Explain people who excelled academically in high school, got into great universities then flopped

[Anonymous]

To save money / accept a scholarship. This is the most common.

To attend school near where they lived and worked at the time (possibly including spouse or parent needs in the area).

Employer or military paid for law school (you often don't get to pick in that case).

Didn't prep for LSAT / bad undergrad grades / competitive admission year.

[Anonymous]

The smart lawyer doesn’t go into debt for law school; they go in state or follow the money/scholarships.

Signed,

Lawyer

[Anonymous]

My husband is a litigator. I seriously doubt he even checked to see where our estate attorney went to school. He sized her up based on talking to her.

[Anonymous]

Oh! This was me! Burn out. But the burn out was from the fast pace of high school. And that fast pace was entirely self imposed in high school. I was really driven. Then I got into a top Ivy and I just felt like ... why am I pushing myself?

I just lost all interest in performing to anyone's standards. I wanted to just learn for learning's sake (or not learn). I still did the work, but I didn't kill myself for As. I was happy with Bs and some Cs.

I had no law school or graduate school ambitions. My grades were good enough to get a job. But I'm not a high powered anything.

[Anonymous]

This is my friend who is also an estate attorney. She graduated from Ivy League, spent some time in investment banking, but when a kid came along it was not sustainable anymore (her husband had a career on Wall street too). She quit, had another child who turned out to have some special needs. But my friend couldn't be a completely SAHM because she said she physically felt her brain rotting. She thought about how she can apply herself while making her own hours and decided that getting a law degree and eventually her own practice is the way. Since she knew she would be working for herself she did not care about the brand name, so she went into the state school that was a convenient commute and her degree cost her <$30K.

The kids are now in HS and she has a thriving practice.

[Anonymous]

Cocaine is a hell of a drug.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My first thought is that their parents paid for college but, when they had to pay for their own law school, they went for the place that gave them a scholarship, was cheapest, or maybe just convenient.

Ah yes, status-obsessed snobs who go to an Ivy League college just stop caring about status when it comes to law school -- which is notoriously the most status-obsessed professional there is -- to save a few bucks. No. It means their college GPA is mediocre and they bombed the LSAT, period.

If they had top grades and a top LSAT score, they would not be cross-shopping a top 14 law school with a third tier law school for aid -- they'd MAYBE look at a lower T20 for some additional aid, ex. Georgetown over Penn. And even then, I doubt it. More of a message board hypothetical.

[Anonymous]

An undergraduate class at Yale is much, much larger than a law school class. Same everywhere else of note. If you think Yale/Georgetown Law or Yale/GW Law is “flopping” then OK I guess. No one else does.

Also, law school—unlike a top Ivy UG or even an elite prep school—is not worth paying up for. Formative connections are made well before law school. Law school is a piece of paper.

There are tons of other reasons as PPs have noted. But I think cost and, to a lesser extent, certain specialities at certain schools (like international focus at some of the DC schools, or schools with dedicated banking focus or joint JD/MBA programs) are the main ones.

All that said working is for the birds, so I have very consciously saved and wound things down with the goal of officially “flopping” into retirement in my early 40s.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Burnout. The Ivy's are exhausting, incredibly stressful, and often cut throat. It's hard to make friendships because people are highly competitive.

As far as education goes, I feel like I had way better professors and a better education at a large state school (undergrad).

- Harvard grad (graduate school)

If you are burnt out, why go to law school at all?

To avoid working a real job. All they know how to be is a student.

[Anonymous]

I went to an Ivy. I came from a lower middle class background and bad high school; college was so hard and depressing, as I was so unprepared and had to make up for 12 years of subpar education in less than 4.

If I have gone to law school, I very well could have gone to some low ranked school, and I likely would have no idea that it mattered or that it was a bad idea. My mom would have been thrilled, an attorney in the family! It wasn’t like my classmates and I talked about BigLaw incomes vs sht law or what not. We chased girls and drank beer and crammed for tests. A lawyer was a lawyer as I knew.

[Anonymous]

I knew a trailing spouse, really smart, who went to the equivalent of like, the University of Nevada Las Vegas law school because of her husband’s specialized job as a lion tamer, he had to live in Vegas, so she made the best of it. She graduated and practiced personal injury law even though she had always dreamed of becoming a civil rights lawyer. Then she got divorced and moved to Houston and now defends the rights of oil companies to destroy the environment. You just never know people’s paths.

(Obviously some details changed for privacy reasons, but you get the point.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a meeting scheduled with a founding attorney who is a double Harvard grad to do some estate planning for me. I noticed all of his associate attorneys had Ivy undergraduate universities listed in their bio but with very regional law schools. Like hypothetically one went to Yale but then went to Liberty University Law school. Another hypo is one went to Cornell then went to University of Baltimore Law. It had me thinking before I give him my business and almost certainly end up working with one of his associates what causes this to happen outside of drugs and family issues/tragedy? Burnout?

those are not examples of flops

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a meeting scheduled with a founding attorney who is a double Harvard grad to do some estate planning for me. I noticed all of his associate attorneys had Ivy undergraduate universities listed in their bio but with very regional law schools. Like hypothetically one went to Yale but then went to Liberty University Law school. Another hypo is one went to Cornell then went to University of Baltimore Law. It had me thinking before I give him my business and almost certainly end up working with one of his associates what causes this to happen outside of drugs and family issues/tragedy? Burnout?

Legacy got them in but they are truly idiots

[Anonymous]

I can’t get over you looked at where they got their degrees. I’ve needed to hire lawyers a few times in my life for personal and business reasons. I don’t know where any of them went to school.

The only time I notice a degree is if I’m sitting in a room, bored, waiting for a doctor and the diploma happens to be hanging on the wall. I remember reading them but can’t remember any of the actual universities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Burnout. The Ivy's are exhausting, incredibly stressful, and often cut throat. It's hard to make friendships because people are highly competitive.

As far as education goes, I feel like I had way better professors and a better education at a large state school (undergrad).

- Harvard grad (graduate school)

Not for undergrad. They are a breeze. The issue is getting in.