Am I Making a Mistake? Pitt vs Temple Forum

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fourwinds

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Am I Making a Mistake? Pitt vs Temple

Post by fourwinds » Fri Apr 13, 2018 4:06 pm

I was accepted to University of Pittsburgh about two months ago with in-state tuition and $25k per year scholarship. I think it's a genuinely good deal. Comes to about $8,000 in tuition out of pocket. I've been gravitating towards Pitt because I have family connections to area. My whole family are Pittsburghers and I would feel right at home living/working in Pittsburgh. I love the city. To the T14 people: No, I am not going for free, but $8k a year + living expenses is what I paid for undergrad, so I consider it a good deal.

I sent in my seat deposit at Pitt Law last week.

Yesterday I was admitted to Temple. I've visited both schools, and I liked Temple much better as a school. I thought Temple would be a better choice for me for tax law (since they have the dual LLM program) and that Philly's legal employment prospects are better. Temple was my top pick all throughout the application process, but since I didn't get accepted until 3 days before their first seat deposit is due, I wasn't expecting to get in. Getting my acceptance there is making me rethink Pitt a little. However, I have no connections to Philadelphia the city and I would likely be more comfortable living in Pittsburgh, and I also have no clue what my scholarship amount at Temple will be, if anything, and I know that Pitt is cheap.

So here's the question: are the tax law employment prospects of Philadelphia / Temple significantly better than the tax law employment prospects of Pittsburgh / Pitt? Is there a significant advantage to considering Temple and moving to a city where I have no family ties, or is this simply a "do you want to work in Pittsburgh or Philadelphia?" question?

Yesterday

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Re: Am I Making a Mistake? Pitt vs Temple

Post by Yesterday » Sun Apr 15, 2018 9:43 am

I am not very familiar with Pitt's program, but I am at Temple and have taken a few tax courses. The tax faculty is amazing and have a lot of connections to opportunities in Philly. You can take LLM tax courses as a JD, but they only count towards an LLM to the extent that you exceed the required number of JD credits and you can only earn half the LLM credits this way. I wouldn't place too much emphasis on the benefits of the LLM. The employment prospects kind of depend on what type of tax law you want to do. I have gotten the impression that getting into a firm to do tax work in Philly can be difficult.

That being said, Temple's employment numbers are not much better than Pitt's. I think you need to wait to see if Temple offers any scholarships. Maybe you can use that to bump Pitt up to a full ride. Ultimately, I think it does come down to money and where you want to work. I do know someone at Temple that is from Pittsburgh and is going to a firm in Pittsburgh this summer. However, if you want to work in Pittsburgh long-term, I am sure it is much easier to do that as a Pitt graduate. Having family close by during law school is also a big plus in my opinion.

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