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Related Discussions
Price vs Prestige
brulisha
Free Trial Member
Hello everyone! Long time lurker and user of all the free aspects of 7sage, lol. I’m in a bit of a predicament.
I’ve received two acceptances thus far. One from my alma mater, Howard University, with a 35,000 yearly scholarship. And one from UC Berkeley, with no mention of any aid beyond their supplemental gift aid application which I’ve yet to fill out.
Berkeley came as a shock to me! As did Howard’s generous scholarship. I’ve heard a lot of varying opinions on the matter. Some say T-14 or bust, and some say the loans/debt just isn’t worth it.
I’m at a bit of a crossroads here and I’d love to hear some opinions on my situation in particular.
I can provide more info if necessary but let me know what you guys think! Thank you.
Comments
@brulisha Congratulations on your acceptances! What kind of law are you interested?
If public interest, then check their LRAPs, if they are similar then definitely go Howard. D.C. has its advantages if your interested in administrative. Depending on your interests then it could go either way, given that they are both strong schools.
Regardless of your choice, you're going to have a great education. Congrats again!
You should talk to Berkeley about your financial predicament. If I were you, I would go to Berkeley regardless. Taking on debt is not the end of the world if you have access to a Big Law job or a decent LRAP upon graduation.
http://law-schools.startclass.com/l/31/Howard-University-School-of-Law
Do look it up like @cstrobel says, but I would be shocked if the LRAPs are similar. If you go into a public interest position you might end up paying less or virtually the same from Berkeley even at full price. Afterall, the cost of living at Howard is probably still going to turn into some non-negligible debt.
If you are looking to go into some variant of Big Law, then the cost benefit analysis becomes decidedly one sided. Go to Berkeley. Do everything possibly to minimize your debt while there. For a fairly low ranked school Howard places okay into Big Law, but it can't match Berkeley. Ultimately the Big Law salaries of $180,000 a year will enable you to quickly wipe out your debt in the couple of years you are likely to be in Big Law. After that you will likely transition to some in house job or something with slightly lower salaries, and be able to live comfortably and do things like save for retirement. Alternatively, you could try to transition to public interest law after clearing your debt and getting some savings. The public interest hirers are skeptical of Big Law people's commitment, but if you take advantage of some of the many opportunities at Berkeley to show your interest in public interest, pick your corporate job based on its ability to let you do significant amounts of paid pro bono work(rather than prestige or average bonuses), and are willing to potentially eat through some of those hard earned savings to demonstrate your commitment to public interest by volunteering(sort of a self-funded public interest fellowship) then it may be viable.
Also look into your chances of ending up unemployed out of Howard. While Howard may be a good school, I wouldn't be surprised if a significant number of people have trouble finding work out of Howard because they are competing against everyone else who wants to go to D.C. If you can't get D.C., then there is no home market to fall back on and Howard like most non-Top 14s might have difficulty placing people out of its geographic area. Neither the LRAP nor public loan forgiveness can help you when you can't get a legal job. The reputation of Howard's undergrad could help a little here. Well known schools tend to do better at placing students more broadly even when lower ranked. But, it can't fully make up the difference.
I ended up making a price decision, which is counter to the internet's wisdom but felt good to me. Here's how I sorted it out:
1) I want to do public interest. I can count on a salary between $50k and $60k given where I live and the jobs I see grads from my school getting/their reported salaries.
2) The offer I accepted was a full ride + a stipend that'll be ~40% of my living expenses, hopefully a little more if I'm frugal. Given my savings, that means that I'll end up with debt in the vicinity of $20k for all of law school, vs. a minimum of $60k even on a full ride. I could pay $20k off a lot easier than $60k on a salary in that range, and it means that if I need dental work or something I have room to wiggle vs. being maxed out. If I have an opportunity for a fellowship after school that pays less, I can still at least make progress with IBR rather than getting further underwater.
3) I talked to PI attorneys in the area. To a one, they all said they wished they had just gone where I am going and saved themselves all the debt. There are people working all over the city who came from my school, doing jobs I would like to do.
4) Even more: if I come out of law school and hate the idea of practicing law, with a debt load in that vicinity I can guarantee I'll be able to pay it off doing something else. If I get a job and I hate it, I can find another job that will still allow me to service my debt.
5) I'm not looking for BigLaw. I might like to teach someday, but I don't want to be an academic; I'm a practitioner at heart, and clinical faculty jobs hire more diversely. Would I like to work at the ACLU someday? Yes, maybe, but later in my career. Do I want to be a Supreme Court justice? Yeah, abstractly, but mostly so I can hang out with Justice Sotomayor. People at my school do still get federal clerkships and prestigious PI fellowships, which indicates I would have a chance if I decide that's what I want.
