Where Should I go to College?

which of these are by the beach?

2021hsrunner wrote:

2021hsrunner wrote:

Marist is right on the Hudson, not much of a beach though

That's school 1

You should go to Marist.

2021hsrunner wrote:

sdfkjbndsbvksndfklvnskdfvkj;sdfnvdfslvbn wrote:

which of these are by the beach?

Marist is right on the Hudson, not much of a beach though

Marist is a garbage school. You'll have a hard time getting into law school from Marist. Zero chance of getting into a reputable law program.

It's better to pay more to attend a stronger school to help you get into a top law school. If you graduate from a top law school you'll have absolutely no problem paying off the extra student loans.

Law is the most pretentious profession, name is everything. You can be bottom of your class at Harvard Law and be guaranteed to make 500k per year soon after you graduate.

The only thing law schools care about is your LSAT score so whoever is saying otherwise that you “need" to go to a school with a better reputation clearly did not do well on the LSAT or has never gone to law school. As for athletically realistically which school do you think you can contribute to during your time there, you’ll have much more enjoyable time rather than never making any meets.

College 1 seems chill. Nice to be on the team and cost close to 50k less.

Assuming college 1 isn’t garbage (most d1 schools are not terrible) you can still get into a good law school with good grades, the right extra curricular activities/internships and a great LSAT.

2021hsrunner wrote:

Hi, I'm currently a high school senior and am having trouble deciding between two colleges. College 1 has offered me a spot on their small D1 team, however College 2(mid sized d1) has told me that while I don't currently meet their standards, they have a tryout in the fall, but also have a club team should I fail to make the team. College 1 costs 12k/year less than College 2 but has also has worse academics. I plan on going to grad school/law school after college to work in the field of law/politics/journalism. Money is a factor in my decision, however if I really need to, I can pay for college 2. Is it worth it to take the guaranteed spot on the team and lower tuition while somewhat sacrificing academics?

This is a no-brainer, go to the better academic school. Marist's team is basically a club team anyway.

rezdawg123 wrote:

The only thing law schools care about is your LSAT score so whoever is saying otherwise that you “need" to go to a school with a better reputation clearly did not do well on the LSAT or has never gone to law school.

This is patently false. If you go to Marist your most optimistic career path with be a public defender in a small town. Defending people in crimes like jaywalking.

He's right that law firms hire exclusively based on the reputation of the law school you attend. That allows them to attract higher profile clients and to charge clients more money.

I promise you undergrad doesn’t matter in the job search when you have a law degree, it only matters where you went and how marketable that degree is where you want to work and even then it’s only your first year in law school that matters. The same can be said for grad degrees. Therefore, most people who are against Marist on the idea of academics and job opportunity are just against the school for their own selfish reasons. Focus on a good gpa and do well on the lsat/gmat etc.

rezdawg123 wrote:

I promise you undergrad doesn’t matter in the job search when you have a law degree, it only matters where you went and how marketable that degree is where you want to work and even then it’s only your first year in law school that matters. The same can be said for grad degrees. Therefore, most people who are against Marist on the idea of academics and job opportunity are just against the school for their own selfish reasons. Focus on a good gpa and do well on the lsat/gmat etc.

+1

I’ll also add that going to a less cut-throat undergrad school, where your class rank and GPA are higher, will help with law school admissions.

I second the post about what it takes to get into Law School. What matters is your LSAT and GPA in that order and where you went to school is a tiny, tiny factor. Now if you don't end up going to Law School where you went to undergrad becomes a bigger consideration. I say this as a parent who paid $270K to send their child to Notre Dame not realizing that Law Schools would have been just as receptive to the same GPA from U.Illinois at a significantly lower cost

A student with 3.5 from Marist and one from Harvard with a 3.5 GPA apply to the same law school. Both have the same scores on LSAT. Harvard kid gets in ahead of the Marist kid every single time.

Harvard kid with 3.0 and 10% lower on the LSAT gets in ahead of Marist kid with 3.3 GPA every single time.

jump 4673 wrote:

A student with 3.5 from Marist and one from Harvard with a 3.5 GPA apply to the same law school. Both have the same scores on LSAT. Harvard kid gets in ahead of the Marist kid every single time.

Harvard kid with 3.0 and 10% lower on the LSAT gets in ahead of Marist kid with 3.3 GPA every single time.

I don’t think Harvard is an option for OP...

