A graduate student at Duke writes with the following observations about rankings and the cost of law school:
"I'd like to add some of my own thoughts on law school ratings. Your EQR is an excellent source to compare against the US News ratings that I have used to inform my own decision on law school. I have found the information on Supreme Court clerk placement, elite firm placement, and faculty placement to be just as valuable as the EQR ranking. You have provided virtually the only source of information on law schools that compares schools beyond a single-dimensional 'ranking'. The rankings are helpful, but incomplete.
"I have one major complaint with the obsession with school reputation: the failure to adequately take into account the expense of law school. More than once, I have heard professors and other lawyers give advice that students should go to the best law school they get admitted to, as long as it is in the top 10 or 15. Barring an unlikely positive decision at Chicago, NYU is the best school that I have been admitted to, but they are not offering me any grants or
scholarships, and estimated costs (incl. living expenses) are $57,000 per year.
Since law school tuition does not generally go down, that would mean somewhere in the neighborhood of $180,000 over 3 years. Compare this to Texas, which is offering me a $5000 scholarship and therefore would cost $70,000-$90,000, depending on tuition waivers for years 2 and 3. Moreover, George Washington is offering a $20,000 scholarship, and therefore would not cost more than $75,000. I am skeptical that NYU is worth a $100,000 premium over other top-25 law schools, even if I was sure that I wanted to pursue corporate law. It seems to me that the advice that students should go to the best law school where they get accepted is based on an out-dated premise that the difference in the cost of a law school education will not run into six-digit figures."
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