NorthwesternvsUChicago

Graduate School Law School
1

<p>Which JD Program is better?? Northwestern University or University of Chicago?</p>

2

<p>Yes, to both.</p>

3

<p>To Drusba: Huh?</p>

<p>To ivygonnabe12: UChicago.</p>

4

<p>To DRUSBA: studying in two schools is virtually impossible</p>

<p>To Flowerhead: why is UChicago better?</p>

5

<p>I guess the point was too escoteric. In the eyes of big law firms that hire new lawyers, the two are considered equal and in most of the midwest they are considered equal to any other T14s including Harvard, Yale, Stanford.</p>

6

<p>i see your point but considering the other factors like money etc. which is more affordable? and accepts more applicants?</p>

7

<p>The costs and admission rates are close to each other. Living costs (apartments, etc.) will be more for Northwestern because it is located in the one of the highest housing/apartment cost sections of the City of Chicago, but Hyde Park rentals for UChicago are not cheap either. Northwestern, however, favors “older” applicants – such as those who have worked two to three years after undergrad or gone on to grad school for a masters, More than 80% of those admitted to Northwestern are in that category.</p>

8

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</p>

<p>They most definitely are not. This is patently false.</p>

9

<p>Which part do you claim is false and on what do you base the denial?</p>

10

<p>This part:</p>

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</p>

<p>And I base this on hiring grids I’ve seen from various big law firms.</p>

11

<p>What hiring grids. I guess I don’t follow those. I just base my opinion on having been, over the years, on the hiring committee of two major Chicago law firms and having known hiring partners and lawyers from many large law firms nationwide.</p>

12

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</p>

<p>I haven’t been on hiring committees, but I know hiring partners and lawyers from many large law firms nationwide. Even if Northwestern and Chicago are considered on par for the purposes of recruiting (they’re not), there is no way they are considered on par with Harvard, Stanford, and Yale. Not in a million years. In fact, if you look at the average GPAs with respect to offers given at Chicago and Northwestern (I have charts that show me this), the numbers bear this out too.</p>

<p>At least you can acknowledge that there are firms out there that treat the schools differently. Your post stated that all big firms consider them equal. We know that’s not true: Wachtell recruits at Chicago and not at Northwestern, so that’s one firm. I can bet you some hard cash that almost all firms treat them differently too, but of course, I don’t have the hiring background of almost all firms.</p>

13

<p>drusba might mean that most of the biglaw firms are not selective enough to be choosy: Northwestern, Chicago, Harvard, Yale, and Stanford are all such good schools that there’s effectively no difference. That might be true, although truthfully I doubt it.</p>

<p>But that’s certainly not true for all firms.</p>

<p>Chicago is more prestigious. Accordingly, it is more selective and gives less scholarship money. Living expenses are somewhat cheaper though.</p>

14

<p>Chicago, and this is based on employment stats which are basically attributing about 70% of chicago’s class getting biglaw and about 55% of northwesterns class.</p>

15

<p>Where did you get your stats from?
According to [THE</a> GO-TO SCHOOLS](<a href=“http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNLJ.jsp?id=1202443758843&slreturn=1&hbxlogin=1]THE”>http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNLJ.jsp?id=1202443758843&slreturn=1&hbxlogin=1)</p>

<p>The 2009 percentages were:

  1. Northwestern 55.9%
  2. Columbia 54.4%
  3. Stanford 54.1%
  4. Chicago 53.1%
  5. Virginia 52.8%
    <a href=“http://pdfserver.amlaw.com/nlj/law%20schools_charts_page12.pdf[/url]”>http://pdfserver.amlaw.com/nlj/law%20schools_charts_page12.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
16

<p>You also need to include a clerkship correction, since many of those students will go on to Biglaw jobs and most of them could anyway. Chicago has 14% and Northwestern has 8%. So it’s still a relatively even comparison.
<a href=“http://www.bcgsearch.com/pdf/BCG_Law_School_Guide_2009.pdf[/url]”>http://www.bcgsearch.com/pdf/BCG_Law_School_Guide_2009.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>And yes, that drop is terrifying. In 2008, both numbers were above 70%.
<a href=“http://www.law.com/img/nlj/charts/20080414gotoschools.jpg[/url]”>http://www.law.com/img/nlj/charts/20080414gotoschools.jpg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

17

<p>Sam Lee</p>

<p>From information given to me from current students who get theirs through their career services office. And from what they tell me the data seems legit in what they have seen at OCS.</p>

<p>This is anecdotal but I know a Chicago 2L personally who got several vault 100 callbacks and she is a white female with no connections and is around the 40th percentile according to her.</p>

<p>As a clarification my friends are current students, and I am adjusting for clerkships and prestigious PI.</p>

<p>The 14% for clerkships combined with about another 5-8% for prestigious PI (it isn’t odd to assume all these aforementioned people could have gotten biglaw) and you end up at around 75% from Chicago getting biglaw or equally sought after job.</p>

<p>I can concede Northwestern can be better than I originally stated but they do historically have less in clerkships, academia, and prestigious PI putting them at somewhere around 60-65%.</p>

18

<p>I mean, Sam is quoting directly from AmLaw. Gossip doesn’t stand up to it.</p>

<p>And it’s easy to see where your friends would be confused. In 2008, both schools were above 70%. In 2009, both schools were around 55%. So all you have to to is mix up the years for the schools, and bang. You get a discrepancy.</p>

19

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<p>It’s pretty common knowledge that firms will dig deeper into Chicago’s class than Northwestern.</p>

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</a></p>

<p>This really doesn’t mean anything, especially when you account for self-selection. For instance, I don’t think anyone here (except drusba, who is obviously wrong) thinks that it’s easier to get biglaw from Northwestern than Stanford. As far as I know, everyone who wants biglaw from SLS gets it. The same can definitely not be said for Northwestern.</p>

20

<p>FH is right, you’d have to include a clerkship correction (which should solve most of the problem). And, as previously mentioned, NLJ 250 probably includes a lot of firms which do see NU, Chicago, YLS, HLS, and SLS equivalently: “Better than we’d normally expect.”</p>