Northwestern gave full scholarship to friend's son

Graduate School Law School
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<p>" I have already gone over with her the meaning of >200K loans at horrendous interest rates."</p>

<p>PADad - the fastest way to understand is to pay those loans, or at least some reasonable fascimile thereof. If it were my kid, I would say, “Here’s the deal. I don’t think that it’s worthwhile to take out $200,000 in Monopoly money debt, and you don’t know what it’s like to pay that kind of debt off every single month for ten or twenty years. Between now and June, I want you to start up a bank account and, on the first of every month, deposit what will be your loan payment into it. [Check repayment calculators for this. Assume that she’ll pay 100% of it, and don’t rely on IBR.] If you do that, and still want to go to this expensive school, I will match what you put into that bank account, dollar for dollar, and you’ll have a nice nest egg to start off law school with.”</p>

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<p>“she was offered a place at a law school which only provides need-based aids, and furthermore, my financial situation would preclude her from obtaining any grant-in-aids. I have resigned to that she will likely attend this school despite the chance of receiving full-tuition scholarships at some of the T14 schools…a T3 school will indeed give her more options since PI jobs are really quite difficult to come by.”</p>

<p>I don’t get it – why would the T3 school give her more options if she isn’t getting any fin aid there? Why would she make a commitment at this time without even knowing where else she will get in and at what price?</p>

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<p>I had that same confusion, Hanna, but then after reading sybbie’s post, I gather what padad is saying is that his D was accepted to one of Harvard, Stanford or Yale, and wants to pay sticker to attend. Moreover, the common thinking is that those three open doors that are otherwise closed to law students from colleges down the food chain.</p>

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<p>bluebayou: “Yes, I understand grading, but IMO it is much better to be unemployed in 3 years with little debt (by taking the $$ at a lower-ranked school), than unemployed in 3 years with $200k in debt. (The market for lawyers sux and there is no reason it should turn around.)”</p>

<p>i totally agree in almost all cases. however, i disagree in the context of this situation . in my opinion, i would take HYS at sticker over full rides elsewhere. even in this economy, HYS are just about sure things. other schools in the top 14 have taken hits, especially in the lower top 14, but HYS will still give you amazing options, regardless of your class rank.</p>

<p>additionally, as many of you know, the legal profession is still very much caught up in prestige. when you go to HYS, every door will be open.</p>

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<p>We have a bit of a discussion on the subject matter here. We use a specific instance, but the principle obviously applies.</p>

<p>

<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/law-school/1103033-chances-hy.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/law-school/1103033-chances-hy.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>We discuss the same scenario in this thread, with my input in post #20:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/law-school/1094469-t14-vs-full-tuition-stipend-t20-school.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/law-school/1094469-t14-vs-full-tuition-stipend-t20-school.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Thanks for all your input. My D’s reasons are very similar to those so eloquently expressed by Brian. The point that a higher class rank may not be as critical is quite appealing to me.</p>

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<p>HYS does offer some specialty non-need based scholarships. I go to one of those schools and because I’m a vet they gave me an 18k scholarship under the yellow ribbon scholarship.</p>

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<p>I am glad to hear that HYS treat you vets special. Best wishes.</p>

<p>PS. I marched against all four of our most recent wars but I do respect you vets.</p>

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<p>Am I reading correctly that you are calling Georgetown a lower-ranked school to avoid?</p>

<p>I’ve been in BigLaw hiring for more than 25 years and I don’t know of any BigLaw firm that doesn’t recruit at Georgetown on pretty much the same level as HYS.</p>

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<p>Georgetown has a wonderful law school and I don’t recall anyone here made any such statements.</p>

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<p>padad, I imagine that zoosermom was referring to the above comment made by The Brian. I happen to agree with her.</p>

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<p>Gotta disagree with the Brian on this; if you can get a full ride to pretty much any other t14 vs. incurring 200K debt at a top 5-well, I’d recomend you go for free to #6. You’ll do very well and not having to worry about having a mortgage-size student debt is a huge plus.</p>

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<p>Alwaysamom, what the Brian said about choosing a top 5 school over one of the lower T14 with a full tuition scholarship is not the same as what zoosermom said, “Am I reading correctly that you are calling Georgetown a lower-ranked school to avoid?”. The statement made by The Brian is about his preference which we may agree or not, the other is a rather disparaging remark which TheBrian did not make.</p>

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<p>Georgetown IS a wonderful school, and I’d never recommend “avoiding” it. With that said, I think this statement is probably a bit hyperbolic. I can name several (certainly not a majority, but more than zero) firms that recruit preferentially at Yale over Harvard over Columbia over NYU. They don’t treat CCN the same way they treat YHS, and I’d be skeptical that they’d treat Georgetown better than Columbia.</p>

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<p>"Am I reading correctly that you are calling Georgetown a lower-ranked school to avoid?</p>

<p>I’ve been in BigLaw hiring for more than 25 years and I don’t know of any BigLaw firm that doesn’t recruit at Georgetown on pretty much the same level as HYS."</p>

<p>first off, no one said georgetown was a lower ranked school to avoid. i referred to it as a lower t14…which it is, since it’s literally ranked 14th. when compared to a school like yale, stanford, or harvard, it’s not even a competition. as the economy has tanked, i still maintain that the only sure things are HYS. i don’t think many older attorneys/recruiters know how big of a hit big law hiring has taken in recent years. as a current 2L who just finished OCI, i can tell you it seems much tougher than it used to be. employment stats support this assertion.</p>

