Anonymous wrote:Op , none of us know whether this is a good plan for ED without knowing your daughter’s stats and where she goes to school (public, private, geographical area). ED doesn’t help tremendously at any of the schools you listed and all are lottery schools.

To be accepted at Yale, she will need perfect grades and near perfect LSATs. Also highly unlikely for any student.

More than half the YLS grads I’ve worked with are useless as big law associates.

Some people are too literal for online forums.

OP, perfect is not enough for Yale and Columbia. You have to also work for a few years and bring something different to the class. High stat 21 year olds are a dime a dozen. Unless you also just immigrated from a war torn country or won a Purple Heart, be prepared to cast a wider net.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP: Many law students want/need biglaw in order to pay off their massive student loan debt.

And some enjoy it! Luckily, there are many ways a person can use the their law degree.

But OP, if she’s only 16, she’s probably just been watching Suits. Just like Grey’s Anatomy made a lot of teenagers think they wanted to be doctors, Suits is making kids think they want Big Law.

Most kids choose careers based off their inner circle. More likely she's looking at the adults in the room and seeing whose wealthiest. Not everyone is an idiot who can't separate shows from reality.

They’re not idiots, they’re teenagers. Don’t be a jerk.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP: Many law students want/need biglaw in order to pay off their massive student loan debt.

And some enjoy it! Luckily, there are many ways a person can use the their law degree.

But OP, if she’s only 16, she’s probably just been watching Suits. Just like Grey’s Anatomy made a lot of teenagers think they wanted to be doctors, Suits is making kids think they want Big Law.

Most kids choose careers based off their inner circle. More likely she's looking at the adults in the room and seeing whose wealthiest. Not everyone is an idiot who can't separate shows from reality.

That's also really sad: that at 16, her life aspiration is to be as rich as possible, without thinking about passion and quality of life. Maybe when she's older, that's the trade off she'll make, but that's a sad place to begin.

Are we acting like most young people aren't looking for a career to make as much money as possible? "Neurosurgeon" is every pre-meds answer for what career they are interested in because of money (well now, it's moved to Anesthesiology but for the same reason). This isn't new and law is a very well-represented career in American media and general life. No different than a kid who wants to be a software engineer for Google.

It's not OP's daughter's fault that the people in BigLaw tend to lead miserable lives.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP: Many law students want/need biglaw in order to pay off their massive student loan debt.

And some enjoy it! Luckily, there are many ways a person can use the their law degree.

But OP, if she’s only 16, she’s probably just been watching Suits. Just like Grey’s Anatomy made a lot of teenagers think they wanted to be doctors, Suits is making kids think they want Big Law.

Most kids choose careers based off their inner circle. More likely she's looking at the adults in the room and seeing whose wealthiest. Not everyone is an idiot who can't separate shows from reality.

That's also really sad: that at 16, her life aspiration is to be as rich as possible, without thinking about passion and quality of life. Maybe when she's older, that's the trade off she'll make, but that's a sad place to begin.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP: Many law students want/need biglaw in order to pay off their massive student loan debt.

And some enjoy it! Luckily, there are many ways a person can use the their law degree.

But OP, if she’s only 16, she’s probably just been watching Suits. Just like Grey’s Anatomy made a lot of teenagers think they wanted to be doctors, Suits is making kids think they want Big Law.

Most kids choose careers based off their inner circle. More likely she's looking at the adults in the room and seeing whose wealthiest. Not everyone is an idiot who can't separate shows from reality.

Anonymous wrote:OP: Many law students want/need biglaw in order to pay off their massive student loan debt.

And some enjoy it! Luckily, there are many ways a person can use the their law degree.

But OP, if she’s only 16, she’s probably just been watching Suits. Just like Grey’s Anatomy made a lot of teenagers think they wanted to be doctors, Suits is making kids think they want Big Law.

OP: Many law students want/need biglaw in order to pay off their massive student loan debt.

Anonymous wrote:Most of these people don’t know what they are talking about. I’m an Amherst grad that got into HLS, YLS and Columbia Law. I see resumes all the time for hiring and the Amherst grads do very well at law school admits particularly for HLS and YLS — it’s as close as you come to a feeder for those two schools.

