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Still waiting to hear back from a few schools before I begin negotiations. If anyone has experience negotiating higher scholarships at Duke or Chicago, I would really appreciate some tips!

I would like to go into BigLaw upon graduation, but depending on my 1L grades I may consider clerking for a year before entering BigLaw. I do not want to enter the NYC market.

How would you value the Doctoroff program? It provides and internship during your 1L summer, a business mentor (alumnus), business classes at Booth (certificate granted upon graduation), and "leadership experiences". All great things, but the idea of taking on an extra 55k in tuition, in addition to a higher COL, is daunting...

Any help is appreciated!

-How you will be financing your COA, i.e. loans, family, or savings

Almost entirely loans. Plan to use my 2L SA earnings to help offset COL, assuming I am able to secure a SA in BigLaw.

LSAT/GPA numbers

17x, 3.8-3.86

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I found the cost of living to be the same or even cheaper for UChicago compared to Duke, because you don’t need to use a car. No insight about the rest though

Outcomes for both have almost identical biglaw and fed clerkship numbers. This is a no-brainer, go with the cheaper option Duke. Given the significant difference in cost, that is the deciding factor here.

Duke is the right answer here

Friends in the Doctoroff mostly like it- and I suppose it pretty substantially enhances your chances of making some money 1L- which would also slightly offset the COA gap, even seconding what Landshoes says (you can live pretty damn cheap in HP) I imagine you're still at a 40-45k-ish gap, which is still pretty substantial... I think they have a couple of classes bios up somewhere w/ 1L/2L employment if that helps you get a sense of their outcomes.

If you're truly opposed to NY- maybe the fact that Chicago has a stronger home legal market is worth something? But my sense is that Duke's pretty top-tier for a ton of markets across the South, and Duke only puts 7% or so more grads in NY.

Also there may be more active websites where you can get additional opinions on this- it might be worth pursuing that to get more voices on this.