U Chicago

CantStopWontStop

I’m thinking of applying to U Chicago. It’s a perennial top 5 law school. But I don’t know too much about it relative to the other T14’s. And I read mixed reviews. Any thoughts on this school’s reputation and what it’s known for?

drbrown2

Amazing faculty (like every top law school) and small class sizes (less than 200 1Ls). Also looking at their admissions stats it looks like they favor applicants with higher GPAs (50% at 3.9 GPA) if that factors into your application strategy. I've also heard that U Chicago's alumni base is really strong... I visited Chicago this past summer and spent an afternoon at U Chicago. I did not tour the law facilities, but U Chicago is an amazing place. Probably the prettiest campus I have ever visited.

studyingandrestudying

I've heard good reports.

Leah M B

They're known for wanting the highest GPAs of pretty much any school. Not much leeway for splitters. Also, heard it's more or less a "biglaw factory." From what I have gathered, some ways to describe students are business-minded, nerdy (not necessarily in a bad way haha), biglaw focused, and on the more conservative side from the average law school. Think "professional" and "academic."

Rigid Designator

Relatively speaking they have a high proportion of students with a philosophy background and have a number of philosophy-minded law faculty. I've followed the blog of one of their staff for many years and I get the impression that students coming from Chicago are well supported if their goals are academic. I never got the impression that it was more of a Big Law factory than any other T-14 school.

Logic Gainz

I've always thought UChicago was a law & economics powerhouse given people like Eric Posner on staff, but I think a lot of the law schools have that going for them nowadays.

I really like the law school building. There are a lot of windows and the professors' offices are located around the library reading room area so you can pop in and talk to them whenever given their open door policy. Their law school building had a very modern feel too it in my opinion, especially the library.

The admissions people were awesome, though that probably has very little bearing on the students and faculty themselves. I only met one student as I went to tour when they were in transition to their third quarter so students weren't there for the most part, but the one student I did speak with was nice. He was studying and getting ahead of his classmates I guess, but hung out and chatted with me for a solid 10 minutes.

I'd say any top law school has its fair share of nerdy students, so I wouldn't really attribute that characteristic to UChicago specifically. I don't even know what a nerdy student would look like. Awkward? Interested in mundane topics? Wears pocket protectors? Has glasses? Idk... I'm a nerd by some people's definition I guess - less the pocket protector.

Leah M B

@"Rigid Designator" said:
I never got the impression that it was more of a Big Law factory than any other T-14 school.

Only Columbia has a higher percentage of biglaw-bound grads. Chicago has super strong federal clerkships, but otherwise nearly all grads go to biglaw (and likely a significant portion of those doing clerkships will go on to biglaw as well). Very small PI/government and business numbers, and almost no grads going to small or mid-sized firms.

https://www.lstreports.com/schools/chicago/jobs/
https://abovethelaw.com/2018/03/the-best-law-schools-for-getting-a-biglaw-job-2018/

@"Logic Gainz" The "nerdy" thing wasn't meant to be derogatory... we're all nerdy in our own ways haha. And law students overall are a nerdy bunch lol. That's just the kinds of things I've seen people saying online about it. It probably stems at least partially from Chicago being known for economics. And I didn't know that about philosophy majors at Chicago that @"Rigid Designator" brought up, but that probably plays into the stereotype as well. A lot of high-minded academic and economics type folks.

Rigid Designator

@"Leah M B" said:

@"Rigid Designator" said:
I never got the impression that it was more of a Big Law factory than any other T-14 school.

Only Columbia has a higher percentage of biglaw-bound grads.

My claim was based on these stats (sorted by "Large Firm >100 attorneys") https://www.lstreports.com/national/

Per these numbers, Columbia is by far and away the leading placer of Big Law grads, followed by Cornell. Chicago places #6 on this list - basically average for the T-14. The obvious caveat is that this all depends on how we define 'Big Law', and we both might mean different things.

Logic Gainz

Oh, my bad @"Leah M B"! I didn't mean to sound defensive! You're right in that UChicago has that stereotype. I was just commenting on it.

Leah M B

@"Rigid Designator" said:

@"Leah M B" said:

@"Rigid Designator" said:
I never got the impression that it was more of a Big Law factory than any other T-14 school.

Only Columbia has a higher percentage of biglaw-bound grads.

My claim was based on these stats (sorted by "Large Firm >100 attorneys") https://www.lstreports.com/national/

Per these numbers, Columbia is by far and away the leading placer of Big Law grads, followed by Cornell. Chicago places #6 on this list - basically average for the T-14. The obvious caveat is that this all depends on how we define 'Big Law', and we both might mean different things.

Yeah, that makes sense and the difference in rankings probably does have to do with how they treat sizes of firms.

I think what actually affects Chicago's numbers is that they have really high number in clerkships (over 20%, according to LST). They have a smaller percentage of both small firm and PI numbers than Columbia. Seems more like if you deduct the clerkship numbers, they're probably on par with Columbia. Very very few grads going into PI, small firms, or any other area. They're placing nearly everyone in either biglaw or a clerkship (which many people do before going into biglaw). So you could argue it's not a biglaw factory because a lot do clerkships, but otherwise nearly all of the grads are going into biglaw.