Is it better to graduate from a state school or a prestigious university?

College Search & Selection
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<p>You do not need any specific major or course work to apply to law school. You just need to get a high GPA and high LSAT score. See [Welcome</a> to LawSchoolNumbers.com | Law School Numbers](<a href=“http://lawschoolnumbers.com%5DWelcome”>http://lawschoolnumbers.com) .</p>

<p>Criminal justice majors tend to have low LSAT scores, according to [LSAT</a> Scores of Economics Majors: The 2008-2009 Class Update by Michael Nieswiadomy :: SSRN<a href=“download%20the%20paper%20and%20look%20at%20the%20table%20of%20majors%20in%20the%20back”>/url</a>. Math and philosophy majors do well; if you look at the [url=<a href=“http://www.lsac.org/jd/lsat/lsat-prep-materials.asp]LSAT”>http://www.lsac.org/jd/lsat/lsat-prep-materials.asp]LSAT</a> Prep Materials | LSAC.org](<a href=“http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1430654]LSAT”>http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1430654) , you will see some logic puzzle type of questions that are likely the kinds of things that math and philosophy majors do well at.</p>

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<p>Did you apply to these schools yet? If so, are you basing the financial aid/scholarships off of that? Just curious because you mentioned “I didn’t see and definitive scholarships for transfer residents on the UNLV site” so are you basing it off of just research or the offers?</p>

<p>Anyway, if USC and UNC-CH offers half your tuition, I’d probably go to one of these IF (read: very important if) you believe you’ll succeed at these schools for your major and be able to maintain a good GPA and can afford it/isn’t afraid to take out a few loans for it. USC and UNC-CH has an amazing and extensive alumni network and the schools are very well-regarded, especially for business. USC is also in a great area for internships. I sure UNC-CH is too but I’ve never personally been there.</p>

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<p>The scholarships I based off of the websites of UNR and UNLV. I did apply to UNR last fall and this fall as well but opted for community college to save up some more money. Well I haven’t officially chosen to stay at my cc this semester but I probably will. I don’t expect grants from either UNLV or UNR. However the tuition wouldn’t be a problem at either schools. The USC and UNC-CH grants are based off their net price calculator. </p>

<p>I think I am going to go to UNLV or UNR in the spring and try to transfer to USC or UNC-CH for Fall 2014. If I want to do law then I should probably stay at UNLV or UNR and just prep myself for graduate school but if I opt for business I will try to get into USC or UNC.</p>

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Remember that WUE does not necessarily cover all programs/campuses…
[Western</a> Undergraduate Exchange (WUE) | Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education](<a href=“http://wiche.edu/wue]Western”>http://wiche.edu/wue)</p>

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<p>I personally think that if this is possible, go to your state school that happens to be a prestigious university like UCLA, UC Berkeley, or U Michigan xP</p>

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<p>From what I know (this is my parents’ knowledge)… Employers care neither GPA nor school attended… Just experience.</p>

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<p>As usual, it very much depends on the employer, and how recently you graduated from college.</p>

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<p>Hey Roskee,
Can you commute to any of the Nevada ones from home? If so, that’d take a lot off of cost. From experience, UNLV offers pretty decent aid. I got a $1000 grant + Millennium which covered over half the costs since it’s only about $6k/semester. The rest I had to apply for scholarships with UNLV and they have it every semester for students with good GPAs through CSUN. UNR offered me really good aid as well when I applied and offered even more scholarships academically than UNLV did.</p>

<p>Also, what year are you in? If you’re a rising junior this fall, I’d highly recommend you to stick to just one university and go for it after transferring. This is because for USC (I also applied there as transfer but chose to go in-state & public), a lot of credits do not transfer. This will mean maybe even more money spent on an education because of wasted credits/prolonging school, etc.</p>

<p>You should probably try looking at the schools and how their credits transfer, if they even do. It’d be a shame for you to get accepted but have a credit equivalent of a sophomore or lower. :(</p>

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<p>@ lullabies</p>

<p>I would have to move to Vegas or Reno. I will be a sophomore this fall at my cc so I am looking to transfer in the spring to UNR or UNLV. After that I may look to transfer to a school like USC for the fall of 2014. I am pretty confident most of my credits will transfer as all I have taken so far are basic first/second year classes and USC and UNC-CH both stated that such classes are usually transferable but I will still need to make sure regardless. May I ask your GPA, test scores and what school you came from when applied to UNR and UNLV. Were you transferring or a freshman? Did you get more/less scholarships or grants your following year?</p>

