Top Law Schools

I've by no means made a decision yet.
But I thought it'd be wise to get this conversation rolling.

Way to be proactive, I'm on the same boat... deciding between:

Santa Clara- 3k
Loyola- 84k
USD- 30k

I'm born and raised in the Bay Area and would love to practice here, but not sure I can take on that debt load all things considered.

boardride23 wrote:Way to be proactive, I'm on the same boat... deciding between:

Santa Clara- 3k
Loyola- 84k
USD- 30k

I'm born and raised in the Bay Area and would love to practice here, but not sure I can take on that debt load all things considered.

how does the total cost breakdown?
oh, and scholly requirements?

boardride23 wrote:Way to be proactive, I'm on the same boat... deciding between:

Santa Clara- 3k
Loyola- 84k
USD- 30k

I'm born and raised in the Bay Area and would love to practice here, but not sure I can take on that debt load all things considered.

send your other offers to SCU and ask them to reconsider!

superflush wrote:

boardride23 wrote:Way to be proactive, I'm on the same boat... deciding between:

Santa Clara- 3k
Loyola- 84k
USD- 30k

I'm born and raised in the Bay Area and would love to practice here, but not sure I can take on that debt load all things considered.

how does the total cost breakdown?
oh, and scholly requirements?

Total cost I'm not entirely sure, but all three school's cost of living and initial tuition would come out to a total difference of within 2k of eachother (all high COL, and relatively expensive private schools)... Loyola's scholarship is top 30% of my class, but USD's scholarship is no stipulation and just for the first year, then would require me to re-apply for a new one. Any thoughts?

What school's are you currently choosing between?

Cost of attending per year at Santa Clara is around $60,000, so sticker price is $180,000.

boardride23 wrote:Total cost I'm not entirely sure, but all three school's cost of living and initial tuition would come out to a total difference of within 2k of eachother (all high COL, and relatively expensive private schools)... Loyola's scholarship is top 30% of my class, but USD's scholarship is no stipulation and just for the first year, then would require me to re-apply for a new one. Any thoughts?

What school's are you currently choosing between?

Yea. Putting together the total COA makes looking at the money easier most times.
USD wasn't more specific about the scholarship? Are they giving you the impression that you could potentially have a 30k scholarship each year??

For me, I'm still pending for a small handful of schools, WLd at one. But I have a 4/1 deposit date at Santa Clara. And if I don't hear from anybody else by then, I will definitely need to deposit at Santa Clara.

For those that are attending, what resources are you guys using to find places to live (besides Craigslist)?

gswfan wrote:For those that are attending, what resources are you guys using to find places to live (besides Craigslist)?

I'd be looking at http://www.padmapper.com and http://www.housingmaps.com/

just saw the school yesterday, went for a tour. multiple law students came up to us on the tour and expressed their happiness attending scu. sitting in on a class, multiple students approached me and made me feel welcome. campus is comparable to others i have seen (loyola and southwestern) but with the added benefits of being on an undergrad campus. seems like a place i can see myself, but still waiting to hear back from 11 schools. only fear is i have no experience in the bay area (from los angeles) and have no idea where i would live and who i would live with. any tips? been looking at all these resources but no idea whats good and whats close to campus.

You can probably find housing (apts / rooms to rent) on Craigslist (ok that wasn't helpful); Santa Clara (the town) is where SCU is located. Just north of it is Sunnyvale; north of that it gets more expensive (Mountain View (where Google is located), Palo Alto, etc.). Avoid East Palo Alto (literally the "wrong side of the tracks") until you become more familiar with the area.

South / East of Santa Clara are Cupertino and San Jose. I'm not familiar enough with San Jose to give tips about it (I used to live in North San Jose, near Milpitas (there are some nice apt complexes there), but I'd feel that's a bit far to drive down to SCU (I-880 seems to be perpetually under repair)). Cupertino would be nice to live, but may be pricey.

I currently live in Sunnyvale - I like the town a lot and it's about a 20 min drive along El Camino Real to campus, depending upon where in Sunnyvale you live (if you live close to 101 it may take some more time along surface streets to get to campus).

Looking at Google Maps it appears that Valley Fair mall and Santana Row (swanky open air shopping) aren't too far from campus either.

so it seems there are a lot of places to live and students living off campus tend to be spread out depending on where they find an apartment they like? is that a fair assumption? at my ug everything was within walking distance, is that not the case at scu?

jpla wrote:so it seems there are a lot of places to live and students living off campus tend to be spread out depending on where they find an apartment they like? is that a fair assumption? at my ug everything was within walking distance, is that not the case at scu?

