<p>Flowerhead,</p>
<p>Can you point me to information on what sort of numbers are needed for scholarships to top law schools? And are salary charts for recent law grads available? Sorry to insert my own interests into this interesting thread.</p>
<p>flowerhead – i think the reason that law schools aren’t better with financial aid is simply because they can get away with it. and even though the employment market for lawyers isn’t doing so well right now, the market for law school applications is doing great see- <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/law-school/847608-recession-spurs-interest-graduate-law-schools.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/law-school/847608-recession-spurs-interest-graduate-law-schools.html</a> and as has been reflected in this thread, applicants are often unrealistic about what the burden of debt will really be like. so as long as there are plenty of applicants willing to borrow to pay the law schools (and lenders willing to loan them the money), the law schools have no real incentive to change their financial aid structure.</p>
<p>sewhappy – just be sure to realize that to get a full merit scholarship, your son would probably have to be willing to attend a lower ranked school than he may be able to attend if he pays full freight – doesn’t mean a “bad” school – just lower down the chain. but if you read this entire thread, you and he may very well come to the conclusion that the trade-off in ranking vs. debt may well be worth it.</p>
<p>i would in general strongly urge your son to really know what he is getting into if he is interested in law school – not just in terms of cost, but in terms of what the life of a lawyer is really like. i see too many bright students who see law as a nature path when they really don’t know what it means to be a lawyer – and there are many people who enter the profession only to find out it was not the right career path for them. there are also lawyers who are happy with their careers – but given the time and cost involved in becoming a lawyer, i think more attention should be paid going into the process as to whether its the right choice.</p>
<p>IANAL, but I am enjoying the back and forth.
Listen guys and gals: even if you were capable of the differential math required to compute the ‘average’ difference in salary between GT and C graduates after say 10 years, the result would have little meaning for any one individual.</p>
<p>Choosing a profession, or a job within a profession, purely based on money is a bad idea. It’s a bad idea for 10+ years in this case.</p>
<p>sewhappy- Unbelievablem is on target. Merit aid may be more forthcoming if your kid has the stats but decides to go to a lower ranked school.-- My kid’s stats are 167/ 3.75+ (or thereabouts).
she has a few T-14 acceptance ( no money offered)–a T-20 with substantial award and a guaranteed full scholarship to a T-50 school.
we are ecstatic- but trust me this COMPLICATES things alot. She still hasn’t heard anything from half the schools she applied to. But as she hasn’t been rejected yet- I guess it’s all good.</p>
<p>As we may have had the T-14 or bust mentality- the full ride to a T-50 is sounding pretty good to us now especially in this economy. As she is not interested in BigLaw, the free ride is extremely tempting. But in the long run, we don’t know if it is the right way to go.</p>
<p>my husband’s friends (most are attorneys, as is hubby, and work in the NYC area) advise her to take the money and run.<br>
The next few months will be interesting in our household.</p>
<p>we sometimes project 10 years from now–
will d kick herself for not going to a T-14? or kick herself for not taking a full ride scholarship to law school?? I don’t think we know the answer.</p>
<p>Well said, unbelievablem (posts 35 and 43).</p>
<p>Please note that law schools are not need blind in their application process. Students can be, and will be, rejected because they need more money to pay for tuition, books, room and board, etc. than loans will allow. In other words, the more grant money that a student may require after sources of loans have been maxed out (and they can easily be maxed out), the more likely that that student’s chances of acceptance to a given law school may be diminished due to their financial need. It is also important to note that since there is a lifetime cap on the amount of Stafford Loans one may take, the more undergraduate loans that an applicant has, the lower the amount of Stafford Loans one will be eligible for as a law student (thus, increasing one’s potential need for grant money). </p>
<p>The reality is that there is no guarantee that any given student at any given law school will get a job that will pay them enough so that they can live comfortably after paying their monthly student loan bill. However, it is more likely that a student will be able to find a high paying Biglaw job if that student attends a T14 law school (and more likely if that student is in a T20 law school versus a second or third tier law school, etc.). </p>
