I am an international student. I was accepted to LLM programs (corporate law) at Duke, UPenn, UChicago, WashU, and NYU (still waiting on decisions from Harvard, Columbia, and Stanford). For now, I do not take financial factors into consideration since I have yet to receive my scholarship offers, which may change my decision eventually (washU already offered me 50% tuition).
I only applied to law schools, which I would love to attend, and I have researched them all, but I didn’t expect that they would all accept me and I would have so many choices.
In my experience, all these schools are excellent, but I would like to know which ones are more highly regarded in the US law community and business market. Which program would you choose if you wanted to practice Biglaw?
*Stanford, Harvard, UChic, Columbia
*Penn, NYU
*Duke, WUSTL
Big Law recruits from all of them so factors such as budget, specifics of the university, other personal preferences are better tie-breakers.
The competition will be fierce all the way through at any of them, but Harvard is the king of the hill in that area- whether that’s good or not depends on your own type of competitiveness!
The question is, “what do you expect to do with an LLM?” Unless you have a work visa, the chances of getting a US Big Law job are slim. (There is an abundance of US resident law grads every year so US law firms don’t need to hire internationals unless it’s to staff one of their international offices.)
college mom answered your question above, but you also need to consider your international status where LS prestige might be even more important. And if your goal is to gain an LLM and work internationally, you should focus on names easily recognizable overseas (Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Columbia, Chicago, NYU). (hint: not WashU)