6) Does it eat me a little that I'm not going to be able to drop a big name? Yeah, it totally does. This is a prestige-driven career and I'm not getting a brand name degree. But if I look at where grads of the school I'll be going actually are, I can see it is still going to get me where I want to go, and with a financial risk that matches my goals. I'm doing a lot of thinking right now about ego and its role in my choices.
My stats, FWIW: 3.63/167. I didn't retake - I was planning to last year but a project went viral and I decided I'd rather see it out than study. This is a mistake according to the internet but if I actually push on why, a lot of it comes down to concerns about debt servicing that I just won't have. I didn't apply that many places, and so far ended up WL at Georgetown and Cornell, decline at Harvard, no answer yet from Berkeley and UCLA. I don't live a life where I can pick up and move in July if Georgetown or Cornell came calling late. Cornell does give money off the waitlist; even if I got the top of what LSN says, I would be looking at $80k debt or more. If somehow I did get in there it would be hard to walk away - see #6 - but it also wouldn't make any kind of financial sense. I still wonder what might happen in that regard but I will cross that bridge if I come to it.
Hope this helps. Happy to talk more.
I would go to Berkeley even if it meant taking on a lot of debt. Rankings aren't everything but they are very important. Berkeley is ranked #9 and Howard is #128. The opportunities that you'll get from Berkeley will be worlds away from what you'll get if you go to Howard.
I don't know what your work history is like, but it can be hard to get a job as a non-lawyer with a JD. It is a disadvantage for lots of jobs. They think you will leave.
That said $20,000 is pretty much the extreme low end of debt if you can manage it. The odds are you will have a legal job and that though your choices will be restricted by going to the lesser school, they will be expanded by the financial freedom.
I would send a scholarship negotiation email to Berkeley, asking for more aid. Let them know that finances play a big role in your decisions and that you will appreciate any more additional aid they can provide to alleviate your debt. Be sure to attach the other offers like Howard onto that email.
Money/prestige aside, what would guys say if the most important thing you wanted after graduation is a degree that travels well? In other words... let's say you could go to a school which ranks 25-30 (with little to no debt) vs a T5 school (with a whole lotta debt), which one would you pick -with respects to feeling like your job prospects nationwide (possibly beyond) would be greatest? Yeah I'm guessing T5, but I'd still like to know what you all think -thanks!
Well, I choose a school with no debt and become solo practitioner after passing the bar exam. I got the entrepreneurial spirit.
Word. Entrepreneurs have no salary cap if you know what you are doing and if the market is on your side.
@speedwagon Everything you said makes absolute sense to me. I think I'll be doing something similar and accepting a (really really low ranked) school in my area, although I'm waiting to hear back from more schools before I'm totally sure.
Some questions: is the school you accepted a regional school? How much lower of a rank is it than somewhere like Cornell? Did you have to negotiate with them to ask for a stipend for living expenses? How did you make contacts with PI lawyers in your area to ask their opinions on your choice?
Also---thanks for sharing your decision! It's always nice to hear dissenting opinions.
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Before making a decision I would most definitely negotiate my butt off!!! I'm po...can't afford the last two letters. I wouldn't want to be boxed into that location whereas Berkley gives wayyy more wiggle room and opportunity in the professional world.
Not sure how much you can negotiate with Berkeley. They saw on their website that they only match some of the T14 schools. If they gave money, it probably wouldn't be a drop in the bucket in your overall decision process.
Congratulations on your acceptances!
I'm not sure if this has been mentioned before but I heard that LRAP and loan forgiveness programs were on the verge of being cut in this current Trump Administration. A lot of posters on TLS report that one shouldn't count on LRAP and loan forgiveness staying around long enough to fully finance one's debt. I'm not sure if TLS is being alarmist about this, but it is definitely something to be aware of.
I'm worried about this too which is a major part of the reason I am inclined to avoid debt even at the cost of a ciuple US News Rankings spots. However, the law schools have been swearing up and down at their ASWs that if you are already in law school no retroactive changes will be made.
Yeah i heard that our cycle should be ok. Maybe the future generations... Not so much
Thank you all for your input! I'm still waiting to hear back from a couple other places/get off the Harvard WL but for right now it looks like I'll be moving to Cali!
also my stats are:
Dec LSAT: 156
Feb LSAT: 162
GPA: 3.74