<p>Hi law school forum. I apologize in advance for this being so long.</p>
<p>I'm currently a high school senior in the process of choosing a college. I have an interest in law as a future career. I live in Minnesota and was accepted to Minnesota-TC, Wisconsin-Madison, and Michigan. I have ruled out Minnesota so it's down to Madison or Michigan.</p>
<p>The deal with Madison for Minnesota residents is we get tuition reciprocity which basically means we pay MN in state rates to go to Madison, and WI people pay IS rates for MN. So that means Madison would be about half as expensive as Michigan. I got a $5000 per year merit scholarship from Michigan but that is probably the only aid I will get. My parents are in that ~125 range where college is a major, major expense but aid isn't really expected, especially considering we have been saving for a while so we have some good assets. My parents are letting me go wherever I want but they say just keep in mind the extra cost and grad school. Michigan is the better school academically but Madison is very good too.</p>
<p>Keep in mind I'm interested in defense/public interest and I'm NOT at all interested in the billable hour hellish jobs so the pay won't be, at least starting, extremely high. If I go to Madison I believe our saved money will pretty much cover it but Michigan is about twice as much so it would be like 90-100 out of pocket for my parents, which would definitely make them more reluctant to chip in a significant amount for grad school, especially considering my brother is 4 years younger than me so he will start college when I get out of undergrad.</p>
<p>So what I'm asking is for law (or possibly business) school, is Michigan's academic advantage going to open so many more doors for me that it would be worth it to take on the extra OOS costs to go there over Madison? Just fyi, USNWR ranks Michigan 29 and Madison 45, but the world rankings (legit/important?) have Michigan all the way up at 15 and Madison at 48. Will law schools care about the difference and, should I not decide to go down the law path, will my job prospects straight out be greatly affected?</p>
<p>Whether going to Minnesota, Madison, or Michigan wouldn’t affect your chances for law school at all. I recommend you go to the one at that you like and where you can get the highest GPA.</p>
<p>Here is some advice that you probably won’t hear from many others here:</p>
<p>Learn about the grading scale, ESPECIALLY if the t14 is your goal. Some colleges in my state have a system with A, A-, B+,B ,B- etc. AVOID THIS IF POSSIBLE. If someone gets a 92% for a class then they receive an A- or I am guessing something around a 3.6 GPA for the class. This helps your GPA if you are struggling to make A’s and get high B’s in your class but if the t14 is your goal then this could curve your GPA downwards by about .2 or more. Doesn’t sound much but that would easily be the difference between acceptance and rejection on elite schools, or the difference between scholarship $$$ and nothing</p>
<p>I go to the University of Kentucky and we have the basic system of 90 and above = 4.0, 80-89 = 3.0 and etc. This is great because you can get low 90s in your courses (not extremely difficult) and pull out a great GPA. Mine is currently 3.82 and I know for certain it would be significantly lower if UK had a different grading system</p>
<p>I’m only a sophomore so when it comes to giving you grad school advice I can’t be of much help. But make sure the college you pick has a similar grading system to mine to get as close to a 4.0 with as much ease as possible</p>
<p>picking Michigan over Wisconsin paying out of state tuition would be very silly in my opinion. And no, law schools won’t care at all which school you go to.</p>