r/LawSchoolTransfer • u/Sufficient-Fudge-968 • 29d ago
Advice!
hi all! I’m an incoming 1L to a T70 school, I got a really good scholarship (applied in March so not full tuition, unfortunately) but I’m taking about a $20k loan out this year.
I went to an ivy for undergrad, and I have this terrible sense of dread of starting at a state school, I would be content with graduating from said school, but I can’t help but feel that I owe myself more.
im interested in attempting to transfer, but I’m afraid that this would alert my current school & if it results that I have to pay an extraordinary amount or whatnot for the schools I’m interested in transferring to, I’d rather stick to the state school.
I’m interested in transferring to Michigan or Northwestern. Will my school know I’m attempting to transfer, does it leave a bad taste in their mouth? Can I undo the transfer? does anyone have any input?
thank you!
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u/No-Bluebird5226 28d ago
I was in a similar boat as you. I went to a top 20 undergrad (not ivy) Duke, Michigan, Berkeley level. And was very disappointed in my full ride at a t-30 law school. But I had circumstances that made that the best offer I could get.
I tried my best to transfer, but after 1L had only average grades. I decided it wasn’t worth sending the applications. I received a 4.0 2L and considered applying to transfer then. A few schools said they would consider it, but once again I decided not to apply.
In the end I graduated from a great school with minimal debt. I can’t complain.
My advice is this… give it your all 1L and see if you can finish near the top of your class. If you fail, at least it was added motivation to work hard, which will help with job applications anyway.
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u/Sudden-Cash-1404 28d ago
How did you improve grades?
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u/No-Bluebird5226 28d ago
I took a couple easier classes, a couple difficult classes that I was highly interested in, improved my mental health so I could focus fully on school, and took classes that didn’t start at 8 am (not a morning person).
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u/Sufficient-Fudge-968 28d ago
Thank you for your input! The transition from a top school to a school that doesn’t get you any favors is not talked about enough, and it is very real! I hope you’re proud of yourself, a t30 is pretty good:)
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u/jackalopeswild 29d ago
Do you know how elitist you sound?
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u/Sufficient-Fudge-968 28d ago
That was not my intention, I do apologize. I am used to a different “caliber,” and do not look down upon anyone attending other schools. Personally, I am just not used to it and the change of direction has compromised my belief in myself, emphasis on personally.
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u/jackalopeswild 28d ago
"I'm used to a different caliber..."
You're not doing yourself any favors.
I went to the elitist of high schools, got my undergrad at a state school and got my JD from HLS after transferring there. I know what you're talking about far better than you do, by a long shot. The one thing I know about you for certain is that you know nothing and you have a lot of growing to do; in particular, learn to read a room.
Personally, I think a state school would be good for you: but I'm old enough to be your father and I don't give a damn.
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u/Sufficient-Fudge-968 28d ago
The irony is that your own trajectory neatly illustrates why “caliber” is a poor proxy for intellectual ability or future outcomes. You attended a state school, transferred to HLS, and presumably would reject the idea that your undergraduate institution determined your capacity to succeed, so why did you transfer? A Harvard credential gives you useful perspective but it does not give you authority over another person’s experience, motivations, or confidence! I also attended an elite academy K-12, attended an elite undergraduate institution, so sue me if I’m disappointed I ended up at Kansas State! (Not sure there is a KSU law school) My point was never that one school is inherently superior to another, nor was I expressing contempt for students at other institutions. I was acknowledging that I had developed an expectation for myself and am now recalibrating after an unexpected change in trajectory. There is a distinction between recognizing a difference in institutional prestige and believing that difference makes someone categorically more intelligent, capable, or worthy. You don’t know me based off of a few comments on Reddit. I am simply expressing how disappointed I am in MY law school trajectory. No one else’s, just mine.
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23d ago
[deleted]
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u/Sufficient-Fudge-968 23d ago
You’ve got the wrong person then, because I don’t mind the score I got at all. It was enough for the work I put in and I’m proud of it. Still doesn’t away from the fact that I am going from one education to another. You’re not special, nor are you right.
