I have a few days to make a decision on whether to accept a small merit scholarship from GW, however I'm considering Howard Law as well (half scholarship). I know about the job opportunities for Howard, especially with Big Law firms, but I'm not so sure about the likelihood of securing a Big Law position from GW. Can someone give me feedback on these two schools?

Sidenote: I'm a nontraditional student with work experience and loans from undergrad/grad school.

Thanks!

Howard.

I agree that Howard is the better option due to the price, but are the job prospects for individual students going to be better at Howard than GW? I admittedly don't know a ton about Howard, but the general consensus seems to be that firms will dig further into the class for an AA at a school like GW than for Howard. This could be mistaken though; maybe Howard places more students into public interest jobs than other students or something, and getting biglaw at median is a real possibility. I wouldn't know, and I'm no expert on the school.

What I do know is that I wouldn't go to GW at the price we're talking about here. Howard is the better choice.

Thanks for the advice. GW is very expensive indeed. I have heard very little about job prospects at GW. I wish I could talk to students of color who have received firm offers at GW. I have only heard of students who are going into public interest/government.

I'm also planning to attend GW's Preview Day on Friday, so I hope I'll be able to talk to students/faculty about job prospects at that time.

I hear that navigating the administration (financial aid) is tough at Howard and the attendance policy is pretty stringent. Aside from that, I cannot see too many negatives for Howard, other than its rank.

I would attend Howard if I were in your situation. Although the BigLaw options aren't great, they are better than at GW, and they routinely place at least the top students with some of the top firms in the city.

I'm Hispanic and at GW, and I received summer SA offers from firms. I'm happy to answer questions you have, as much as I can. Admittedly, though, the "boost" received for being Hispanic as compared with African-American may differ and varies firm by firm.

What kind of debt are you looking at going into for each school, where do you want to work, and how badly do you want BigLaw?

i know of three aa women with big law jobs from gw. they all graduated 08-09, so i'm not sure if that info is helpful. 2 others work in public interest (by choice) and one works in public interest because her grades sucked.

(re:howard) i know of one girl who graduated in 2010 w/ a big law offer and two who were not at the top of their class w/ small to mid-size firm jobs in dc and nyc.

hopefully that helps!

i know of three aa women with big law jobs from gw. they all graduated 08-09, so i'm not sure if that info is helpful. 2 others work in public interest (by choice) and one works in public interest because her grades sucked.

(re:howard) i know of one girl who graduated in 2010 w/ a big law offer and two who were not at the top of their class w/ small to mid-size firm jobs in dc and nyc.

hopefully that helps!

I would love to hear about your experiences with on-campus recruiting. Do you know how far into the class law firm recruiters dig to find students to interview?

Thanks for your feedback. I know the job market was different in 08-09, but I guess that's the risk you take. Hopefully it will rebound. Do you know if the three women who went into big law were able to secure their jobs through On campus recruitment?

At regular OCI, most of the firms had top 1/3 requirements with no regard to color. There are special listservs/events/etc. for minorities only, but I can't speak to them.

If it helps, I'm friends with a black dude who got exactly the job he wanted. But hes top 1/3.

Edit: This is GW, not Howard.

What was the job he wanted?

A position at some kind of contracts based boutique - I'm not into the law firm thing, so I don't remember the exact terminology or firm name. But he's happy.

all of the girls got offers from big law firms through ocs. they also networked through other sources and received offers that way as well. grades varied but it seems as though the blk students who did decently well, with good interview skills would get something. i'm still close with two and they both suggest gwu over howard.

Like AC said, the firms don't post different cut-offs for people of color. However, most firms that post "top-third" or "top-half" don't actually mean those cut-offs for most students. That really means "top 15% and law review" UNLESS you are diverse. The people I know who were only top-third (and not in some other way special) and got interviews with big firms during our on-campus interviews were all people of color.

And, like AC said, there are more opportunities for us to search out jobs. A lot of firms send diversity recruiters to GW, outside of the recruiters that come from firms for regular stuff.

I think that recruiters dig deeper into our class for diverse candidates than they go at Howard. At GW, firms are looking for top 15-20%, and they'll reach down to top 35-40% for diverse candidates. At Howard, as I understand it (and folks who know more can correct me if I'm wrong), they set their cut-off (10-15%) and that's it. There's no lower cut-off for diverse candidates, because they assume that basically ALL candidates from Howard are diverse.

I'd rather be diverse and median at GW than at Howard.

HOWEVER, I wouldn't want to be median at either of them if I was paying full price (or close to it).

That's all squared with everything I've heard as well. Everyone I know who had good grades (top 1/3+) but wasn't top 10%+LR got their firm jobs on their own.