UVA (full tuition) v. Chicago (90k) Forum

[kstocks7]

I'd really appreciate some feedback on my situation:

Obviously, the full tuition scholarship at Virginia is tempting. Are there opportunities that I would have (or be significantly more likely to have) at Chicago that I wouldn't necessarily have at Virginia? What is the value added by Chicago that justifies the additional cost?

Thanks in advance to all who contribute

[elterrible78]

I'd really appreciate some feedback on my situation:

Obviously, the full tuition scholarship at Virginia is tempting. Are there opportunities that I would have (or be significantly more likely to have) at Chicago that I wouldn't necessarily have at Virginia? What is the value added by Chicago that justifies the additional cost?

Thanks in advance to all who contribute

Similar situation, so I'll be paying attention here, too.

[nebula666]

Where do you have ties?

Where do you want to work?

What is the total COA for each school?

What is your background/softs?

[UtilityMonster]

Donno, does the T6 distinction actually exist? If so, how much value does it add?

If you want to become an academic, Chicago hands down. If you want to work in a Southern firm, Virginia.

I'd pick Chicago, but I wouldn't have to take on debt in this situation.

[RSterling]

Interested in this as well. Schollies are lower, but the ratio is similar.

OP, I'm interested in clerking and working either in DC. I'm leaning towards the higher money at UVA. Cheaper cost of living, job opportunities are not that different outside of V10 placement, and I don't think I'd like the culture of Chi as much.

[kstocks7]

Where do you have ties?

Where do you want to work?

What is the total COA for each school?

What is your background/softs?

Lived in the midwest my whole life - don't have a problem with it but my personal inclination is to at least try out another part of the country during law school. Open to working in the midwest or out east (north or south) after law school.

Background: finance major looking to continue along the business track. I do have some interest in clerking, though. Involved in greek life and baseball (2 years). I'll be entering law school straight from undergrad.

Cost: Virginia's annual COA is $71k whereas Chicago is $75k. My hometown is about 2.5 hrs south of Chicago so there may be some cost advantages to being close to home. That being said, Chicago is going to have a higher cost of living.

[kstocks7]

Donno, does the T6 distinction actually exist? If so, how much value does it add?

If you want to become an academic, Chicago hands down. If you want to work in a Southern firm, Virginia.

I'd pick Chicago, but I wouldn't have to take on debt in this situation.

Great question about the T6 distinction - I'd love to hear someone's input if they know the answer.

From a financial standpoint, I have about 20k saved up and my family will contribute 10-15k per yr. So, there are some limited resources

[envisciguy]

Where do you have ties?

Where do you want to work?

What is the total COA for each school?

What is your background/softs?

Lived in the midwest my whole life - don't have a problem with it but my personal inclination is to at least try out another part of the country during law school. Open to working in the midwest or out east (north or south) after law school.

Background: finance major looking to continue along the business track. I do have some interest in clerking, though. Involved in greek life and baseball (2 years). I'll be entering law school straight from undergrad.

Cost: Virginia's annual COA is $71k whereas Chicago is $75k. My hometown is about 2.5 hrs south of Chicago so there may be some cost advantages to being close to home. That being said, Chicago is going to have a higher cost of living.

He meant total COA minus the scholarships. What would you end up having to pay/take out loans for at each school? Chicago makes a little more sense for the Midwest and Virginia more for the South. Have you told Chicago about UVA's offer? Despite the geographic preferences, I don't think Chicago is worth $60k+ more than UVA.

[somewhatwayward]

I think you should take the $ at UVA but before you do try to negotiate with UChi and whatever other offers you have. wWhat are your other offers? Did you get substantial $ at Penn? Penn's been placing really well and I would argue that it is generally better than UVA. I will caution you about a few things regarding UVA that I find very unappealing from a job hunt (esp. big law job hunt) perspective (these are mitigated in your case by having a big scholarship since you don't have to get a high-paying job). First, they curve to a B+ but don't require professors to give a certain number of particular grades. Thus, it would be okay for a professor to give 50% As and 50% B-s. Most T14 schools specify that a professor must give 5% As, 15% A-s, 30% B+s, etc. This is a feast-or-famine grading system. If you are at the top of the class or near the top of the class, this grading system will be very good to you. But if you are middle or bottom, it sucks. It is difficult to predict where you will fall in a class of people with very similar intelligence/work ethic. It is even harder to predict whether you will be naturally good at the alien skill of taking law school exams. It is not always correlated with intelligence and work ethic.

