Law Schools, Rankings, Reader Polls

The Decision: Two Full Rides Or A Generous Scholarship?

A good problem to have. What advice would you give to this prospective law student?

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Lat here. Is now a good time to go to law school, thanks to the stabilizing job market combined with shrinking law school enrollment? Professor Steven Davidoff Solomon made the case in the New York Times the other day; Kyle McEntee of Law School Transparency filed a dissent.

If you decide to go to law school, conventional wisdom says to try to get a free ride, or at least a big scholarship, and to go to a top school. But money and school ranking are almost always tension — which brings us to this application season’s first installment of The Decision, our popular series in which aspiring law students ask Above the Law editors and readers for advice on where to go.

(If you’d like to submit your question to The Decision, just email us, subject line “The Decision.” We keep questioners anonymous but might quote most or all of your email in our write-up, unless you specifically ask us to remove certain details. Also, due to volume, we can’t tackle every question we receive.)

Here is today’s scenario, from an applicant we will nickname “Mother of Dragons” (because she’s a mom, and because she’s badass):

I am currently deciding between law schools and I would like to seek your advice. First let me tell you about myself and my career plans. I am a mother. My husband is [a successful professional], so I won’t be incurring any debt wherever I decide to enroll. He’s geographically flexible and planning to look for work where I end up going to school.

In terms of my aspirations in the law, my top goal would be a career in academia. I know this is extremely difficult and competitive, so my realistic goal is to work for a civil rights organization like the ACLU. I do not want a career in Biglaw.

Now here are my options:

1. A full ride at Arizona State University. The school seems to be on the rise. I currently live in Phoenix and I love it. Not having to move again would be a plus.

2. A “Dean’s Fellowship” at Washington University in St. Louis, which includes full tuition, a faculty mentor and an alumnus mentor, and a semester as a research assistant with my faculty mentor. My parents live in St. Louis. so that’s a plus for me as they can help with the kids.

3. A $107,000 scholarship (over three years) at the University of Texas at Austin. The out-of-state tuition is $49,244 per year.

Wash U’s offer seems great. I am, however, tempted by Texas’s higher ranking. Also, Wash U requires that I withdraw my application from other schools, and I am currently on hold at Northwestern and waitlisted by Michigan. I doubt I’ll hear from them before Washington’s April 15 deadline, and I hate to withdraw before I receive a final decision.

What would you advise?

My take: Texas. With a $107,000 scholarship, Mother of Dragons is looking at between $40,000 and $50,000 in out-of-pocket tuition costs for the entire three years. That’s not very much to spend, especially for a great law school like UT, which is perennially flirting with the “T14” — it’s #15 in both the latest U.S. News rankings and in the ATL top 50. And given her husband’s occupation, Mother of Dragons won’t have to borrow a red cent to go there. Marrying into money is a beautiful thing.

Also note her career goal: an academic career. Teaching jobs are notoriously hard to get, even for people who graduated from top law schools with top grades, and faculty hiring committees are, quite frankly, elitist. I recently spoke with a law school dean who couldn’t remember the last time his hiring committee interviewed (to say nothing of hired) a candidate who graduated from a school outside the T14. Getting a law professor job as a UT grad won’t be easy, but it will be a heck of a lot easier than getting one as an ASU or WUSTL grad.

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The same is true of landing a job at a top public-interest organization like the ACLU. They are a bit more open to people not coming from the “top top” law schools, especially if those folks have strong track records of commitment to public interest — but all things being equal, the ACLU likes prestige too. See, e.g., Nadine Strossen, former ACLU president and a graduate of Harvard Law School (magna cum laude, and she was on the Harvard Law Review too).

Elie, what do you think?

ELIE MYSTAL

Did this question come from 1950? Just because your husband is paying for it, it doesn’t count as money? I live off the charity of my wife, and even I wouldn’t buy a $50,000 Playstation just because she can afford it.

You see this a lot with prospective law students: people overvalue a discount, and undervalue “free.” Discounts make people feel good; discounts make people feel like they are special and savvy and getting a good deal. Getting something for “free” makes people question the value of the thing in the first place. “Oh, if this was really good, they wouldn’t be giving it away.” ASU doesn’t have cooties. Paying $0 is a “good deal.”

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Beyond “free,” there are a number of plus factors for Arizona State or Wash U. SHE LIVES IN PHOENIX ALREADY. Mr. Successful Professional won’t even have to look for work. In St. Louis, she’s got some built in child-care options while he’s working and she’s learning. That could help.

So let’s at least look at this decision at its most basic level: Mother of Dragons is thinking about uprooting her entire family to pay more money to go to school in Texas because… U.S. News and World Report tells her that it’s a “better” school. That’s a lot of faith to place in a magazine.

I agree with Lat that becoming a legal academic is tough, and UT gives her a slightly better chance at that then the other schools. But let’s not act like UT gives her a great chance either. Unless her life has been reduced to “become a law professor or die trying,” it might be worth it to look at what other things she might want to do with her life in case she can’t make it all the way to the Ivory Tower. Here again, getting into school for “free” means something. The ACLU might prefer people who went to highly ranked schools, but they certainly prefer people who can work for peanuts. If you’re going to turn your husband into a bankroll, use it to do something, not to pay Texas a little more money.

I’d go to ASU, because moving my family all around the country just because I’m having a mid-life crisis seems silly to me. She’s never been to law school, how does she know she’s going to want to teach it for the rest of her life? Take the free.

You’ve heard our takes. Readers, what’s your opinion?

Mother of Dragons should go to:

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Earlier: Deceptive Statistics 101, Courtesy Of A Law Professor And The New York Times

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