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<p>I think UNC-CH might but I’m not sure about USC. When I applied, someone told me my English classes and some gen Ed wouldn’t transfer because they have a specific program? Don’t know if she was just misinforming me or its changed (I also specifically applied to their Annenberg college). But then again, I spent my first semester abroad (but I still took some basic classes).</p>

<p>I applied going into sophomore year. My hs GPA was 3.4 unweighted and 4.2 weighted I believe? My SATs were 1700 I think (sorry it’s been a really long time LOL). I applied from a school on the east coast. My college GPA was 3.79. </p>

<p>I applied to UNLV and UNR straight out of high school and again after freshman year. I got the same about of aid both times, except more merit from UNR my first year than transferring. </p>

<p>If I were in your shoes, then, I would just apply to USC and UNC-CH but also some safeties and if USC/UNC-CH or any other top choice takes all or most of your credits, I would go and finish my degree there. That’s just my personal opinion though, since I transferred to UNLV and wanted to try again to transfer into USC but a lot of the gen ed requirements for UNLV did not fit USC’s curriculum. I ended up staying an decided to graduate here because I didn’t want to waste more money or time in school. </p>

<p>Good luck! I know whatever you do, everything will always turn out okay.</p>

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<p>It is best to graduate from the school the school you love that minimizes any subsequent debt. In my opinion, paying full tuition at private schools is an extravagance unless you are seriously wealthy. My son chose a selective honors program at our state flagship. His choice just happened to be his least expensive option, and he will have enough money left in his college fund to cover graduate or professional school as a result. I attended a top ten private school undergrad, then a state flagship for professional school. The real cost of attendance at my alma mater has more than doubled since then, while real incomes and high-income employment opportunities have not.</p>

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<p>IT depends</p>

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<p>Since the OP stipulated that job opportunities are the goal:</p>

<p>(1) For certain lines of work, particularly BigLaw, management consulting and investment banking, school prestige matters critically, followed by activities with a distant third being grades. </p>

<p>What with grade inflation, employers don’t always know how seriously to take your GPA. They do know, however, that we don’t have admissions inflation to the top schools, and so if you got into an Ivy or even a near-Ivy they figure you must have some serious chops.</p>

<p>And conversely, they assume that everyone knows this…and thus that everyone goes to the most prestigious school they can get into – finances be damned.* So they tend to look down on less prestigious graduates (sometimes even those who went to a less prestigious undergraduate school and then an Ivy professional school!). </p>

<p>Graduates who ditched an Ivy acceptance for a state school, say, for a full-ride scholarship, are even advised to explain in their cover letters that they were accepted to Ivy U but attended State U for the scholarship.</p>

<p>(2) Most other industries care somewhat less about the name on your degree…once you’ve already had a job or two where they can check out your track record. That means for your first and maybe your second job, prestige matters more. </p>

<p>Thing is, your first job or two form your “first impression” on the job market. Just like your first few seconds or minute or two with a hiring manager set the tone for your interview, your first job or two set the tone for the rest of your career. Studies have shown that prestigious-school graduates, as a group, earn more throughout their careers.</p>

<p>(3) All that having been said, some state universities are prestigious. Look up “Public Ivies”.</p>

<p>In fact:</p>

<p>[Best</a> Colleges & Universities - Ranked by Job Recruiters - WSJ.com](<a href=“Best Colleges & Universities - Ranked by Job Recruiters - WSJ”>Best Colleges & Universities - Ranked by Job Recruiters - WSJ)</p>

<p>[*] And such employers may assume that you should “invest in your future” – including borrowing – to the hilt.</p>

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<p>Are you kidding? Who “advises” these graduates to do this in cover letters when applying for a job? If I were a hiring manager and saw this I would think it was a really bizarre thing to say and it would make me hesitant about pursuing that applicant.</p>

<p>What is to stop anyone from claiming “Oh, by the way, I was accepted to Harvard, Yale and Stanford, but chose East Podunk U. because of the great scholarship”?</p>

<p>Please.</p>

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<p>Joblue,</p>

<p>I don’t blame you for being surprised. I was surprised myself to read about this in Lauren Rivera’s “Ivies, extracurriculars, and exclusion: Elite employers’ use of educational credentials” (Research in Social Stratification and Mobility 29 [2011], 71–90).</p>

<p>The advice about explaining why you went to an inferior school (and that’s how they describe it, too) comes from page 79:</p>