So the grading system sucks. But then they compound that by making their on-campus interviewing process (where all the firms come en masse to interview all the students) 70% preselect and 30% lottery. This means that firms mostly get to pick which students they will interview and not surprisingly they will mostly pick the ones with the high grades. 30% of the interview spots are filled by lottery, so al students who participate will get some interviews. I think they also cap the # any one student can have, so if you get more than the cap, you have to reject some of them and those trickle down. But preselect sucks and no other T14 school does it. In addition to making the process feast-or-famine, preselect also may increase the competition for callbacks in that if a firm chooses all above-median students for its 70% and the rest of the slots get filled randomly, maybe 80-85% of the student interviewing with that firm will be above median. In a school with a lottery system, it is likely to be lower except for the firms where below median kids know they have no chance. The 20% below median will have a serious uphill battle, not to mention the 80% who are all duking it out for the maybe 4-6 callbacks that will be given.

Anyway I think these features are pretty big flaws, but as I said, I still think you should take the money at UVA because having little to no debt is huge. That little extra bit of wiggle room you would get at UChi isn't worth 100K + interest more. But you should know that UVA does things this way, and if you have comparable options, I might give them another look.

BTW, I checked on clerkships and at least last year UChi was at 9.4% while UVA was at 10.6%, which is pretty baller placement since UVA's class is big so 10% is like 40 kids while 9.4% of UChi's class is a little less than 20 - it may be that UChi kids ended up in firms in greater numbers and were generally happier with the firms they ended up in so were not as inclined to apply for/take clerkships unless they were really good opportunities (there are two types of people applying to clerk - those looking to go into academia and those who either missed the big law boat or were dissatisfied with their firm and see clerking as a way to trade to a better firm).

As to the question about T6, I believe there is some distinction between the top half of the T14 (and obviously distinction within the top half of the T14) and the bottom half of the T14, but I would include Penn in the top half, so I wouldn't think of it as T6. You have somewhat more wiggle room with your grades in the non-HYS top half of the T14. Penn's NLJ 250 placement over the last few years has demonstrated that firms are willing to hire below median there fairly regularly. Below median is not a death knell at CLS and NYU, either, although your chances are less than the above median people and the firms available to you are not as good (at least if you measure good by Vault rankings). Median at CLS and NYU is not great but I would feel comfortable there. The impression I have gotten from reading these boards and looking at the stats over the years is that median is not a comfortable place to be in the lower T14 and below median is very dicey.

Also, CLS and NYU place a lot of kids into the V10 and V20. Another distinction then is the quality of the firms available to you. Of course if you are top of your class at UVA, pretty much every firm will be available to you. But the tippy top firms go deep into CLS's class (eg, my year, Skadden, which is V5, made offers to 30 kids at CLS EIP and only 40% of those were to people in the top third; I can't remember the numbers for Davis Polk, another V5, but I am guessing something similar; of course, those two firms are less grade-conscious than the rest of the V5, but the point is that you're not shut out just because your grades are medianish). I don't have NYU's numbers, but they seem to place similar numbers of students into these firms. UChi is smaller and also not in NYC, so it is harder to compare it to CLS and NYU. Maybe some UChi folks can comment about their placement into various firms. Okay I am seriously procrastinating from this article that i have to write over spring break (very fun...)....

[rickgrimes69]

$90k at Chicago is a proverbial drop in the bucket - you're still looking at roughly $180k in total COA. Go UVA unless you have lofty goals (AIII Clerkship / Academia / etc) and are prepared to hit up Biglaw for 3-5 years.

