Top Law Schools

Best places to live:
The Village
Lower Greenville
The BLVD
Uptown
Park Lane (east of 75 there are cheap apartments)
Knox/Henderson area

SMU Costs
Tuition and fees:
$49,900

Living expenses:
~15,500

Miscellaneous:
~$4,000

Total cost at sticker:
~$70,000/year

Average rent: Anywhere from $550 (with roommate)- over $1000 per month



Dining Options:
Fast Food: Chic-Fil-A, Whataburger, Panda Express, Subway, In n Out Burger, Raising Canes
Sandwich shops: Roly Poly, Smashburger, Twisted Root, Jimmy Johns, Jason's Deli
Italian: Terreli's, Campisi's, Olivella's, Prego Pasta House, Amore
Mexican: Chipotle, Torchy's, Freebirds, Rusty Taco, Qdoba
BBQ: Peggy Sue's, Big Tex BBQ
Asian: PF Changs, Genghis Grill, Pei Wei, Lover's Egg Roll
German: Kuby's
Local pubs: Nodding Donkey, Trinity Hall Irish Pub, Barley House, So&So's, The Porch, Mckinney Avenue, Del Frisco's
Smoothies: SMUothies, Jamba Juice, Smoothie Factory


Class of 2018
Section 1:
TX_UH
LegalTexasHopeful

Section 2:
Accountanon
AshleySchaefferBMW
p1921
BigCityDreams
ilikebaseball
cutieluby

Checking in. Pony up!

Trying to save up to have about 3 months worth of housing paid for by the middle of May. I'll work full time over the summer and try to save for the rest. Hopefully I'll have it paid for up til about march or so by the time August rolls around

Heck yeah! I am really excited to be entering this Fall. I had several good options (full tuition, low stip scholly from Baylor, A&M, and Tech) but decided SMU was the place for me even though I'll be borrowing a bit more. SMU not only has the employment numbers to justify the higher cost, but I think they have the goods when it comes to the type of law I want to practice, which would be tax, corporate, and bankruptcy. And one can not even compare Dallas to Waco or Lubbock, lol.

ilikebaseball wrote:Trying to save up to have about 3 months worth of housing paid for by the middle of May. I'll work full time over the summer and try to save for the rest. Hopefully I'll have it paid for up til about march or so by the time August rolls around

I will be borrowing to oblivion as I am married, have a two year old, and have a second DUE 8/6/15. My wife won't be working during my time at SMU, so its like COA x 3.5.

btw, just read an article that ranked the prettiest campuses and SMU's was ranked 7th. Not too bad.

How's everyone looking for debt? First year I think I'll be doing 13k, hopefully the other two I'll be able to work and only have to do about 5 each

Accountanon wrote:

ilikebaseball wrote:Trying to save up to have about 3 months worth of housing paid for by the middle of May. I'll work full time over the summer and try to save for the rest. Hopefully I'll have it paid for up til about march or so by the time August rolls around

I will be borrowing to oblivion as I am married, have a two year old, and have a second DUE 8/6/15. My wife won't be working during my time at SMU, so its like COA x 3.5.

no scholly?

ilikebaseball wrote:

Accountanon wrote:

ilikebaseball wrote:Trying to save up to have about 3 months worth of housing paid for by the middle of May. I'll work full time over the summer and try to save for the rest. Hopefully I'll have it paid for up til about march or so by the time August rolls around

I will be borrowing to oblivion as I am married, have a two year old, and have a second DUE 8/6/15. My wife won't be working during my time at SMU, so its like COA x 3.5.

no scholly?

I received a $30k scholarship from SMU. But this leaves about $18k per year + all living expenses - whatever I can earn during the summers/school years.

I am not too excited about the behemoth debt load, but it's a risk I have carefully calculated and am ok with. I tried for the Sumners, but did not even get an interview. They said I was in the top of GPAs with a 3.95, but I don't volunteer that often and "proven civic duty" is a big deal apparently. I was thinking, "yeah, I didn't volunteer because I was too busy making good grades, duh."

p1921 wrote:Checking in. Pony up!

