<p>Im currently deciding between Vanderbilt and Temple. Temple offered me a full tuition scholarship for the entire 3 years and Vanderbilt offered me a $20,000 per year scholarship. Im torn between attending Vanderbilt with its amazing career placement office (so Ive read) and graduating from Temple without debt. My father is pushing for me to attend Temple and enhance the Temple JD with an LL.M from a top ranked school. However, I havent decided on a specialization, and my understanding is that LL.Ms are geared toward careers in teaching, which I dont plan on doing. Any opinions or suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Thanks! :)</p>
<p>If you plan to stay in the Philadelphia area- and I do mean the immediate Philadelphia area (maybe up to Bethlehem and into Camden)- go with Temple. Otherwise, Vanderbilt without any question.</p>
<p>Agreed. Temple will get you hired (and usually fairly quickly) in Philly. Vandy will get you hired. No qualifiers.</p>
<p>Ok. Thank you so much for the responses!</p>
<p>You'll have no problem getting a great job along the east coast with a JD from Temple.</p>
<p>I'm not too sure that anyone can safely predict what the job market will be like in three years. It's not unlikely, though, that your job prospects coming from Temple will depend somewhat more on your class standing than they would coming from Vanderbuilt.</p>
<p>Do you have any strong preferences about where you might want to live after law school?</p>
<p>I'd like to work in the Northeast/Mid-Atlantic (D.C. is my limit)</p>
<p>My dad is a Temple alum (although he went to law school in Florida), and landed a great job with the SEC in D.C. after law school. I dont think either school would be more advantageous in your case.</p>
<p>dionte- The job market is vastly different from when your father graduated. Except in the immediate Philadelphia area, the Vanderbilt degree will serve the OP better. If Temple is the choice, you better be at the very top of the class or Philadelphia is where you stay.</p>
<p>The conventional wisdom states that the legal profession is quite hierarchical, and job prospects nationally are better for students at the top tier of schools (defined most narrowly as the top 14 in the U.S. News survey) than it is for others. </p>
<p>The conventional wisdon also usually states that law schools with a less national reputation have greatest success placing their graduates in jobs closer to their campuses.</p>
<p>Vanderbilt is generally ranked just outside the top fourteen, but still has a national reputation, and a good track record of placing its graduates in jobs in a wide viariety of locales.</p>
<p>Temple is ranked 59th this year (out of 200 or so ABA-accredited schools). It has a solid reputation, but probably has a more local outreach for its placement activities than Vanderbuilt.</p>
<p>Still, you have to consider what is local when you're talking about Temple. You're within a short train ride from many of the most densely populated cities on the Eastern Seaboard. A top graduate from Temple, particularly one who was awarded a highly coveted scholarship, might have a great many options upon graduation.</p>
<p>One reason schools outside the top tier have may have some placement issues is purely logistical. If law firms are going to have to pay for plane tickets for a second round of interviews, they may concentrate on schools that are familiar names. But a student who can take a train to an interview, and return home without staying in a hotel, may be more likely than others to get interviews.</p>
<p>The question really comes down to this: is Vanderbilt worth an extra $60,000 in debt? It's anybody's guess. We can all speculate about what the job market will be like for newly minted lawyers in three years. But nobody knows. </p>
<p>I turned down law schools that were slightly higher in the ratings at the time than the one I chose due to a major disparity in the cost of attending, and have never regretted doing so. But a sensible case could be made for either Temple or Vanderbilt under the circumstances you've described. Your decision will probably come down to how comfortable you are in assuming substantially more debt in an unsettled world. You may decide, like W.C. Fields, that all in all, you'd rather be in Philadelphia.</p>