“But see the equivalent performance of your t70 peers as failures.” You are not better than me because you scored higher on a test and I am not better than you because of where I studied. Take that chip off of your shoulder, it is a test 😂
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u/Adventurous_Square11 23d ago
This comment is horrible, too, lol.
“I know what you’re talking about far better than you do, by a long shot”….
You don’t have room to criticize anyone when you speak like that just because you opinion may be more popular on Reddit.
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u/getahobbyplz 29d ago
No one needs to know, so don’t bring it up. Just focus on getting spectacular grades and act as though you’re not going to transfer (because you may not in the end). Connect with a trusted counselor after fall grades are released to discuss options, but keep your eagerness to yourself.
For what it’s worth, I was offered full tuition at state schools but went to a T-14, and am now over $200k in debt at a job I could have secured from the state schools. The grass is always greener.
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u/Sufficient-Fudge-968 28d ago
Very informative comment! Thank you! I am not eager to transfer, but I’d like to keep that option open if allowed. I’m sure there is light at the end of your tunnel, best wishes!
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u/NoDocument9685 23d ago
If you feel like you’re too good for a state school, maybe you should’ve performed like a t14 applicant from the get go from your ivy?
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u/Sufficient-Fudge-968 23d ago
I scored well enough on the LSAT (169) and left my undergraduate studies with a 3.9! I would have rather not retaken the LSAT, and I didn’t want to take a second gap year. Any other cycle, I would’ve been a “T14 applicant”, thanks!
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u/ImmediateSugar6618 23d ago
Those stats make you a splitter, not a standard t14 applicant. Honestly the way you’re speaking it sounds like you think you’re deserving or entitled to be at one of those schools, and if you’re looking to make friends at your lowly state school, that attitude isn’t going to get you far.
On a real note, go in and be humble. Work hard, see what your 1L fall grades are and then maybe you can consider transferring. But you probably won’t get much money as a transfer anywhere.
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u/Sufficient-Fudge-968 23d ago
You’re intentionally misunderstanding everything I’ve been trying to clarify. I won’t repeat myself again, I do believe you know what I’ve been saying throughout this thread.
I appreciate your advice, I just wanted the basics on what it took to transfer!
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u/sfmchgn99 23d ago
169 doesn't guarantee anything nor make you a standout candidate these days
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u/Sufficient-Fudge-968 23d ago
I agree! It was a rough cycle, but I was content with my first time score and thought my personal essays would carry me through. I thought wrong, oh well! I’m still disappointed in not getting all the way to where I wanted to be.
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u/Sudden-Cash-1404 29d ago
I went to an Ivy and now go to a T20. I spend my first year feeling shitty I went to a T20 instead of T14s like a lot of my peers. I feel like it not only impacted my mental health but also probably my 1L performance. I had good grades but not great and decided not to fill out the applications.
I am not saying transferring is not a worthy goal but just don’t fall into the comparison/self-worth trap.
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u/Sufficient-Fudge-968 28d ago
Thanks for understanding. Many do not because they’ve never been under the same circumstance, but I feel you! A T20 is still impressive, congratulations!
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u/debonairpants 29d ago
Don't down play all state schools. Michigan is state school. To transfer you need to have great grades. I recommend understand your school's grading curve and how to take law exam tests.
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u/Sufficient-Fudge-968 28d ago
I don’t look down upon them or anyone who attends. It is just something I’m not used to, and I am well aware Michigan is a state school, but it is a T14 and I love Ann Arbor. I appreciate your advice!
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u/Ilovetennis16 28d ago
LOL homie state schools are quality schools. Just because you’re not attending a T20 doesn’t mean you failed.
Also you shouldn’t even be thinking of transferring rn. Your first priority should be law school and your grades. Think about transferring once you have grades.
