<p>That's what I am asking...Would it be better to go to a lower-level undergrad school for really cheap and do extremely well, and then apply for the law schools? I'm not talking about a terrible community college or something.</p>
<p>The question you are asking is one that, with slight variations, has been asked and debated several times before. It's a personal decision --there's no one size fits all right answer. </p>
<p>My perspective is different than the conventional wisdom. I think you should forget all about the cost of LS in deciding where to go to college. First, you may never go to LS. Second, there is no way you can know now that if you go to a less selective college for less $ you will do better academically. College GPA depends on many factors--not just how selective the school is and/or how your incoming "stats" line up with the rest of the class. For example, you might be abysmal at foreign languages. One college might require that you take a certain # of foreign language credits to get a degree. Another, more rigorous over all, more selective college might not.You could end up with a lower GPA at the "easier" school with a language requirement.Someone who writes very well might be better off going to a college which requires many papers and where virtually all exams are essay exams rather than an "easier" school where most exams are multiple choice or short-answer in nature. Or you might excel at class discussion--you'd probably get better grades at a LAC. </p>
<p>Third, the rough measure colleges use to tell how grade inflated a school is is a comparison of the median GPA among those who apply to LS with their median LSAT. A higher GPA from a college with a lower median LSAT, even if the median GPA at that school is low compared to other colleges, will NOT help much. If If it were that easy to go to less selective colleges and excel, you'd expect more people from schools at the level you are describing to end up at top LSs. (Remember that some of those who do are likely to be people who are URMs or come from disadvantaged backgrounds or have done something like served in the military which you might not be willing to do.) </p>
<p>Fourth, there are other ways to pay for LS. For example, some LSs have loan forgiveness programs. If you go into public service--and sometimes if you have a lower paying job in the private sector as well--you don't have to repay all of your loans. Some of these programs include undergrad debt.How much you have to repay depends on how much you earn. So, you might literally end up repaying the exact same amount of debt regardless of how much your total debt is. Additionally, all but the top 3 LSs give merit $. It's even possible that the best LS you get into will be the public U of the state where you live---which might not be the same state you lived in when you started college. It might have very low tuition, so you don't taking on LS debt at all--or an amount so low that you could easily have afforded more debt in college. </p>
<p>Fifth, while the cost of LS continues to increase, so does starting salary--and presumably by the time you've paid off your whole debt, usually 10 years + 9 months following law school graduation, you'll be earning more than starting salary. $ you pay for your first year of college might be paid off 18 years later. Yes, a lot of interest will have been added to the principal, but I suspect that it's still the case that the $ you repay all those years later will buy a lot less due to inflation. </p>
<p>Sixth, you might want to take time off and work between college and LS. Newly minted grads of the most selective, most expensive private colleges are more likely to be able to get a job in I-Banking, consulting, or some other field that pays extremely well. </p>
<p>Finally, and most importantly of all, you just don't have a crystal ball. You really can not know how the choices you make at 17 will turn out further down the road. So, choose a college. Don't go so deeply into debt that you won't be able to pay off the loan if you don't go to LS. But don't make a choice to go to a college you really don't want to go to to save $ to do something in the future you might not do or which you might not need to go into debt to do anyway.</p>
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Would it be better to go to a lower-level undergrad school for really cheap and do extremely well
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<p>As jonri said, you are making a serious assumption, and specifically that you will automatically end up doing extremely well at a lower-level undergrad school. In many cases, you may end up actually doing WORSE at a lower-level school. Lower-level schools tend to have less grade inflation than do the elite schools. For example, practically nobody ever actually flunks out of HYPS. Even if you go to HYPS and do poorly, you're still going to graduate. Maybe not with top grades, but you'll still graduate. Contrast that with many low-level schools that have absolutely no problem in handing out failing grades. Secondly, there is the tremendously strong social factor associated with education. The fact is, people are social creatures and tend to copy what they see around them. If the people around you are hard-studying, scholarly types, then you will tend to want to be a hard-studying, scholarly type. However, if the people around you are just a bunch of lazy drunk frat-boys who never study and never go to class, then you will tend to become lazy and never study and never go to class. </p>
<p>My point is, never make the presumption that you will automatically do better by going to a lesser school. I know a guy who could have gone to several elite private schools, but chose a public school in order to save money... and then promptly flunked out of that public school. Talk about being penny-wise, pound-foolish. If he had gone to those private schools, sure, he'd be in debt, but at least he'd have a college degree right now. Maybe not with top grades, but at least he'd have a degree. That's a LOT better than what he has now, which is nothing.</p>
<p>I agree somewhat on the GPA issue. A lot of college performance can depend on some things beyond your control: stress outside of school, grading curves, etc. There are no guarantees that you would do better at a lower-ranked school, and you would have to do better to stand out in the law school admissions process.</p>
<p>That all said, I do disagree with Jonri about law schools adjusting for difficulty of the undergrad school. Some do this (Penn being one of them); however, some law schools do not. As rankings become more important, the numbers become more important - and straight-up GPA becomes more important than where you got it or what you got it in. Trust me on this one. </p>
<p>There is also the issue of the fact that not all top schools have grade inflation. I can tell you that my undergrad did not - with the median of engineers being parked around a 3.0 to a 3.1 (and my own major being lower), there was no grade inflation. Your options might not be Harvard or huge state school. Some states have small state colleges - less than 5,000 people total; there are also a lot of universities that might offer you merit aid but be more highly regarded than a state U. Your specific major might account for more in terms of grade inflation/deflation than your school. </p>
<p>Do make sure (regardless of whether or not you want law school) to go to a college that will help you graduate, no matter what happens.</p>