<p>my opinion is NOT based on the us news rankings; us news is largely irrelevant. my opinion is based on cold hard statistics. the same firms may go to georgetown, but they have higher GPA cutoffs. georgetown only placed 31.08% of its students in big law in 2011 and their clerkship numbers pale in comparison to HYS. in fact, USC, maybe the strongest “regional” school in the nation, outpaced georgetown in big law placement (at 32.85%). </p>

<p>my point is that HYS gets you big law relatively easily, and also opens up many doors not available to other schools. for example, many students at HYS don’t even want big law and prefer clerking/going into academia. if you attend a school like georgetown, big law is FAR from a guarantee and their students aren’t afforded the same alternative options.</p>

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<p>IMHO, the reason to go to Harvard ($200k) over GULC (free-ish) would be that HLS has its own, very generous, loan repayment programme ([Eligible</a> Employment](<a href=“http://www.law.harvard.edu/current/sfs/lipp/eligible-jobs/index.html]Eligible”>http://www.law.harvard.edu/current/sfs/lipp/eligible-jobs/index.html)) If you earn $50,000 per year, for example, HLS will pay all but $800 of your loans for you. Functionally, no matter what you do, your HLS debt will be very manageable - and you have access to jobs that you can really only get out of a top 3 law school. (The one caveat is that the parental leave payments only last for six months, and any part-time work is converted into a full-time salary to determine eligibility.)</p>

<p>Ergo, unless you are going to Harvard (or Yale or Stanford, if they do the same guarantee), go for free. It seems like the law students here are projecting a few years into the future - saying, hey, if you’re 28 years old and working at BigLaw to pay down your loans, that’s fine, you’ll get the BigLaw job. But I think that when you’re much older than that and still paying down loans and working 80 hour weeks to do it, your opinion of the wisdom of taking out those loans is really, really different.</p>

<p>I would especially caution against taking out those loans if you are a woman who wants children. I’m not one to run around saying that women need to have kids at age 25, but if the most optimistic scenario of your life plan involves having them after age 35, then, IMHO, you’re making a life-changing mistake. Women ought to also consider that their husbands may have similar debt loads (given that they will often marry law students whom they meet at school or lawyers at their own firm), and a young married couple with $400,000 of student loan debt is one that is going to make heart-wretching choices.</p>

<p>One woman I know said something about “I would give anything to trade in the initials after my name [B.S., J.D.] to be called ‘mom.’”</p>

<p>Just my opinion.</p>

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<p>I agree with Brian. JD from the likes of Georgetown is far from a good bet in this economy. I wouldn’t pay anything close to sticker price to attend. Attending HYS with no money is better choice than attending GULC with full scholarship. After all, even if you aren’t in 200k law school debt, if you don’t have a job, you are still screwed. (by the way, what was the point of going to law school in the first place if you couldn’t get the desired job with it?)</p>

<p>GULC placed ~30% into Biglaw, but realistically, you need to rank higher than top third of the class to have a strong chance at Biglaw coming out of Gtown. There are IP eligible folks, URM’s, people with significant pre-law work experiences, people with connections, etc etc that will get the Biglaw job from below top third class rank. In other words, 30% of the class got Biglaw =/= being top third of the class will get you Biglaw. This is a very important distinction to make.</p>

<p>That being said, JD from HLS isn’t exactly the magical golden key to the most elite/lucrative jobs, as some posters here portray. ~20% of class at HLS graduated un(der)employed in last few years during the recession. If you are bottom third of the class at HLS, there is still a fairly strong chance that you won’t get Biglaw, or anything close to as lucrative/ desirable as Biglaw. For the record, the LSAT tutor that my friend used was a HLS grad, who graduated in 2011 without a job lined up. </p>

<p>Lastly - landing a SA gig at Biglaw out of OCI doesn’t seal the deal. I know several people from my law school who ended up at lower V100 firms after law school, but many of these firms were in precarious financial situations and they had to lay off large chunk of junior associates. I know six guys who were laid off from their Biglaw firms just after their 1st year at their firms, and since they didn’t get enough work experience/ gain crucial skills/ etc, they are having a very tough time to find decent legal employment.</p>

<p>The nice thing about HYS is that not only do much higher % of their grads end up in Biglaw over lower T14, but also a much larger portion of their grads end up at elite Biglaw firms, where they will get more job security, get more responsibility, develop better skills, get access to larger client base, and ultimately, get superior career track. Considering all these factors, HYS at sticker is a better bet than lower T14 with full ride.</p>

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<p>Not sure how we got here from OP, but if Biglaw is the only goal, then HYS may be the only way to go. For those who want to get a job as a lawyer and are a bit less selective(in other words, 95% of the legal community), then I’d strongly recommend that if you get a full ride to #4-14, take it and go. You’ll have no debt, and will very likely get a job as a lawyer upon graduation.</p>

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<p>well I agree with your premise, cranky, one should note that even at #14, Georgetown, nearly a fifth of its graduates end up with jobs that do NOT require a JD. </p>

<p>(Some of these maybe voluntary, personal choices, but I’m not sure why one would spend 3 years of life and the cost of living in DC only to end up with a job that does need a lawyer.)</p>

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<p>On the flip side, if you graduate from GULC with minimal debt and don’t have a JD job, you can still get something else, return to a previous field, do document review, or otherwise start to build a career. If you graduate from HLS and don’t have a JD job, HLS won’t repay your loans.</p>

<p>Also, that you may have a BigLaw job at age 26 doesn’t correlate to having one or wanting one at age 35. </p>

<p>It’s really about how much risk you’re willing to tolerate, and how important it is to you to have a family. Also, you may prefer to not spend much money on your own education so you can save up for your kids - really not sure how parents who are paying off huge debt into their late 30s or 40s are going to put their own kids through college. Look further down the road than the mid-twenties, peeps.</p>