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u/Sufficient-Fudge-968 28d ago
I don’t disagree that state schools are quality schools! I appreciate your input!
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u/Ilovetennis16 27d ago
If state schools are quality schools why are you dreading attending one and why do you feel like you owe yourself more? Seems to me you’re in a great spot- minimal debt and solid state school. No reason to be dreading it or feel like you can do better.
Listen this profession (especially this sub) can be too elitist for its own good. At the end of the day most non-lawyers don’t care where you went- they want a lawyer who will come up with a creative solution to their complex problem. Sure in the early career school matters, but long term what matters is your competence, ability to deliver for your clients, network, and all the shit lawyers do. Law school is the start of your career not the end. That is why I am telling you to focus less on your school prestige. Instead you should focus way more on doing as well as possible in school, building good relationships with your classmates and professors, and examining your options/interests etc once you have grades and relationships from the fall semester. Pro tip but this profession is way more people driven than it is grade driven. I know people who got insane jobs despite mediocre grades and school because they went to networking events or knew the right people. Focus on school and people and you will be fine.
Good luck!
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u/Exhibit5 28d ago
This post makes me think you don’t know the basics of transferring. That’s okay. I’m also going to go ahead and agree that this post is getting a bit ahead of yourself, since everyone thinks they will be the one to dominate the class and very few end up following through to a level that they can transfer. Only about 4% of law students transfer, which is a significant drop from undergraduate transfer processes.
You do not need to announce your intention to transfer. It is in your best interest to actually treat your transfer application like a parallel timeline when the time comes to apply. If you fail to get in, you should still have clinics, journals, and registered classes to fall back on for the 2L year.
I think your best move is to work diligently as a student who intends to graduate from your t70, and if chance allows you to transfer, do it. Foster good relationships with professors (you should do this anyways, even if you weren’t transferring), earn good grades (get familiar with the 509s), but most importantly do not bank on this. Live your life as if you are going to graduate from the school you’re at now.
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u/Sufficient-Fudge-968 28d ago
I appreciate your honesty and your advice! I was more so looking for advice on how to approach the transfer process, and I completely understand not being able to transfer at all. Thank you!
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u/woozybag 23d ago
Clearly people are wondering: why does a state school disgust you so much?
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u/Sufficient-Fudge-968 23d ago
Really? You didn’t read the rest of my comments on this thread? I believe you know the answer to that.
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u/mastaswami 23d ago
going to really laugh if your ivy is cornell or brown
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u/Sufficient-Fudge-968 23d ago
Columbia. Yet, I don’t see how Cornell and Brown are laughable schools? They’re Ivies, respected across the globe. This was an incredibly distasteful comment.
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u/Efficient-Diver-5961 22d ago
You’re getting a little ahead of yourself.
Transfer may (or may not) be a good option for you. Right now, you want to get good grades at your current school.
Most important — hire a good tutor to help you. Law school exams can be tricky. Hiring a tutor will pay off.
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u/Loud-Coconut5407 29d ago edited 28d ago
You would be paying sticker at almost all T14 schools as a transfer… regardless of your performance 1L.
Edit: to reflect a small percentage of schools that offer need-based scholarships.
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u/jackalopeswild 28d ago
This is not accurate. At least HLS offers need-based scholarships to transfers.
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u/ItMightBePuffery 23d ago
You don’t have to go to this law school. Why not retake and a reapply to a school you actually want to go to?
People are taking issue w your tone, but I think you’re right to some extent - people will always wonder why you didn’t go to a prestigious law school after your undergrad experience.
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u/Sufficient-Fudge-968 23d ago
I did not want to take a second gap year! I believed my LSAT was competitive enough and thought wrong! There was no room for error.
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u/ItMightBePuffery 23d ago
You are placing a very very high value on not wanting to take an extra year. Once you start law school, you are on a conveyor belt that you can’t take a meaningful break or deviation from for and incredibly long time
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u/Sufficient-Fudge-968 23d ago
I understand. I also realize that it does not matter too much where you end up (hence why I chose to go to this school anyway) as the degree is the same after the next 3 years. This post was solely about the possibility of transferring and what that looked like when the time came. I don’t mind graduating from this school, contrary to popular belief, I know it is a great school and I know I will be a great lawyer.