[Bronck]

$90k at Chicago is a proverbial drop in the bucket - you're still looking at roughly $180k in total COA. Go UVA unless you have lofty goals (AIII Clerkship / Academia / etc) and are prepared to hit up Biglaw for 3-5 years.

I'm not at Chi, but this doesn't sound right. I received $62.5k from CLS and I'm looking at around $165-170k debt at graduation (assuming a 2L SA). The CoL estimates schools provide are generally going to be very inaccurate unless you don't know how to be frugal or budget.

I'd imagine, assuming a 2L SA, the CoA would be closer to ~$140 at Chi. Nevertheless, I take your point. Graduating from UVA with $40-50k debt instead provides far more flexibility.

[Emma.]

$90k at Chicago is a proverbial drop in the bucket - you're still looking at roughly $180k in total COA. Go UVA unless you have lofty goals (AIII Clerkship / Academia / etc) and are prepared to hit up Biglaw for 3-5 years.

It's kinda disingenuous to count the full COA for Chicago but then treat the full ride at UVA as being all expenses paid. Presumably with tuition increases the tuition costs of Chicago will be between $70-$75K. Including the COA differences the real question should be whether given OP's goals it is worth paying an extra ~$85K for Chicago.

[annieT]

.

[kstocks7]

I think you should take the $ at UVA but before you do try to negotiate with UChi and whatever other offers you have.

Excellent post, thank you. TLS never disappoints

[RSterling]

So the grading system sucks. But then they compound that by making their on-campus interviewing process (where all the firms come en masse to interview all the students) 70% preselect and 30% lottery. This means that firms mostly get to pick which students they will interview and not surprisingly they will mostly pick the ones with the high grades. 30% of the interview spots are filled by lottery, so al students who participate will get some interviews. I think they also cap the # any one student can have, so if you get more than the cap, you have to reject some of them and those trickle down. But preselect sucks and no other T14 school does it. In addition to making the process feast-or-famine, preselect also may increase the competition for callbacks in that if a firm chooses all above-median students for its 70% and the rest of the slots get filled randomly, maybe 80-85% of the student interviewing with that firm will be above median. In a school with a lottery system, it is likely to be lower except for the firms where below median kids know they have no chance. The 20% below median will have a serious uphill battle, not to mention the 80% who are all duking it out for the maybe 4-6 callbacks that will be given.

Are there UVA students who can chime in on this? No offense to you, wayward. This was a great post. I'm just curious as to how professors typically hand out the grades. Are there some who really do the 50/50 split described above?

[catlawl]

Undoutedly UVA. Difference in job prospects is not worth $100,000+. Difference in job prospects is minimal and that is a mountain of money.

[rickgrimes69]

$90k at Chicago is a proverbial drop in the bucket - you're still looking at roughly $180k in total COA. Go UVA unless you have lofty goals (AIII Clerkship / Academia / etc) and are prepared to hit up Biglaw for 3-5 years.

I'm not at Chi, but this doesn't sound right. I received $62.5k from CLS and I'm looking at around $165-170k debt at graduation (assuming a 2L SA). The CoL estimates schools provide are generally going to be very inaccurate unless you don't know how to be frugal or budget.

I'd imagine, assuming a 2L SA, the CoA would be closer to ~$140 at Chi. Nevertheless, I take your point. Graduating from UVA with $40-50k debt instead provides far more flexibility.

I took the numbers straight from LST; too lazy to do the math myself. If you want to crunch the numbers, be my guest, but the difference is nevertheless substantial. Keep in mind that figure includes expected tuition increases and interest.

It's kinda disingenuous to count the full COA for Chicago but then treat the full ride at UVA as being all expenses paid.

Not treating it as all expenses paid, I'm treating COL as negligible. Charlottesville is an order of magnitude cheaper than Chicago. My point was that Chicago will put OP into Biglaw level debt, UVa won't.

[Bronck]

I took the numbers straight from LST; too lazy to do the math myself. If you want to crunch the numbers, be my guest, but the difference is nevertheless substantial. Keep in mind that figure includes expected tuition increases and interest.

