The free ride vs better school debate, modified version (need advice)

College Search & Selection
1

<p>I'm sorry if this has been done to death before, but which of these three choices would be better for my future and...life? Sorry for the sweeping question.</p>

<p>1.) U Mass Amherst, get to keep $125,000 for investing immediately (nice little nest egg).</p>

<p>2.) Boston University, get to keep $65,000 for investing immediately.</p>

<p>3.) Top 25 Research University for undergraduate study (Northwestern, JHU, Penn, or Rice, most likely), will have to pay full tuition.</p>

<p>I am interested in going to a top 14 law school for graduate study and will make sure that I do so. I plan to go to law school immediately after college, if that changes anything.</p>

<p>If someone has posted something like this, please don't flame me too much. I would greatly appreciate anyone's advice.</p>

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<p>Maybe you saw this thread...</p>

<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=21907%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=21907&lt;/a> </p>

<p>Ultimately, it comes down to a personal decision.
How important is the money?
What are you going to score on the LSAT?</p>

<p>The top 14 law schools take a majority of kids from the top 25-50 schools.
Of course, people with high LSAT scores tend to graduate from these schools in greater numbers, so this can skew the results.</p>

3

<p>The only thing that might complicate your decision a bit more, is that over four years, Rice is more than $40,000 cheaper than the other schools you grouped it with.</p>

4

<p>I have detailed information on 8 of the top 14 Law schools (Chicago, Cornell, Harvard, Georgetown, Michigan, Northwestern, UVA and Yale). Currently, there are 0 (ZERO) UMass students at attending those 8 Law schools. Keep in mind that those 8 Law schools have a total of 8,000 Law students. I do not have figures on the other 6 of the top 14 Law schools, but the fact that UMass, a university with close to 20,000 undergrads, has not sent a single student top 8 of the top 14 Law schools in the US in the last 3 years is not a good sign. </p>

<p>Just so that you get a better feel for things:</p>

<p>Harvard has 450 students currently enrolled at those 8 Law Schools.</p>

<p>Georgetown has 300 students currently enrolled at those 8 Law Schools</p>

<p>Duke also has 300 students currently enrolled at those 8 Law Schools</p>

<p>University of Michigan also has 300 students currently enrolled at those 8 Law Schools</p>

<p>UC Berkeley also has 250 students currently enrolled at those 8 Law Schools</p>

<p>Rice has 65 students currently enrolled at those 8 Law Schools, but Rice is tiny!</p>

<p>Boston University only has 30 or so students currently enrolled at those 8 Law Schools.</p>

<p>In the case of Michigan, I can tell you exactly how many enrolled into the top 14 Law schools last year alone:</p>

<p>LAW SCHOOL:
University of Michigan: 63
Columbia University: 14
New York University: 10
Harvard University: 8
Northwestern University: 8
Georgetown University: 4
University of Pennsylvania: 4
Yale University: 4
Duke University: 3
Stanford University: 3
UC Berkeley: 3
University of Chicago: 3
University of Virginia: 3
Cornell University: 2
TOTAL: 132</p>

<p><a href="http://www.lsa.umich.edu/lsa/detail/0,2034,12364%255Farticle%255F198,00.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.lsa.umich.edu/lsa/detail/0,2034,12364%255Farticle%255F198,00.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>So, if your aim is to get into a top 14 Law school, I would probably recommend you avoid UMass.</p>