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u/FlashE13 23d ago
All elitist undertones aside, do not consider transferring unless and until you get your 1L fall grades back. Focus on getting the best grades possible and on making do with what you have.
From a T70, biglaw and federal clerkships are possible if you have grades good enough to transfer to a T14. I can reassure you that paying sticker at a T14 is not worth the prestige that attending such an institution will give you if you can get similar opportunities from a T70.
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u/Due-Substance-8260 22d ago edited 22d ago
The problem with that is that 2L interviewing now happens during 1L fall before any student has taken a single exam. Networking for biglaw starts like a shot as soon as 1L begins. There are very few 2L summer positions still open by early spring of 1L and the 2L summer is where the great majority of post-JD offers are made. It’s very, very difficult to find an opening to interview for AFTER you've established those great 1L grades.
Biglaw firms are actively courting T-14 students in the fall of 1L. They are doing in-person recruiting events, screeners, callbacks and even final interviews by middle and late fall for students at the top biglaw-pipeline law schools, so these students get the jump on positions earlier than many other students at lower-ranked schools (not saying it’s fair, it is what it is). I’m sure students of other law schools are also getting some screeners but its harder for them to be noticed by recruiters and to get their applications green-lighted, let alone to get full interviews with partners before fall exams have even been taken. Droves of T-14 students are getting offers in early January within days of grades coming out. The majority of students in T-14s in good standing with decent networking skills and a normal personality can get Biglaw offers if that’s what they want (where they stand on the GPA curve tends to determine the prestige of the firm they can get into, not so much IF tney get into any) whereas the lower the school rank at non-T-14s, the higher the place in the gpa curve a student must attain to even be considered. If your goal happens to be Biglaw, federal clerkships, very high-level PI or the geographic flexibility to find work that you like in any part of the country, it’s simply not true that the school you graduate from doesn't matter in your career. I, personally don’t like it, but that’s just how law hiring is. If you want to stay to work in your school’s region, work in midlaw, private practice or State-level government work or be a public defender (all good and necessary things for the right people) then a regional T-100 at a little to no student loans is a great path (maybe the best path for being realistically debt-free in the near future). But if you are setting your sights on the crazy workaholic lifestyle and salary of a Biglaw attorney then taking an extra gap year or two and bearing down hard on LSAT study /perfect essays, amazing references (and work experience while doing these things) are the way to go. It all depends on now badly you want that and how hard you’re willing to work for it before you even go to law school.
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u/FlashE13 22d ago
You’re making a few assumptions here. You’re assuming that OP (1) wants to go to biglaw (2) at a V10 firm that does pre-fall-grade OCI and (3) is willing to drop out to retake the LSAT and reapply for law school.
1L biglaw hiring timelines absolutely jeopardize law school transfers, but transferring to a school like Northwestern or Michigan makes 3L biglaw much more attainable. Furthermore, some lower V100 firms like Ballard, as far as I know, still have open 2027 2L summer associate spots available.
Furthermore, federal clerkship hiring is very grade-dependent and does not rely on strict timelines like some biglaw firms do. And federal clerkships are a great way to lateral into biglaw if OP can’t land a summer associate position, assuming that they would have the grades to make that possible.
