@havenoidea nice double legacy position! I actually heard that if you have legacy and don’t apply ED but then apply RD this actually can count as a “ding” against you which is worse that neutral / no boost because they know that the school was not your first choice. This would perhaps be mitigated if you needed to compare financial aid offers but for most they recommend going the early round if you want your legacy to mean something. Not having any legacy I am not sure if this is 100% accurate but as an alumni you may be able to get a clearer answer from each school.
@homerdog. D21 just took the LSAT last Sunday and is waiting on her scores. So much has changed since I went to night school years and years. First all the top school are outrageously expensive (60-68K for tuition only). That said even the top school will give a merit money the top applicants as a way to boost the stats which in turns boosts the schools ranking. Admission almost entirely based on GPA and LSAT scores and 25%-75% of the LSAT score is very tight within 3 points of each other. So once you take the LSAT you basically know the range of school you can get admitted into. If the person is looking for “big firm jobs” that starts lawyers at 160-175 you generally need to go to a top tier law school. If you are looking at wanting to be SJW then the cost of attending the top tier school (Unless you get big merit) is very hard to justify as you point out because the debt service is too high. Also if your daughter knew she wanted to live and practice in Pittsburgh for example then going to Pitt or Duquesne can be a good cheaper alternative and with good stats could get a good scholarship. If she wanted to go back to
Chicago to live then going to a DePaul or UIUC or Loyola could make a lot of sense.
I told my daughter when she told me in May that she wanted to go to law school that I was fine with it as long as she knew that she wanted to be lawyer. Going to law school as a placeholder because she didn’t know what else she wanted to would not be acceptable. I also told her that although there may be too many lawyers The profession could always find spots for new really good lawyers, and that if she worked hard in law school she would get job that she would be happy with be it in the public or private sector.
If you have an interest there are couple of really good website which really drill down on admissions, merit money, the cost, the types of jobs that graduates get etc. https://www.lstreports.com/schools/
https://www.ilrg.com/rankings/law/
If you every have any other questions let me know.
@burghdad Thanks!!
And I think you mean D19. Lol.
@homerdog Lots of useful info from @burghdad. “Going to law school as a placeholder because she didn’t know what else she wanted to would not be acceptable” Excellent advice. Along those lines, when someone asks “what can I do with major X” and the answer is “go to law school,” that’s essentially a non-answer.
As for the current state of the field, the particular elite firm I am very familiar with is very busy right now, lots of work/cases, even though everyone’s working from home; intuitively, this feels odd, unexpected. We were just discussing this yesterday. I don’t know about the rest of BigLaw.
@homerdog you are right I meant D18.
@homerdog – I spent the early 90s actively NOT applying to law school, lol, b/c living in DC at the time that’s what everyone I knew decided to do. That said, I married a lawyer who hated private practice but left after 5 years and is now extremely satisfied with his public interest law career. He does well – but certainly not making a mint. He’s senior leadership so does a lot of hiring – he hires a lot of lawyers tired of the rat race and who, often when they become parents, are looking for the better quality of life and flexibility that comes with public service law.
I will say one reason he’s been so satisfied with his legal career is that his field is particularly interesting and dynamic. As a result, he gets highly qualified applicants from top schools, clerkships, etc. There are many jobs in the legal field that he considers pretty boring, and he is happy he ended up where he is.
I started college as a journalism major but lost interest and switched to poli sci. I did a stint in communications/public relations after working on Capitol Hill but decided it wasn’t substantive enough. Instead of law school I got a Masters in Public Policy which is something your D might be interested in. Grads tend to work in government, think tanks, non-profits, lobbying firms, etc. You can specialize in many types of policy – health, education, environmental, etc. Lot of international policy tracks too. One of my grad school peers focused on emergency management policy and travels the world (well, used to) consulting with governments. Who knew, right?
In terms of ‘making bank’ that’s my S21. I always joke my D18 may cure cancer one day, but it’s my S21 who will make the $$ to pay for the research! 
@homerdog D21 is a non-stem, undecided major. She thought journalism, but has nixed it as an undergrad degree. She’s most interested in English, gender and sexuality studies, psychology, etc. Basically, anything where you can’t get a job from undergrad! And, she also thinks of maybe lawschool in the future, but to do something to advance social causes. She is, by her words, not interested in making money.
I know I should be accepting of whatever the kids want to do, but I have had the discussion about the worth of an English, etc degree. Without grad school, will she be a barista? Should we be looking at merit schools so she has $ for grad school? (We are)
Re, law school, everything @burghdad said, though my experience is that having that T14 can help get your foot in the door where you might otherwise have trouble (say, after being out of the workforce for too long) if you live somewhere where that degree is less common.
That said, if you know what city you want to live/work in, I think that city’s/state’s law school is just as good, regardless of rank. And, lots of the lower ranked law schools give merit to kids with higher lsat’s/gpa’s. To me, that’s the best way to go, unless someone has aspirations “to make bank” at Big Law in another state, bc top grads from Temple get offers from top firms in Phily, same with top grads from UB and U MD in Baltimore, and same where we now live. They also get great nonprofit and gov jobs, clerkships, etc.