I only know what our family experienced 2 years ago (vicariously). If you look at Law School Numbers website and from the experiences of my daughter's friends applying to Law School any "bump" one might get from having attended a prestigious or highly ranked undergraduate school is very small indeed. Think about it objectively - the 25th - 75th percentile of students admitted to Harvard Law is 3.75 at the low end to 3.96 at the high end with a median of 3.86. If you just do simple math and students from Harvard or other highly rated, prestigious schools represent a meaningful % of admitted students - how much latitude could their really be for lower GPAs from Harvard undergrads? The answer is not much if the median is 3.86 with this type of GPA distribution. I only got an A in Statistics but it is tough to average very man 3.3 to end up with a 3.86 average

nobodystalkingaboutharvard wrote:

jump 4673 wrote:

A student with 3.5 from Marist and one from Harvard with a 3.5 GPA apply to the same law school. Both have the same scores on LSAT. Harvard kid gets in ahead of the Marist kid every single time.

Harvard kid with 3.0 and 10% lower on the LSAT gets in ahead of Marist kid with 3.3 GPA every single time.

I don’t think Harvard is an option for OP...

But it proves a point. CLEARLY the reputation of your undergrad school makes a big impact on acceptance into graduate programs.

There is an almost comical amount of misinformation in this thread...

1) Yes your undergrad is important but it is FAR less important than a solid LSAT score. The kid from Harvard with a 10% lower LSAT score does NOT get in ahead of the Marist kid all things being equal. Whoever said that is a moron.

2) Harvard law graduates do not “easily” make 500k annually a few years out of law school. Here...

https://hls.harvard.edu/dept/ocs/recent-employment-data/additional-employment-data/

I have multiple multiple Harvard law grads that have worked for me in the last few years. They spanned from 2-6ish years post graduation. Average total comp was maybe 250k. Not saying this isn’t a good salary just saying there is a lot of made up $hit here.

only one choice wrote:

nobodystalkingaboutharvard wrote:

I don’t think Harvard is an option for OP...

But it proves a point. CLEARLY the reputation of your undergrad school makes a big impact on acceptance into graduate programs.

Marist v. Harvard is probably the most extreme example. What if it was Marist v. BC, or Bucknell, or some other D1 school that was academically stronger than Marist but not Ivy League-level? Kid from Marist with a 160 on the LSAT gets into law school before the kid from BC who got a 144.

All else being equal, reputation of the school may matter. But in most cases, school reputation is not going to matter if you did 10% worse on the LSAT than the kid you're competing against to get in.

johnny99 wrote:

only one choice wrote:

But it proves a point. CLEARLY the reputation of your undergrad school makes a big impact on acceptance into graduate programs.

Marist v. Harvard is probably the most extreme example. What if it was Marist v. BC, or Bucknell, or some other D1 school that was academically stronger than Marist but not Ivy League-level? Kid from Marist with a 160 on the LSAT gets into law school before the kid from BC who got a 144.

All else being equal, reputation of the school may matter. But in most cases, school reputation is not going to matter if you did 10% worse on the LSAT than the kid you're competing against to get in.

I have no knowledge about law school, but aren’t the better undergrad schools going to produce kids that do better on the LSAT? Sure, you can get a perfect score if you’re self-taught and never studied anything related to law in undergrad, but I have to imagine that school’s traditionally sending kids to top law schools provide an education that allows most of those student to do better on the LSAT. Thus the reputation that the school maintains...

Do you have your heart set on D1? Is there a good D2 or NAIA school you like? You said that money is a factor. Maybe there is a good D2 or NAIA school that would offer you more money.

not a lot of accurate info wrote:

There is an almost comical amount of misinformation in this thread...

1) Yes your undergrad is important but it is FAR less important than a solid LSAT score. The kid from Harvard with a 10% lower LSAT score does NOT get in ahead of the Marist kid all things being equal. Whoever said that is a moron.

2) Harvard law graduates do not “easily” make 500k annually a few years out of law school. Here...

https://hls.harvard.edu/dept/ocs/recent-employment-data/additional-employment-data/

I have multiple multiple Harvard law grads that have worked for me in the last few years. They spanned from 2-6ish years post graduation. Average total comp was maybe 250k. Not saying this isn’t a good salary just saying there is a lot of made up $hit here.

Yup. High grades and LSAT score matter more than the school. Major matters not at all, except insofar as it makes you appear more interesting. Interesting experience can also help.

The law school you attend matters for getting jobs, but not in the way that most letsrunners appear to believe. In general, if you can graduate in the top 10-15% of the class (might need to be 5% or better for Cooley) and get on the law review or moot court thing, you'll probably be able to get a solid job or clerkship.

And if you're planning to practice in flyover country, going to the top state school -- be it IU, Georgia, Iowa, whatever -- is often as good as Yale, Harvard, etc. for all sorts of reasons.

source: my spouse, graduate of a top 1 law school, worked both as a law prof and in private practice.