. . .

My point was that Chicago will put OP into Biglaw level debt, UVa won't.

Oh yeah. I definitely agree with you. I was just quibbling over the details.

[Stringer Bell]

So the grading system sucks. But then they compound that by making their on-campus interviewing process (where all the firms come en masse to interview all the students) 70% preselect and 30% lottery. This means that firms mostly get to pick which students they will interview and not surprisingly they will mostly pick the ones with the high grades. 30% of the interview spots are filled by lottery, so al students who participate will get some interviews. I think they also cap the # any one student can have, so if you get more than the cap, you have to reject some of them and those trickle down. But preselect sucks and no other T14 school does it. In addition to making the process feast-or-famine, preselect also may increase the competition for callbacks in that if a firm chooses all above-median students for its 70% and the rest of the slots get filled randomly, maybe 80-85% of the student interviewing with that firm will be above median. In a school with a lottery system, it is likely to be lower except for the firms where below median kids know they have no chance. The 20% below median will have a serious uphill battle, not to mention the 80% who are all duking it out for the maybe 4-6 callbacks that will be given.

Are there UVA students who can chime in on this? No offense to you, wayward. This was a great post. I'm just curious as to how professors typically hand out the grades. Are there some who really do the 50/50 split described above?

The OCI criticism is overblown in that post. There are a number of legitimate arguments as to why the UVA OCI system can actually work better. Ultimately, the proof is in the employment numbers which indicate it probably doesn't matter that much either way. It looks like the 2012 numbers are being posted (http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 1&t=206368) and UVA's fed clerkship + biglaw number is slightly below NYU and substantially above Michigan which has a pure lottery system. Also FWIW, CSO has been telling the 1L's that this past OCI has been the best since the recession. Of course, legal hiring could always get worse at any moment.

As far as grading, a typical 1L class will have 1/3 B+'s, 20%ish B's and A-'s and 10% B-'s and A's. A few profs give more A's, but a few profs will also give 50%+ B+'s. I don't really know how this compares to other schools. But again, the proof is in the employment numbers, which again indicate it's probably not a huge deal either way. It doesn't seem as though Boalt's strategy of hiding the ball is helping them that much.

[jbagelboy]

This is a beautiful situation IMO. Don't agree with the chicago debt-mongerers, you have more than half a full ride thats brilliant. both schools do great with clerkships. depends on where and what you want to practice. personally I would take chicago because I'd prefer to live in a big city and have northern connections over southern ones but almost anyone would be jealous of your choice

[BerkeleyBear]

UVA

[turkeysub]

UVA 2L here. People with ties to Midwestern (besides Chicago) secondary markets do really well here. Most of our employment problems come from the fact that a big chunk of the class has only lived in VA/DC. Since you've lived other places I'd say it's a pretty good bet, especially with full tuition.

[Dr. Dre]

UVA

[somewhatwayward]

So the grading system sucks. But then they compound that by making their on-campus interviewing process (where all the firms come en masse to interview all the students) 70% preselect and 30% lottery. This means that firms mostly get to pick which students they will interview and not surprisingly they will mostly pick the ones with the high grades. 30% of the interview spots are filled by lottery, so al students who participate will get some interviews. I think they also cap the # any one student can have, so if you get more than the cap, you have to reject some of them and those trickle down. But preselect sucks and no other T14 school does it. In addition to making the process feast-or-famine, preselect also may increase the competition for callbacks in that if a firm chooses all above-median students for its 70% and the rest of the slots get filled randomly, maybe 80-85% of the student interviewing with that firm will be above median. In a school with a lottery system, it is likely to be lower except for the firms where below median kids know they have no chance. The 20% below median will have a serious uphill battle, not to mention the 80% who are all duking it out for the maybe 4-6 callbacks that will be given.

Are there UVA students who can chime in on this? No offense to you, wayward. This was a great post. I'm just curious as to how professors typically hand out the grades. Are there some who really do the 50/50 split described above?