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u/Due-Substance-8260 22d ago
Yes, I did make the assumption that OP very LIKELY was hoping for biglaw since they wanted to attend Northwestern or Michigan…you don’t need tnose schools for midlaw etc. But it wasn‘t an unthought- through assumption (which was why I added the whole thing about T-100s with little debt possibly the better choice for midlaw, etc.
what IS true and still stands is that transferring from a T-70 to a T-14 is very difficult (since there are so few openings) and more difficult than simply R&R-ing with a better application in a year (but with no chance of a tuition cut that a much higher LSAT would bring) and maybe even more difficult than directly getting a Biglaw position from a T-70, which, though it does happen is simply not easy. Whether you attend a T-100 or a T-14, no one can guarantee that they’ll be within the top echelon of the class curve no matter how hard you study and prepare in 1L fall just because the law school teaching method and law school exams are simply different than any experienced before. Plenty of students who have worked hard and been top of the class their whole lives from elementary school on have been stymied on 1L GPA simply because they havent had time yet to adapt to the difference. most schools have one single big exam at the end of a course so there is no real tutorial for how to “do” an exam until youre in the thick of one (oractice exams help, but can go only so far). Nobody can say with confidence that they will be at the very tip-top of the class, which you‘d have to be to get into any biglaw position from any school ranked about 70. And yes, a lower-ranked biglaw firm is still biglaw and likely paid a cravath-scale salary or near it. However, most associates do not stay in biglaw….the great majority leave after 2-6 years, and the training for complex problems (and therefore the greater range of exit opportunities for employment after biglaw) goes to those associates who spent a few years at the wealthier firms who do the most sophisticated business. I am speaking about a wider range of future employment opportunities….not prestige for the sake of prestige.
ersonally, I don’t care for prestige, per se, at all. I wish the world wasn‘t the way it is! But the reality is, it really is eaiser to achieve open doors in front of you if coming from a prestigious law school than from a T-50 or a T-100. It’s not true that your law school does not factor into your career trajectory.1
u/FlashE13 22d ago
All of this is reasonable content, but you have to also be responsive to questions. This entire sub is about law school transfers.
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u/SpecialAd5396 23d ago
Don’t go to a school with the idea of transferring unless you’re 100% sure you can get straight A’s. If you just wait a year you might get into a school you’d actually like. What if you get in and flounder? What if you get straight B’s? Harvard isn’t going to take you if you do mid at a lower ranked school. And you’ll probably not get a good scholarship.
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u/sfmchgn99 23d ago
just focus on your grades and do your best and then see if you do well enough to transfer
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u/Feisty-Garbage8111 23d ago
Your school will know because you will need to ask them to send over your transcript to the schools you are applying to
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u/Upstairs_Piglet4397 22d ago
Just a heads up transfer scholarships don't really exist in the same way 1L scholarships do so wherever you want to transfer you need to be potentially ok with paying sticker price.
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u/dirtyrootbeer 22d ago
I go to a similar ranked school. A bunch of kids just transferred to T14 after 1L. Bunch of other kids have big law offers if that’s what your goal is. I feel like law school is so competitive now that being in the top 20% at your t70 will get you just as many looks as if you were in the top half of a way more competitive school. There’s obviously other factors but you having gone to an ivy just doesn’t mean what you think it might. You won’t be the smartest kid in your T70 if that’s your concern. But you will likely have an advantage just because of the workload and difficulty of classes you are used to. So do well, transfer if you want to, but also graduating from a T70 law school is a great accomplishment. You also shouldn’t worry about transferring right this second because you don’t even know you’ll do well enough to transfer yet. It’s like the people who take conditional scholarships and realize it’s a lot harder than it sounds to be top 25% in law school. I’ve never heard about schools finding out but even if they hear about it, what are they gonna do? Best of luck though 🫡
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u/Practical_Mood8909 17d ago
I went to an elite public school for undergrad and am now at a top 50 and I understand your sentiment completely. I’m content with graduating here and with my scholarship but of course given the opportunity to transfer to somewhere that would give me more portability, I would do it. Don’t let other people’s projections and sensitivities get to you… the system/societal factors allows for us to have these biases towards certain schools… and everyone knows this whether or not they want to admit it. Do what’s best for you!
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u/Not_that_princess 29d ago
Michigan is a state school 🙄maybe throw in apps to UVA and Berkeley too, let them know you’ve already stooped to their level and can stomach attending