Interesting set of choices! Would you mind breaking down each school's ranking/finances/employment numbers? That's where we start with every discussion simply so the numbers are as clear as possible to you. Here are the links we use to obtain the info:

https://www.lstreports.com/schools

https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-sc ... w-rankings

http://abovethelaw.com/careers/2016-law ... -rankings/

And here's an example of how it looks for one sample school:

Florida
Tuition non-discounted (67k) - 9k scholarship = 58k debt
employment/unemployment scores 76.2/16.2
USNews: #41 ATL: 30

I'll sometimes go deeper if there are specific practice states or job types in play, and since you mentioned biglaw, if you could, add in the job type percentages from LST Reports (such as Large Firm, Small Firm, Fed Clerkship percentage, etc) as so:

Large Firm 11.2%
Small Firm 27.4%
Federal Clerkship 2.6%
Public Service 16.2%

Once you have that info posted, I have a feeling we'll start to see some of the choices rise to the top and others fall--such as the full ride at Case will knock out UConn pretty easily I keep a close eye on this blog, so when I see you post back, I'll come back in as quickly as I can and provide some further thoughts on the school choices.

Ok, while we wait for that, let's talk transferring. Here's my basic rule for transferring: There's no guarantees when it comes to transferring, so don't attend a school unless you'd be happy graduating from the school. That said, the reason there are no guarantees is because your ability to transfer will rest on your first year grades and the quality of the school you are transferring from. The grades are huge, and that can be a challenge because the typical 1L law school grade is derived solely from the final. So, nail the final and doors start to open up. But if you have one bad day or exam, then it's over. And law school is so unusual that even if you've been a great student your whole life there is no guarantee that that will continue in law school.

Now, let's say you go out and do quite well, and your class rank is high. From there, it depend son how high your rank is as well as the school you attend. In general, the rule is that the better the school, the more room you have with your grades. For example, if you were trying to transfer to #10 Duke, if you were coming from #23 Minnesota you could transfer over with slightly lower grades than if you were coming from #51 Baylor. In other words, the lower ranked your starting school is, the higher your grades need to be. And, past evidence shows that at a certain point, the top schools stop taking students. For example, Harvard just doesn't take transfer students from the bottom tier of law schools. However, when you slide down the rankings scale, it loosens up. So, when you talk about transferring up, we have to consider not just grades but that starting school as well (that said, Case would allow you to transfer into the T14, maybe even higher if you absolutely killed it on the grades).

Last note, if you transferred out of Case, you lose the scholarship at that point. You probably know that, but it's worth mentioning here for others.

Thanks and I look forward to hearing back from you!"

[keepon_keepingon]

Hi Dave,

Long time follower here. I am an international student and have been preparing for law school admission for past full one year. My first LSAT was 160 and the second attempted resulted in 166. My gap is 3.75.

As thing stands, I have close to full ride at Emory, half ride at WUSTL. I have been waitlisted at DUKE and Cornell, and I have a very strong preference towards Duke both because of the reputation of placing extremely well in BIGLAW and the weather (since I will be enrolling in law school with an 18 month old kid).

I have visited all these 4 schools and realise liked the city of Atlanta. and would any day prefer it over st louis.
That being said geography is last on my list of criteria and placement in biglaw is number one.

I would really appreciate if you could share your advice on the best choice for me here with respect to being placed in biglaw in nyc or dc. I can arrange for the sticker at duke but that would involve putting the only house I have as a collateral.

Also, I want to eventually settle in USA, and willing to take the risk if the probability is very strong at Duke ( which I generally got a sense of in general). Lastly, I did not apply to GW because its very large class size and lower ranking than Emory. However their admission team have personally sent me an email and promised substantial scholarship.

Regards

[Administrator]

Emory

• Tuition non-discounted ($53k) - almost full ride = mostly debt-free
  employment/unemployment scores 66.2/15.9
  USNews: #22 ATL: #38
  
  Large Firm 26%
  Small Firm 15.3%
  Federal Clerkship 3.9%
  Public Service 17.5%

WashU St. Louis

• Tuition non-discounted ($53k) - half scholarship = $27k debt
  employment/unemployment scores 75.4/13.6
  USNews: #18 ATL: #22
  
  Large Firm 28.5%
  Small Firm 12.3%
  Federal Clerkship 5.3%
  Public Service 11%

Duke

• Tuition non-discounted ($59k)
  employment/unemployment scores 87.9/7.2
  USNews: #10 ATL: #7
  
  Large Firm 65.9%
  Small Firm 1.9%
  Federal Clerkship 8.7%
  Public Service 4.3%

Cornell

• Tuition non-discounted ($61k)
  employment/unemployment scores 80.3/19.9
  USNews: #13 ATL: #9
  
  Large Firm 62.8%
  Small Firm 2.2%
  Federal Clerkship 3.8%
  Public Service 12%

[Dave Killoran]

Ok, I had Stephanie from our office put together the numbers here, for which she deserves a massive thanks! For anyone else reading, this type of very basic analysis is always the first step you should take, simply to acquaint yourself with the most basic figures for each school. Is it definitive? No, it can't be, but it does reduce the numbers to a snapshot that allows us to talk about some possible pathways more easily.

First, between the two schools that you are already accepted to, my inclination is to advise you to take the money are run and go with Emory. You already like the city better and from a tuition standpoint you pay $0 vs paying $81K. I don't see that WashU has the numbers to justify going down $81K, so for me this is pretty easy.

Turning to Duke and Cornell, in part we're moving into speculative territory since we don't know how the Wait Lists will play out. Given their similar cost, I'd feel like if you prefer Duke, they are a great choice. I am biased here since I went to Duke for my undergrad, and so I'll offer my endorsement of the school and the experience and leave it at that

If it gets to Duke vs Emory, then the decision becomes extremely challenging since the tuition debt will be $81K vs $177K. Given Emory's relatively high rank, you will hear a lot of advice to avoid the debt and go there. I think there's a lot of merit to that position, so for now let's wait and see what you hear back before opening up that box.

Last thought, on GW: there's no harm in applying so do so if you would like. I'm not sure they can beat out Emory, but if you want the option of living in DC, by all means go for it!

I'll be interested to hear what happens next. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thanks!

[keepon_keepingon]

Thanks a ton Stephanie and Dave. This really makes things easier for me. I would like to note that being international, my reach was limited to the internet and hearing directly from you guys gives me confidence.

I would keep you guys posted about the waitlist. I just deposited at Emory and honestly told them about my intentions to enrol at Duke in case they offer me a seat off the waitlist. Emory was appreciative of the information.

Kind Regards