<p>Moreover, the likelihood of a student obtaining a high paying law firm job drops off considerably if that student does not attend a T14 law school, and drops almost to nil if that student attends a law school that is not in the T25 or is not incredibly well regarded in a particular region. </p>
<p>For example, at the Biglaw firm that I am thinking of in NYC, there were between 30 and 40 offers made this past autumn for summer associate positions to students at each of Harvard and Columbia, and only one (yes, that’s one) offer each was made to a student at Brooklyn and a student at Fordham. There have been years where no students at Brooklyn received offers. No offers were made otherwise to students from law schools outside of the T25, except for a couple of students who received offers stemming from specialty job fairs.</p>
<p>If working at a Biglaw firm is the only way that you are going to be able to live and pay off your student loans simultaneously, then where you go to law school matters a lot.</p>
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<p>I know one firm that didn’t give offers outside the T6, period. They even didn’t attend OCI at certain schools within the T6. Crazy, I know.</p>
<p>I wish someone would start a thread asking which are most miserable - doctors or lawyers.</p>
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<p>If I’m not mistaken, a while back someone did start that thread. </p>
<p>I would guess that there are plenty of happy doctors and lawyers and plenty of unhappy doctors and lawyers. Paying off my student loan indebtedness was not easy, nor was it quick, but putting myself through school and coming out with a great career on the other side is something of which I am very proud. I, for one, love my job as an attorney – it’s interesting, challenging, ever-changing and requires me to stay on my toes.</p>
<p>I think that the important takeaway here is for those considering law school to go in with their eyes open to the vast amounts of indebtedness they may have to incur in order to finance their educations, the effect that paying off that debt may have on their lives for a very long period of time, the difficulties they may face in finding jobs that will pay them enough money for them to live comfortably while paying off their student loans and, finally, and perhaps most importantly for the long haul, what it is like to really work at those high-paying jobs (the tradeoff between quality of life and income).</p>
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<p>Sally, is that also true of T14?</p>
<p>I’m not sure how law schools can be need-aware, since acceptances are made before financial aid information is submitted. Aside from that, I was never alerted to a law school’s checking my credit report (for relevant undergraduate debt); and believe me, I have my credit reports on lockdown, so I would have known.</p>
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<p>However, if someone wanted to surreptitiously peek at your credit report, it would probably help if they were the top lawyers in the entire world.</p>
<p>remember- there is a bunch of identifying info that goes on the law school application including educational and employment info of parents. So law schools can take educated guesses and figure out which families may be able to help their kids foot the bill for law school vs. those students that may need to drop out due to lack of funds.</p>
<p>many of the scholarship offers from law schools are made before income and financial aid forms (fafsa/need access) are sent to schools. So the scholarships don’t seem to be tied in to the financial need of student. I think the scholarship offers are often given to tempt select students to attend a lower ranked school in order to boost the school’s LSAT/GPA stats for USNWR bragging rights.</p>
<p>sewhappy – see – <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/78046-career-advice-practicing-attorneys.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/78046-career-advice-practicing-attorneys.html</a>
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/226872-mds-out-there-you-happy.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/226872-mds-out-there-you-happy.html</a></p>
<p>but if you really want fun opinions, get a bunch of doctors together and ask them what THEY think about lawyers! ;)</p>
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<p>…yes, but they are still made after the student has been admitted. This does not support sally’s point.</p>
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<p>Strongly doubt law schools would base their decisions on such haphazard guesswork.</p>
<p>flowerhead,</p>
<p>I think the salary issue is part of the reason lawyers get shorted money compared to some other programs, but lots of it is just business. </p>
<p>Law schools and MBA programs generate more of their revenue through tuition. Academic programs, especially tech heavy ones, generate much more income through grants and licensing fees. They also attract students (at least grad students) based more on specific academic strengths and faculty. That’s why grad “scholarships” often require research work or teaching. The money is so that you participate in their revenue engine.</p>
<p>sewhappy,</p>
