Top Law Schools

I'd love any thoughts on GW one has to offer... I have gotten a really great offer (which has made it affordable), and am strongly considering taking it. I really love the DC area, and although I am not stuck on the city, being there would be ideal. I am mostly just looking for pros and cons of the school.

What are your career goals? What's your total COA?

I went there a few years back. Loved (most of) it. Now still in DC and still keep in touch with LS friends.

Pros:
-Big school, which means tons of alums at firms nationwide.
-located in DC, which means you can intern at big fed agencies during the school year. These internships are normally really prestigious and hard to get in the summer when youre competing against law schools from all over. But during the semester, only DC area schools can apply, which means they are pretty easy to secure. This means great opps to network with practicing lawyers during the school year. Also means that 3L hiring, which is normally rare, is actually plausible. I'd estimate that 5-10% of the graduating class secured big law or big fed during 3L.

Cons:
-Big school, which means tough to build relationships with professors.
-located in DC, which means teh job market is tough. Top law students from everyone want to come here and compete with you for jobs.

isn't it basically georgetown but worse and more expensive?

dm1683 wrote:isn't it basically georgetown but worse and more expensive?

GLUC is 15, GWU is in a 5/6 way tie for 30. When I looked at COA in Feb GWU was more by like $5k per year.

I had the same debate with trying to decide GLUC ED/RD.

i'd take GW full ride over GULC sticker if you're not BL or bust.

Experiment626 wrote:

dm1683 wrote:isn't it basically georgetown but worse and more expensive?

GLUC is 15, GWU is in a 5/6 way tie for 30. When I looked at COA in Feb GWU was more by like $5k per year.

I had the same debate with trying to decide GLUC ED/RD.

GW has fallen in the rankings a couple of times in the history of the school. It always goes back up to #20 after a year. After the dean announced that they would be cutting GW's class sizes and upping the medians, I'm sure it'll be back in the top 20s this year.

(I'm not being a GW-fan. Just the facts. I still wouldn't choose this school without a hefty scholarship.)

jacketyellow wrote:

Experiment626 wrote:

dm1683 wrote:isn't it basically georgetown but worse and more expensive?

GLUC is 15, GWU is in a 5/6 way tie for 30. When I looked at COA in Feb GWU was more by like $5k per year.

I had the same debate with trying to decide GLUC ED/RD.

GW has fallen in the rankings a couple of times in the history of the school. It always goes back up to #20 after a year. After the dean announced that they would be cutting GW's class sizes and upping the medians, I'm sure it'll be back in the top 20s this year.

(I'm not being a GW-fan. Just the facts. I still wouldn't choose this school without a hefty scholarship.)

What is a hefty scholarship? When people say affordable, do they mean no loans at all?

No loans would be impossible without savings/outside help, even with full tuition. With full boat now pushing 300k and up, affordable probably means <100k (so about COL + nearly full tuition scholarship).

.

sparkytrainer wrote:Good friend of mine transferred there, graduated last year. She was top 1% at old school and ended around top 15%-20% at GW. She regrets the decision every day.

Career services was awful. She didn't get a single job offer, not just biglaw, but any legal job, until months after taking the bar. Career services was useless during her two years and she hustled her ass off. I could go on, but don't want to out her specifically.

She transferred for better job prospects, but GW did absolutely nothing to help her nor still doesn't. She spent two years hustling to find a job that can't even pay her interest payments on her loans.

Sucks to hear that. That's pretty discouraging and I may refrain from sending an app to GW seeing something like this happen to someone who did well.

Did she stay in DC or did she go to a different market?

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sparkytrainer wrote:

Thanks for the info!

Yeah I've heard of PI kids inflating GW's BL numbers but that was never a true concern for me as I'm not BL or bust, but I do think it's kind of deceptive and gives the school a bad rep, along with all of the other negatives of course. And yeah I've also heard of GTown and GW's career services being ehh, and knew GW's was just worse overall, but I didn't know it was that bad!

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pancakes3 wrote:i'd take GW full ride over GULC sticker if you're not BL or bust.

If anyone's considering GW, I highly advise them not to be BL or bust. Even GULC, for that matter.

sparkytrainer wrote:Good friend of mine transferred there, graduated last year. She was top 1% at old school and ended around top 15%-20% at GW. She regrets the decision every day.

Career services was awful. She didn't get a single job offer, not just biglaw, but any legal job, until months after taking the bar. Career services was useless during her two years and she hustled her ass off. I could go on, but don't want to out her specifically.

She transferred for better job prospects, but GW did absolutely nothing to help her nor still doesn't. She spent two years hustling to find a job that can't even pay her interest payments on her loans.

There's just too many law students in the DC area, and too many law schools. GULC/GW/American/Mason/Catholic/Howard/University of DC, plus UVA nearby is too many. American should just disband or merge with GW, and UDC should be shut down by the feds for violations of the False Claims Act (for fraudulently taking government funds while holding itself out as a law school as opposed to the pyramid scheme it actually is).

sparkytrainer wrote:

Mikey wrote:

sparkytrainer wrote:

Thanks for the info!

Yeah I've heard of PI kids inflating GW's BL numbers but that was never a true concern for me as I'm not BL or bust, but I do think it's kind of deceptive and gives the school a bad rep, along with all of the other negatives of course. And yeah I've also heard of GTown and GW's career services being ehh, and knew GW's was just worse overall, but I didn't know it was that bad!

She wasn't BL or bust either, just wanted a good paying job. Out of her and her friends, only 1/5 got a real legal job by graduation, and only 2/5 are now employed in a legal job. All 5 were top 30% or so.

A small sample size does not make a conclusion, but take it for what you will. I think the cause is that the legal market in DC just hasn't grown at the same rate as GT and GWs class size in the past 3-5 years, on top of a significant portion of t13 students who want to be in DC for either biglaw or govt jobs.

Yeah, but either way it's still crappy knowing that even people who did ok at GW still ended up getting shit on.

I mean, Cougs is right. DC is a large market but it's a hard market to crack even from a local school bc DC proper's legal market is exclusively hard-to-get jobs that require T14 credentials or top 10% from non-14 schools to even get interviews: BigLaw, BigFed, preftigious non-profit, real boutiques, and that's it. There's no midlaw in DC proper, there's very little midlaw in Maryland, and Northern Virginia is a pretty ties-sensitive area that has WL/WM/Richmond people feeding in. It's just an incredibly saturated market that makes median at GW a much more different situation than median from a peer school like Fordham or UCLA/USC for NYC/LA respectively.

It's not to shit on GW kids who do well but those are the realities of trying to DC.

edit: didn't mean to write "hard to get schools" meant to write "hard to get jobs"

pancakes3 wrote:I mean, Cougs is right. DC is a large market but it's a hard market to crack even from a local school bc DC proper's legal market is exclusively hard-to-get schools that require T14 credentials or top 10% from non-14 schools to even get interviews: BigLaw, BigFed, preftigious non-profit, real boutiques, and that's it. There's no midlaw in DC proper, there's very little midlaw in Maryland, and Northern Virginia is a pretty ties-sensitive area that has WL/WM/Richmond people feeding in. It's just an incredibly saturated market that makes median at GW a much more different situation than median from a peer school like Fordham or UCLA/USC for NYC/LA respectively.

It's not to shit on GW kids who do well but those are the realities of trying to DC.

I don't disagree, but its especially prevalent in DC where top 15% means striking out from literally everything where instead top 15% at Fordham gets you some great opportunities.

It just sucks when you see someone struggle and that persons friends struggle who all did much better than median and all just really struggle. Sucks.