+1 excited to be in Dallas!

I'm so pumped... Question: Is uber cabbing an acceptable 1L job? Lol just doing on on weekends and like 2 weeknights. It'd pay for rent surely... I think

Checking in. Can't wait to meet all of you this coming fall!

Sorta wish i went to Aprils ASD instead. Seems like the cool thing to do

I'm making it TLS-official; I'll be in Dallas in August. Looking forward to seeing some of you on April 10th!

Checking in. Let's get this thing started.

People who will be around Friday for ASD - anybody interested in meeting up/getting a drink that evening?

jealous of the ASD gang...

mnbrpg wrote:Checking in. Let's get this thing started.

People who will be around Friday for ASD - anybody interested in meeting up/getting a drink that evening?

I would be down. We should definitely get a group together after ASD.

is everyone else looking at the village first for housing?

sup

you checking in? think you said you were

ilikebaseball wrote:is everyone else looking at the village first for housing?

IME, there are three main contingents (possibly four) looking at different areas first. For them one or more of the factors below may apply:

Village factors:
Affordability
Proximity
Basic apartments = sufficient

Uptown factors:
Money not quite as constricting on decision
Proximity
Nightlife

Single-Family Neighborhood factors (this could be counted as one or two groups; two would be the difference between the Central/East Dallas (including HP) neighborhoods and the 'burbs):
Preference for small (duplex-octoplex) complexes
Families
Older and done with apartment living
Students seeking to buy
Large dog
Living with parents to save

I actually went to the March ASD, but everybody just kind of dispersed toward the end of it. If any of y'all think you'll make it out that evening, maybe I can PM you my number and you could let me know where the group ends up going? If not, no bigs. I'll just see erybody in the fall.

BVest wrote:

ilikebaseball wrote:is everyone else looking at the village first for housing?

IME, there are three main contingents (possibly four) looking at different areas first. For them one or more of the factors below may apply:

Village factors:
Affordability
Proximity
Basic apartments = sufficient

Uptown factors:
Money not quite as constricting on decision
Proximity
Nightlife

Single-Family Neighborhood factors (this could be counted as one or two groups; two would be the difference between the Central/East Dallas (including HP) neighborhoods and the 'burbs):
Preference for small (duplex-octoplex) complexes
Families
Older and done with apartment living
Students seeking to buy
Large dog
Living with parents to save

BVest has it pretty clearly laid out although if you want to pay uptown prices without the benefits of nightlife there are a few new places in the village area that might appeal to you - the Standard, Upper East Side in the Village and landamark on Lovers to name a few.

East dallas/lakewood/m streets/lower greenville get my vote for the best part of dallas but well-priced places go very fast so if you're not in town I don't know how successful you would be in getting a place

As an example- this is a very classic lower greenville apartment, well-priced and if the photos aren't lying I would assume it will be gone within a week or two max - http://dallas.craigslist.org/dal/apa/4963768847.html

thisiswater wrote: East dallas/lakewood/m streets/lower greenville get my vote for the best part of dallas but well-priced places go very fast so if you're not in town I don't know how successful you would be in getting a place

This is very true. That said, you only need to be in town one day but you need to be ready to pull the trigger. We just went up to Dallas one friday night in late June with a few places in mind that we wanted to see, figuring that people probably had started giving notice for the middle or end of July. We then checked CL late Friday after getting to the hotel to see what was newly posted. Then we got up early on Saturday and saw the places we wanted as well as others in the M streets area with signs out front. We picked one and signed the lease that afternoon. The place we got actually got posted on CL on Friday night and didn't have a sign in front yet.

Checking in! Just found out I got admitted via status checker this morning (applied really late in the cycle). Waiting for the $$. What do you folks think my chances are with a 163 and Superior (LSDAS grading for intl GPAs).

Looking forward to the ASD!

j907 wrote:Checking in! Just found out I got admitted via status checker this morning (applied really late in the cycle). Waiting for the $$. What do you folks think my chances are with a 163 and Superior (LSDAS grading for intl GPAs).

Looking forward to the ASD!

24k probably, but i dont really know what Superior means. Possibly 27