<p>The article I suggested above from Villanova Law Review goes into a lot of detail comparing rates of depression, substanse abuse, divorce and obesity between lawyers and other professions. It’s not pretty. I can look it up and paste some quotes here, but one of the more shocking revelations is that students entering law school suffer from clinical depression at rates similar to the general population, but lawyers five years into practice have rates three times as high.</p>
<p>Practicing law isn’t a sentence to a miserable life, but there’s a reason people sit around on these boards deabting this issue in ways accountants and truck drivers don’t. The job has a peculiar stress that’s hard to articulate; knowing and accepting that goes a long way toward staying healthy.</p>
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<p>Don’t be fooled by history. Even if most lawyers today are perfectly happy, it doesn’t mean that your son can expect to be happy if he goes to law school.</p>
<p>Why? Because law school has gotten a LOT more expensive in real terms even in the last 10 or 15 years. People who graduated law school 20 years ago did so with far less debt than your son would have to take on. Further, private student loans are now non-dischargeable in bankruptcy.</p>
<p>The upshot is that most current lawyers had options which your son will probably never have. (Unless you are in a position to just pay for his law school.)</p>
<p>You people seem oddly naive. Here is the low-down on law schools and the biglaw in general:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>T14 or bust. If you don’t get T14 and above the median, you will likely not score a prestigious big law job. Go to some **** law school and automatically kiss goodbye to any chances you thought you had at being a big lawyer. Nowadays, from what ATL (Elie Mystal) has suggested, times are tough everywhere and not even HYS students are completely safe.</p></li>
<li><p>The attrition rate for big law approaches something like 40%. Out of a class of 100, only a few (the RAINMAKERS) at the biggest firms will make partner. If you are not bringing in business, then you are expendable and you will most likely be told to leave. Most lawyers are social ■■■■■■■, so that each and every lawyer isn’t a salesman is no surprise. The best lawyers don’t typically make partner–the best businesspeople do. There is never a glut of good lawyers in a big firm–these people are from top schools–so the challenge and the bottom line is making money. Here’s the kicker: even if you MAKE it to biglaw, you will most likely leave or be pushed out. That’s your future.</p></li>
<li><p>You will work 70-80 hrs a week at a big law firm if you want to make partner. Case closed. You will have no family time and little breaks from work. You don’t get paid 160k+benefits to do nothing. If you don’t meet your annual billing hours–UP AND OUT. Think about this proposition for a second. Can you honestly work 70-80 hrs a week for FIVE YEARS and enjoy your life? Of course not. You will burn out like a large portion of biglawyers and you will lateral out of biglaw (or else be phased out or told politely to pack up your things) into a ****tier position @ 40 hrs a week but with 70k pay. And, that’s your life. </p></li>
<li><p>You will not make partner.</p></li>
<li><p>Most lawyers are ****ing miserable. The only people who stay in biglaw workaholics who’ve replaced the joy of life with the joy of litigation.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I’m thinking sallyawp is so happy with her job because she isn’t a biglawyer. But that’s just code for saying she likely doesn’t make a ton of kash, but likely enjoys her profession. Can’t say that about my older brother (“the biglawyer”),</p>
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<p>I think you’re misusing a catch-phrase.</p>
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<p>You do realize that, in this economy, no one is really voluntarily leaving their firm, right?</p>
<p>And what’s even funnier is that , despite your complaints, you still want to go to law school:</p>
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<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/law-school/770566-getting-into-t14-canadian-school.html#post1063154176[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/law-school/770566-getting-into-t14-canadian-school.html#post1063154176</a></p>
<p>You’re barely a 19 year-old and you’ve somehow managed to become an “expert” on biglaw and law school admissions. I suggest you use this time posting on collegeconfidential and worrying about your hypothetical LSAT and GPA, and go out into the world and make some friends, possibly even get a girlfriend. After all, if you want to make partner, you have to make it rain, and you can’t make it rain if you’re socially awkward, right?</p>
<p>But yes, it’s pretty odd you called us naive, when you’re the one spouting inaccurate or incorrect statements, and you haven’t even stepped foot into college. Most posting in this thread are either experienced attorneys or top law students who already have a job lined up, and I think many of the posts here have been well reasoned and full of perspective.</p>