I will add to the above discussion that if any of our kids were to attend law school, I’d strongly prefer that they attend a T14, not only for geographic flexibility but also for flexibility of practice area. Certain types of practices are more common among BigLaw firms (and by Big, I’m not necessarily referring to size, as there are elite boutiques, spinoffs, etc. in BigLaw world that may be of a smaller size and offer excellent opportunities).
Ha! Well, I’m sure lots of students prefer to go to top law schools but I’m guessing it’s hyper competitive and one can’t just plan on going that route, no?
I do have two friends in Denver who went to USC and NU for undergrad and then went to U Denver for law school and are doing very well but stayed in Denver.
@homerdog For students with sufficient stats, the choice may be less about admission and more about price comparison after merit discounts. Admission is so much more stat-driven than undergrad that IMO hyper competitive isn’t quite the right way to describe it.
An additional angle, not sure if anyone mentioned it: possibly working for a couple of years, doing almost anything whatsoever that seems worthwhile to the person, but especially with business experience, before law school. This life context can be useful in employment recruiting and in practice (and, in some cases, for law school admission, though more at the margin).
@havenoidea My friends son just graduated with a sociology degree and he still hasn’t found work because he doesn’t know what he wants to do. She is trying to convince him to go to grad school just to get him out of her house.
@homerdog I completely agree with this! My H went to University of Denver for law school. Most of his classmates stayed in the Denver area. It is very well respected in the Denver area. Unless you are trying to land at a national firm, most law schools are just fine.
@homerdog You are right! I’ve certainly had pangs of concern as D18 has a heart to be a voice for those that are in need, but we’re here for it.
@burghdad I have been meaning to reach out for more details on your kid, but wanted to wait to hear and celebrate your daughter’s LSAT taking. Thanks for the links. I will definitely pass them along. Keep us posted on her process. I think there are a few of us that are in this group with D18’s, too. Parents Class of 2018 ride or die
DD21 and I toured St. Mary’s College of Maryland (SMCM) last week. Living in Virginia, we’re out-of-state, but it’s only about 2 1/2 hours away.
Since we’d visited other small LACs (Juniata and Sewanee, neither of which she liked, for various reasons), I wasn’t too sure if this was going to be worth our time. Boy was I wrong.
The campus is lovely and situated right on the St. Mary’s River, where padleboards and sailboats are kept for the students to use. We first met with the gentleman who turned out to be the admissions officer for Virginia, so he would actually be the one reviewing DD’s application first. No pressure! He handed us off to our two student tour guides who could not have been nicer. They took us through some of the biology classes and labs (DD’s intended major, should she go there) as well as some of the other academic buildings.
DD was attracted to the small class sizes, opportunities to work with (and learn from) her professors, the St. Mary’s Project (a year-long research effort, culminating in a report and presentation), the non-Greek/no football status of the school and the pre-vet advising; they typically send 2 - 4 students a year to the vet school at Virginia Tech.
Since DD is interested in continuing her equestrian activities in college, on the way back we stopped at the barn where the team and club practice. She was so impressed with how well organized and clean it was.
So now, her top two schools are St. Mary’s and Virginia Tech. She’s starting to think she might not want to go to such a large school, nor one where a lot of people from her high school will attend. If SMCM can come up with some good merit aid, it’ll be hard to turn down. Two thumbs way up!
Now that D21 is gearing up again for the SAT, can someone remind me if the numbers on the common data sets are enrolled or admitted students? If they are enrolled, then it’s likely that admitted students’ numbers were higher for some of her choices. Is it still ok to make decisions about sending scores based on enrolled data? For instance, Richmond says middle 50 percent for admitted (on a marketing piece) was 1370-1500. But CDS says Math 650-750 and EW 640-710. If D is above 50th percentile in each of those categories, her composite could still be something around 1400 which is on the low end for composite admitted. Not sure how to decide then. Thoughts?
CDS is enrolled. I would go with enrolled, just my preference.
Yeah I think most schools only release enrolled numbers. But since our kids aren’t accepted yet, it seems you’d want them to hit 50th percentile for the group that got accepted. I don’t know. Can’t find accepted numbers for most schools anyway. Just wondering then if 50th percentile for enrolled is really high enough for RD.
Common data set numbers related to Freshman profile are based on enrolled, degree-seeking, first-time, first-year (freshman) students who submitted test scores…which is why I don’t put much weight on what the schools put in marketing info re: the scores for their admitted students:). Seems it’s just their way to say ‘look how great we are’. If your student is above the 50% of enrolled students, I can’t see how that would hurt her chances.
Unless the schools admits some lower scores in ED and then needs higher scores to balance the total at the end. That’s what I’m wondering! Maybe we won’t ever know but would love to know how everyone else is deciding. I’m really hoping D can get to the 75th percentile for each section. We would feel secure about sending those scores.
My D21 has been pretty solid on majoring in psychology and either a minor or double major in Forensics or Criminology or something along those lines. Lately she’s looking more into industrial/organizational psych. Her plan has been to get a PhD, but I take that with a grAin of salt at 17! Her lawyer uncle is in the “don’t become a lawyer” camp, mainly due to cost.
I have a sociology degree and have worked in business my entire career, so I’m not one to think bachelor’s in those fields are unemployable, especially from schools like Bowdoin, but really from any school.