| Topic Name: |
Emory vs. George Washington |
| Message Name: |
negatives |
| Date Posted: |
05/06/2001 |
| In Reply To: |
At this point these are my two options since I got WL'd by USC. Of the two, which would you pick and why? I've heard some terrible things about both schools, and I'm considering dropping out and reapplying next year. Is GW considered georgetown's whipping boy or what? Secondarily, I've heard the career center at Emory isn't very effective. Any guidance would be appreciated. |
| Message: |
Both schools are fine.
Your choices are of sufficiently high quality that there is little point to "dropping out and reapplying next year"--unless your GPA is so high that you can make a run at top 5 and you think you can improve your LSAT.
The fact that GW is seen as a bit lesser for recruiting purposes than Georgetown isn't really the point. The point is whether your hiring chances are good with a GW degree. Take a look at www.law.gwu.edu. Click to "career services" and then to
"prospective students". You'll see that the 2000 class median salary is in the high 80s. You'll also see that while some GWU students
go elsewhere, most stay in the lower Atlantic seaboard.
Similarly, career services offices everywhere are very good at setting up interviews for the top students with the large law firms (it is not entirely coincidence that megafirms have recruiters who help facilitate the process).
Generally, career services
offices are pretty unimpressive for most other purposes. I'm not maligning those hard-working career services professionals--heck, some law schools don't have full time professionals in the job, but make do with professors part-timing it and a clerical staff. What I am saying is that nobody should make a decision about law schools based on "career services office" quality, unless we are talking about a lower tiered law school with excellent placement or something. If you do not go top 5, and you do not have top grades, you will want to do some legwork of your own, even though if you go top 15, that legwork will inevitably land you a job, and usually a better job than if you just sit back and wait for career services. Take a look at www.law.emory.edu's career services section. Again,
a high median income figure, solid employment, and many, many national firms interviewing at the campus.
At Emory, of course, most folks end up settling in GA, but the geographic distribution of grads looks a bit wider than GWU. If I had your two choices, I'd go to the less expensive one if the cost was materially different.
If the cost is essentially the same, I'd do that martindale.com test: go to Martindale.com, and in the "find a lawyer" search engine, leave all fields blank except the city I am interested in living in,and the name of the law school.
You can look at what firms
hire grads of Emory or grads of GWU, and figure out something about what name recognition each school has in your city of choice.
You can hear terrible things about any school, including HYS. Heck, if you go to review.com, you can hear terrible things about any school you get admitted into,
your own ancestry and legitimacy, your parents' ancestry, legitimacy and sense of easy intimacy, and so on. Pay no attention to the 1L behind the curtain.
Instead: what are your hiring chances. Here's the story on both your choices--if you get great grades, you will go to a national law firm if that's what you want, and you will make top dollar. If you make good grades, you will go to a solid regional firm, and make nearly top dollar. If you make only mediocre grades, you will get a job, and usually make reasonably good dollar. The difference between a GWU or an Emory and a top 7 school is that at a materially higher ranked school you might get a top job with only good grades and your job choices would be a bit richer even if your grades were mediocre.
But my two cents is that
you're trying to reject any club that would have you for a member, and you just need to play your cards, which are very good cards indeed.
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