Of course Dartmouth is fine too but a small school like Amherst its easier to get to know the r professors and develop real leadership skills.

But I also think it’s ridiculous for a teen to be aiming for Big Law. It’s a step short of saying that your career goal is to be the Hunger Games tribute. I mean, lots of us end up there but the idea of it being a goal when you are just 16 is so sad.

Another lawyer reading here who is still recovering from the years I spent toiling away in BigLaw, missing important family events, friends' weddings, and the stress I endured working in a toxic workplace. Am I wealthy yes, but would I encourage any of my kids to go into BigLaw, definitely not.

I graduated from Dartmouth and went to Harvard Law, where anyone who wants to go to BigLaw can get a job in BigLaw. The harder and more prestigious jobs are clerking for circuit/the supreme court, academia, Skadden fellows, and DOJ.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:None of that matters. What matters is that she have a 4.0 gpa, a 180 LSAT and take a few years off in between to do some kind of work that makes her a little different than the other thousands of perfect scores they’ll get. Having that unique job in South Dakota or in the military or peace corps would help too. And there’s still no guarantee.

DC rising senior has a 4.0 from a T100 and anticipated high LSAT based on practice tests. DC studied abroad at Oxford one semester and got a mix of A- and A, which apparently is not an easy feat for Oxford. Will T14 factor in the study abroad grades and recalculate the undergrad GPA, even though the college doesn’t? Would the rigor of the study abroad program be taken into account?

It's school-by-school. When I applied (a million years ago), Michigan wanted actual study abroad grades whereas the other schools on my list (including about half of the T14) just wanted my home school transcript--which showed my courses abroad but not my grades.

Anonymous wrote:None of that matters. What matters is that she have a 4.0 gpa, a 180 LSAT and take a few years off in between to do some kind of work that makes her a little different than the other thousands of perfect scores they’ll get. Having that unique job in South Dakota or in the military or peace corps would help too. And there’s still no guarantee.

DC rising senior has a 4.0 from a T100 and anticipated high LSAT based on practice tests. DC studied abroad at Oxford one semester and got a mix of A- and A, which apparently is not an easy feat for Oxford. Will T14 factor in the study abroad grades and recalculate the undergrad GPA, even though the college doesn’t? Would the rigor of the study abroad program be taken into account?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:None of that matters. What matters is that she have a 4.0 gpa, a 180 LSAT and take a few years off in between to do some kind of work that makes her a little different than the other thousands of perfect scores they’ll get. Having that unique job in South Dakota or in the military or peace corps would help too. And there’s still no guarantee.

Fewer than a hundred 180 scores each year. The LSAT isn’t the SAT.

Well 175 won’t get you into Yale.

If you're the same clown who wrote about "the other thousands of perfect scores," maybe it's time for you to stand down.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:None of that matters. What matters is that she have a 4.0 gpa, a 180 LSAT and take a few years off in between to do some kind of work that makes her a little different than the other thousands of perfect scores they’ll get. Having that unique job in South Dakota or in the military or peace corps would help too. And there’s still no guarantee.

Fewer than a hundred 180 scores each year. The LSAT isn’t the SAT.

Well 175 won’t get you into Yale.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Steer her as well as you can towards Dartmouth. Small colleges like Claremont Mckenna and Amherst are traps for students who can't get into real universities and struggle with the real world. If she can't learn without a professor spoon feeding her everything, she'll fail in life.

Wow, such misinformed info here. What's your issue with liberal arts colleges? Supreme Court justices have sent their children to Amherst; it is good enough for them.

Exactly. Neil Gorsuch's daughter just graduated this year from Claremont Mckenna. Why are people here so quick to jump on colleges that the elite class have clearly accepted.

Anonymous wrote:Steer her as well as you can towards Dartmouth. Small colleges like Claremont Mckenna and Amherst are traps for students who can't get into real universities and struggle with the real world. If she can't learn without a professor spoon feeding her everything, she'll fail in life.

Wow, such misinformed info here. What's your issue with liberal arts colleges? Supreme Court justices have sent their children to Amherst; it is good enough for them.