<p>I have a contact who is currently at a community college. It's getting close to being time to transfer. Unfortunately, this person has been told that their parents will be unable to help them with the cost of their education. Because of this situation, this person is thinking about attending the lower-tier public universities in their state. I don't mean lower-tier by CC standards, but instead in an absolute sense. For example, one of the schools in question is ranked by USN&WR as Tier 3 - not of the National Universities, but rather of the Master's Universities in the region in question.</p>
<p>They want to do this to conserve money to attend a top-tier graduate school. Specifically, they're considering business or law. Obviously, these are prestige-conscious fields where it really is important to attend the top-tier graduate schools to find the best opportunities.</p>
<p>My concern is this: Is this strategy even feasible? Is it realistic to go from an undergraduate school with a very low ranking to a top-tier graduate school, even if one does very well as an undergraduate? Or do they simply need to come up with the money for a better school if their goal is a top-tier graduate school?</p>
<p>FWIW, there's a Tier 3 National University which is a realistic alternative for this student. It would only cost about $5,000 more per year than the lower-ranked schools in question.</p>
<p>I've also tried to explain to this student that despite their financial situation, their EFC is probably low enough that it wouldn't be any more expensive to go to a private university than to go to these lower-tier state schools. It's hard to get this point across.</p>
<p>A friend of mine always wanted to go to UMich law school. She was able to get free tuition to her low-tier directional state school because her mom worked there.</p>
<p>She had never looked to see if any graduates of that school had ever been accepted to law schools like UMich. Well, she was rejected by UMich law school even though she had top grades and strong LSAT. She later learned that no one from that undergrad had ever been accepted to a top law school.</p>
<p>So, that’s something to research and find out. However, I would guess that the 3rd tier national U would be the better option since it’s only $5k per year more. At least it will have a name that law schools will have heard of (is that the state’s flagship??). If more aid could be gotten from elsewhere, that would be even better, but is the problem that the parents’ EFC is too high and they can’t meet it? Or, is their EFC low?</p>
<p>BTW…how TOP ranking of a law school does your friend want? There are some excellent law schools that aren’t in the top 20.</p>
<p>@siliconvalleymom: Good point about contacting the schools directly for law school admissions data. Real numbers might (a) convince this student that they really do need to shoot higher, or (b) allay any fears that this is a problem.</p>
<p>@mom2collegekids: The Tier 3 National University is actually the #3 school in the state. However, the #1 and #2 schools are possibly reaches, are hours away and cost more than even the #3 school.</p>
<p>The EFC is probably low, but the parents aren’t even able to help out to that extent. The reason the EFC isn’t 100% certain is that while the family is lower-middle class, there are former spouses - and I’ve heard they sometimes look at their income.</p>
<p>The student knows they want to go to a “good” law school but probably doesn’t know exactly how to quantify that. I’m trying to get information because this student probably isn’t getting good advice about higher education. Most of the people in this student’s life don’t have university degrees at all.</p>
<p>So a related question is: How good of a law school do you have to go to in order to be hired at the better jobs in the legal industry?</p>
<p>It depends on what kind of legal job.<br>
Top law firms tend to limit their hiring to top law schools.<br>
Government jobs are more flexible. I worked at the District Attorney’s Office with lawyers from law schools that I had never heard of, as well as all of the usual suspects.
At this point, I know several unemployed law school graduates from top 30 law schools who can’t find any legal job of any kind.</p>
<p>Law school rankings tend to be referred to as “T14”, but there are a lot of other considerations. If you want to live in Kansas, go to KU law and do well. Same with Alabama etc.</p>
<p>Exactly-regional considerations are very important.<br>
We’re in California, so my husband’s law firm only interviews on campus at the top three California law schools, and two or three schools back East, depending on the economy and whether the summer associate class is full after the first few sets of callbacks. His firm will look at resumes from law students from other law schools, but those students must be in the top 10% of their law school class to be considered for an interview.
Students with specialized talents (i.e. science degree undergrad, plan to practice intellectual property law) will fare better than average.</p>
<p>This perhaps overstates things a bit. A handful of the most elite firms in top legal markets like NY, San Francisco, and Washington are very choosy in their hiring and tend to concentrate their recruiting efforts on the most elite law schools. But there are a lot of law firms out there. I looked at the website of a top Minneapolis-based firm. With 650 lawyers in 19 offices in the U.S., Europe, and Asia, this is a highly successful national and international law firm. Their website helpfully lists all the law schools attended by their attorneys. I counted about 130 law schools. Certainly they hire a lot of people from T14 law schools, but they also hire people from strong regional schools in the markets they serve. So, for example, their Salt Lake City office has lots of lawyers from BYU and the University of Utah. Their NY office has people from Columbia and NYU, but also Brooklyn and Fordham. Their Denver office is heavily populated with people from the University of Colorado and the University of Denver. And so on.</p>
<p>Even Sullivan & Cromwell, one of the very top NY firms, lists lawyers from 132 law schools. Granted, its roster is pretty top-heavy with graduates of the top law schools: 100 from Harvard, 99 from Columbia, 67 from NYU, 49 from Yale, 33 from Penn, 32 from UVA, 21 from Chicago, 20 from Stanford, 16 from Michigan, 14 from Cornell. But they’ve also got 17 from Brooklyn, 16 from Rutgers, 9 from Fordham, 9 from New York Law School, 6 from St. John’s, 10 from GW, 10 from BU, 9 from American, 8 from Catholic U, 5 from Buffalo, 5 from Ohio State, and least 1 or 2 from dozes of other schools. Collectively, this adds up to a lot of lawyers who did NOT come from the elite law schools, perhaps not as much as half the firm, but possibly as much as a third.</p>