Honestly, I'm not sure from a student perspective, as all my experience in living here has been from a working individual's perspective (so cost and distance were mitigated by income and a car). I'd consider where SCU is located to be a suburb with several of the amenities (e.g. fast-food restaurants) associated with school in walking distance. Also, the entrance to campus is located right across from a bus depot. However, most of the places I have tended to go (e.g. restaurants, shopping, hiking / outdoor-related activities) generally required driving.

By comparison, Berkeley would be more walkable; UC Hastings (in SF) would be slightly more so (with better intra-city public transit); Stanford you'd need a bike just to get around on campus, let alone off campus to the few 'downtowny' streets.

So I had to deposit today to keep my spot, but I'm definitely not set yet.

pekkle wrote:You can probably find housing (apts / rooms to rent) on Craigslist (ok that wasn't helpful); Santa Clara (the town) is where SCU is located. Just north of it is Sunnyvale; north of that it gets more expensive (Mountain View (where Google is located), Palo Alto, etc.). Avoid East Palo Alto (literally the "wrong side of the tracks") until you become more familiar with the area.
...Looking at Google Maps it appears that Valley Fair mall and Santana Row (swanky open air shopping) aren't too far from campus either.

I spent some time walking around the city of Santa Clara today, and it doesn't seem like there is much going on there. I don't think I'd want to live inSanta Clara. Mountain View has much more going on.

jpla wrote:so it seems there are a lot of places to live and students living off campus tend to be spread out depending on where they find an apartment they like? is that a fair assumption? at my ug everything was within walking distance, is that not the case at scu?

There are definitely places to live right off campus. Santa Clara doesn't have a big college town feel from what I can tell. I think it is just a question of whether you would rather live somewhere else, right?

Not going to Santa Clara, but I live in the area.

There's definitely no college town feel to Santa Clara, basically all the cities are connected as one huge metropolitan/mostly suburbia area. I highly, highly recommend a car.

Cost of living can vary on what type of place you're getting and where you're living. You could rent a single room from somebody for like 500 bucks, getting your own place might go past 1k for a decent place.

The area surrounding Santa Clara on the whole is pretty nice, so I wouldn't be worried about getting something really ghetto or anything.

In terms of things to do in the Bay, most involved a car, but there's a huge variety of restaurants/clubs/bars etc in the area. Decent proximity to outdoorsey things too.

maybe someone can shed some light on this. at my ug, basically every apartment building came with a full sized bed and a dresser. is that the case, for the most part, in santa clara?

jpla wrote:maybe someone can shed some light on this. at my ug, basically every apartment building came with a full sized bed and a dresser. is that the case, for the most part, in santa clara?

well, I guess just see if in the apartment listing that they say it is furnished.

superflush wrote:

jpla wrote:maybe someone can shed some light on this. at my ug, basically every apartment building came with a full sized bed and a dresser. is that the case, for the most part, in santa clara?

well, I guess just see if in the apartment listing that they say it is furnished.

For the most part, I would say places in the area tend to come unfurnished, but as sflush says, depends on the building.

Who else has deposited at this point?

I think I'm going to try to hang around the Bay Area and swing back down for the ASD on the 17th.

superflush wrote:Who else has deposited at this point?

I think I'm going to try to hang around the Bay Area and swing back down for the ASD on the 17th.

I put down my deposit and accepted my financial aid. Currently looking for something to do for the next five months so sending out resumes everywhere. Need to offset some of the cost for law school.

valley splitter wrote:I put down my deposit and accepted my financial aid. Currently looking for something to do for the next five months so sending out resumes everywhere. Need to offset some of the cost for law school.

Do you know where you want to be living next year?

superflush wrote:Who else has deposited at this point?

I think I'm going to try to hang around the Bay Area and swing back down for the ASD on the 17th.

I put my deposit down. I'm thinking of visiting this week.

superflush wrote:Do you know where you want to be living next year?

Not sure yet. I wouldn't mind living at Domicilio again, it's pretty nice even though it's slightly overpriced. Park Central Apartments would be a maybe, I just can't see myself going back there. I would ideally like to get a house around campus, but would need to find some roommates to accomplish that. There are some townhomes about two blocks from campus which are directly across from my old college house so that's another possibility. All I know is if I end up living at one of my old houses, or one of my friends', it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.

valley splitter wrote:Not sure yet. I wouldn't mind living ...

Okay, so you'd want to live in Santa Clara