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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]First, if OP's DD has all the desirable qualities OP describes plus $160K in her 529, she is going to have some excellent choices for college, including many reputable SLACs that give merit aid to strong students, just not top 5.  She is not going to be spending 2 years at CC and transferring to state U flagship (which would be fine by the way).

My experience as a lawyer is that law school matters, not undergrad. If you have a student that is looking at law school, I would go a step further and suggest it is worth considering saving the money on undergrad (meaning go to a school that offers merit aid or a solid in state public) even if you have the cost of private undergrad saved and use the money for law school, which is more expensive that private undergrad these days and law school rank absolutely matters for job opportunities.

However, assuming  that there would be a cognizable advantage provided to OP's daughter by attending Wellesley, then OP may want to consider whether the benefit is worth the loss of "wiggle room" in their family budget.  It is indeed a privilege to have that choice.

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OP never talked about their kid going to law school, so not sure how that was inserted into the discussion.  The below list represents where Yale law school students went to undergrad (this was from 2020).  The list below represents 397 kids out of total enrollment of 676 (so 59% of the class).  The top 10 schools sending kids to Yale law school represent 46% of the entire school.  Just so happens those are all Ivy League + Stanford + UChicago.  Sure, you will now argue that it is not the undergraduate school that mattered, just that those kids were very motivated but just happened to pick those schools.

Yale (90)
Harvard (54)
Columbia (34)
Princeton (31)
Stanford (22)
Dartmouth (21)
Cornell (19)
UChicago (18)
Brown (17)
Pennsylvania (16)
Georgetown (13)
Berkeley (13)
Duke (10)
Northwestern (8)
USC (8)
Michigan (8)
JHU (7)
UVA (7)
Amherst (6)
Swarthmore (6)
Bowdoin (5)
NYU (5)
Tufts (5)
UCLA (5)
UConn (5)
UNC-Chapel Hill (5)[/quote]

Sure, but Yale lawyers end up notoriously miserable and unhappy for the rest of their careers, so it’s not really that much of a win in the end. [/quote]

Look, this conversation somehow got hijacked by law school.  OP never said their kid was interested in law school, but then somehow it was introduced and started to dominate.

Personally, I think law school in general is a terrible decision...but would agree you need to really go top 10 or it is an horrific decision.

A bunch of posters then said it doesn't matter where you go undergrad, but absolutely does matter where you went to law school.  Yale is historically the #1 law school, and it is clear that it DOES matter where you went to undergrad if you want to increase your chances of acceptance to Yale (and I bet Harvard and Stanford and law schools 2-10 look fairly similar).[/quote]

One thing I learned as a lawyer is never to make conclusions without seeing and understanding  the data.  Pp, according to them, supplied schools of origin for half the school, where is the rest?  Also, pp describes the list as reflecting one first year class which is clearly not the case, as a first year class at Yale is about 200 students, not 600.  So not sure what data exactly they are reporting.

At my T5 law school, the most students we had for any one college was 7, from Harvard.  No other school had more than 4.  Most had one.  Hardly some huge advantage to go to any particular school

Also Wellesley, the school that op is lamenting, is not even on this list.  So not worth the $80k as some have suggested? [/quote]

Great post!

I'm not a lawyer so I can speculate :-)

I'm gonna guess, more kids from T20 schools go to Top 5-10 Law schools simply because they have the $$$ (Gotta be rich to afford $300K+ for law school, or willing to take huge financial risks/loans and hope you can pay it back--someone who grew up MC is not as likely to attempt this) and because T20 schools are already the "cream of the crop" as everyone attending is top academically and driven students (Similar to how kids from the Top 3 privates in DC area are more likely to attend a T20 university/T20 SLAC than someone from Baltimore City public schools) .  Those who get into T5-10 Law schools from non Ivy/Non T20 undergrads most likely had the same drive, academics in HS, but chose for many reasons to attend a different undergrad (didn't get into a T20 like majority dont, couldn't afford it---which is smart if you want to attend law school save your $$ for that, etc), or they just hit their stride in undergrad and became a better student/focused on law school.  
  
[/quote]

My husband attended university of Chicago Law and was accepted at Harvard, Standford and Georgetow n and went to UTEP undergrad.  He had a single mom and that was the most she could afford.  I would not spemd over $300k for a 4 year degree to raise my kid’ s chances to go to a top law school.  That is silly.[/quote]

The irony is your husband could have gone to Yale for FREE based on the profile you describe.  UTEP was therefore not a great choice and perhaps your husband would have been afforded opportunities such that he wouldn’t have to blow $300k on law school.[/quote]

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