The OCI criticism is overblown in that post. There are a number of legitimate arguments as to why the UVA OCI system can actually work better. Ultimately, the proof is in the employment numbers which indicate it probably doesn't matter that much either way. It looks like the 2012 numbers are being posted (http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 1&t=206368) and UVA's fed clerkship + biglaw number is slightly below NYU and substantially above Michigan which has a pure lottery system. Also FWIW, CSO has been telling the 1L's that this past OCI has been the best since the recession. Of course, legal hiring could always get worse at any moment.

As far as grading, a typical 1L class will have 1/3 B+'s, 20%ish B's and A-'s and 10% B-'s and A's. A few profs give more A's, but a few profs will also give 50%+ B+'s. I don't really know how this compares to other schools. But again, the proof is in the employment numbers, which again indicate it's probably not a huge deal either way. It doesn't seem as though Boalt's strategy of hiding the ball is helping them that much.

The 50% As and 50% B-s was hyperbole. I hope that has never and will never happen. I would expect that some (most?) professors there do follow a curve pretty similar to the ones at other T14s, but the point is that they are not required to so you run the risk of a professor who is tempted to hand out 20% As and balance it out with a lot of Bs and B-s. The 1Ls at UVA are very smart driven people, and I can guarantee you that pretty much everyone will write a decent exam, and lots of people will write an excellent exam, and professors will want to give lots of As. Almost every professor i have talked to about exams has told me they wished they could give more As (I was really disappointed to get a B+ in civ pro bc I knew the material and did a good job on the exam, so I went to see the professor, and he told me he would've given me an A if there was no curve - at that time CLS allowed only 5% As and 15% A-s, and I was basically at the 79th percentile so got a B+). I assume that some professors give into the temptation to award a lot of As because there will be lots of really great exam answers. But that means some peope who did a decent job will be stuck with Bs or, worse, B-s. There are some firms that wont even consider someone with a B-. I wonder what proportion of students at UVA get B-s. I would guess that it is a little higher than the percentage of students who get them elsewhere although I believe Mich might have mandatory C+(not positive but read that somewhere).

Anyway I don't want to overstate this issue. Most schools keep records of the number of each grade that was given in each class, so maybe you (or someone else at UVA) could go look at it and, if allowed, copy down the data from as many classes s possible and then we could try to see if there is any difference. It would need to be like maybe 30 recent classes to be meaningful I would think.

As far as the preselect thing goes, I don't think the fact that Mich is placing worse (was 2012 the class that all aimed for Chicago and got screwed?) is justification for the preselect system. The best evidence would be if UVA changed to a lottery and we could try to compare, but even then we would have trouble controlling for other variables, like the economy improving. I expect c/o 2013 numbers to be even better than c/o 2012 (eg, at CLS, 92% of the c/o 2013 who participated in our on-campus interview program received at least one offer), but summer associate hiring for c/o 2014 was weaker than for c/o 2013, so we don't really know how these schools will be placing in Fall of 2014 when OP interviews for SAs (if OP is interested in an SA - I would be tempted to, OP, even if you don't want big law long term because you could make enough money to cover living expenses for 3L year and/or pay off some of your living expense debt - it may seem like paying off debt is obviously better, but the origination fees on some federal loans are really high, so it may be better to avoid taking another loan out - I digress).

Anyway, I am not sure about the impact of the grading system and preselect OCI although I do remember that pretty much every year people are freaking out in the UVA OCI thread about having single digit, or even 0, interviews (although, to be fair, many eventually trickle down as the cap is enforced and others are forced to reject some). They do have a special request system also where people can ask firms for interviews on top of the cap. I expect that most of the special requests that are granted are to students with good grades, but again that is speculation.

But my point is not to make certain assertions about the impact of these systems. Rather I want 0Ls to be aware of them, and they can do their own research and decide whether they think this might be a problem or whether it is NBD. I didn't apply to UVA, but I know that I would not have known about these systems when I was making my decision.

[BarbellDreams]

Dear God, this is UVA by a mile.