<p>"In addition to being an indicator of potential intellectual deficits, the decision to go to a lesser known school (because it was typically perceived by evaluators as a ‘choice’) was often perceived to be evidence of moral failings, such as faulty judgment or a lack of foresight on the part of a student. When describing why students who attended highly selective but not ‘top’ business schools* were at a disadvantage in the recruitment process and were justifiably so, a banker (white, male) shrugged, ‘If you want to go into banking, you do your homework and you go to one of the schools that’s known for sending people to Wall Street.’ An attorney (Hispanic, male) described how even candidates who faced significant financial obstacles to attendance, like he had, ‘should be smart enough to invest in their future.’ </p>

<p>"The negative signal conveyed by the lack of an elite credential was most clearly articulated by a recruiter (white, female) at a ‘diversity recruitment’ fair I observed as a part of the ethnographic portion of my research. At a panel on applying to corporate law firms, she instructed attendees who, like the majority of nonwhite law students were disproportionately concentrated in second- and third-tier law schools**, to list their reasons for attending an inferior institution on their cover letter and resume. She explained, ‘If you were admitted to a better school, say which one…If you went to a school because you got a full scholarship, put ‘full scholarship’ up front. If you stayed close to home to help with a family business, include it…You need to have an explanation for it.’ [Emphasis in original]</p>

<p>“Thus, in many ways, the credential that elite employers valued was not the education received at a top school but rather a letter of acceptance from one.”</p>

<p>Meanwhile, I suspect that employers expect to be able to verify acceptances (and scholarships, if applicable) with the universities in question and/or to see copies of acceptance, scholarship and other letters themselves.</p>

<p>[li] For example, a consulting director assumed that a [fictitious] job candidate attending Stern, NYU’s business school [ranked among the top ten in the country at the time], was there either because her husband was in New York or she just couldn’t get into Harvard or Stanford.</p>[/li]
<p>[**] Author’s footnote: U.S. News & World Report. (2008). Law School diversity rankings.
Washington, D.C.: U.S. News & World Report. Accessed April 20, 2009.
[Best</a> Graduate Schools | Top Graduate Programs | US News Education](<a href=“http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/grad/law/law_diversity]Best”>http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/grad/law/law_diversity)</p>

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<p>If I spurned Harvard or Stanford for my local state school for some specific reason, I would subtly let that be known my applicant profile somewhere for sure. You don’t want to be labeled as just another “ordinary state school graduate”.</p>

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<p>I think that there’s a lot of truth to this. An employer isn’t going to stop the presses because you happened to go to Dartmouth, or got a lot of As. (I have never given a transcript to any employer ever). As a corollary, an employer might favor you if you went to his or her alma mater, even if not an elite school. I have seen this happen many times; it’s just part of the arbitrariness of how people land positions.</p>

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<p>This is some of the purest b******t that I have ever read. Businesses that hope to thrive today are not relying on this 20th century crapola paradigm. They are doing creative hiring and looking at what the hire can bring to the company, not their pennant.</p>

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<p>White show corporate law which is floundering terribly now does have very elitist hiring rules. So did the now infamous bulge bracket investment banks that killed our economy. Lot of good it did them. There are plenty of articles published in journals-that one just reflects abject failure in hiring results.</p>

<p>That said most firms like to see a GPA and often want a transcript sooner or later. Some want SAT scores too. Moslty in the east.</p>

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Rivera interviewed 120 people involved in EL hiring at investment banks, law firms, and management consultancies (40 each).</p>

<p>From the paper…
“For undergraduate institutions, “top-tier” typically included only Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Stanford, and potentially Wharton (University of Pennsylvania’s Business School).”</p>

<p>Rivera cites the importance of the “strong cultural meanings and character judgments evaluators attributed to admission and enrollment at an elite school” as defined above.</p>

<p>In my opinion: this paper largely substitutes commentary for data, and I am concerned that Rivera’s personal perspective influences her interpretation and presentation of the source material. Nonetheless, the level of access reportedly granted is unique (at least from what I have seen) and as such this paper is probably worth a look for those interested in the fields studied.</p>

<p>I do not agree with the way you have translated Rivera’s paper into advice. You claim that grads are “advised to explain in their cover letters that they were accepted to Ivy U” but do not mention that this is secondhand advice from a single recruiter. Further, the references to “Public Ivies” and the WSJ survey are inconsistent with Rivera, who states that “these “state schools” were frequently described pejoratively as “safety schools” that were “just okay”)”</p>