My child got into Georgetown and UC Berkeley. They want to pursue something in law later on. Not sure yet. Could also switch to pre med later on.
What would be a good Choice for them? We live on the east coast
Frankly - both.
One is a large public. One is a mid-size Jesuit (ie religious) with a huge graduate population.
Getting into both tells me this is a really smart student. However, getting into medical or law school - the where doesn’t matter. Think about this - Georgetown Law first year class has 672 kids coming from 222 colleges. They come from the top and also regional, directional and the low rank.
Personally, I wouldn’t pay the UC OOS cost but that’s me. There are many large flagships that cost less. Plus Georgetown is a nice walkable area and I assume easier to get home. DC is also an awesome place to visit.
But Georgetown will have an extensive two tiered core and will have religious personnel and imagery. It would bother my kids but maybe not yours.
The point is - to answer your question, there’s no right or wrong answer in general. But there might be for your student. Have they visited both ?
Good luck.
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This is a case where two reasonable people could make two different choices. Which environment does you child prefer?
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A bachelor’s degree plus a law degree is 7 years. A bachelor’s degree plus a medical degree (MD or DO) is 8 years. Can you afford to pay for 8 years of university without taking on excessive debt (where anything over $200k is excessive even for a doctor or a lawyer, and way less than this would be way better).
If you can afford to pay for a full 8 years of university, then…
Exactly. These are both very good universities. Which is a better fit is going to vary from one student to the next.
Yes. Coa is same for both. We have 529 for undergraduate. Grad they’ll have to take a loan
Not yet. Toured it last year. Revisit days are in the next coming weeks. DC is closer to home since we are in the east coast. I also know that my child may not like the bigger class feel so Georgetown makes sense
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Many schools have big classes early. And small classes later. You didn’t list a major. Neither pre law or pre med is a major. They are simply an intention.
Here are the class sizes by quantity of each school - bit of course neither is major specific.
No wrong choice. Good luck
GTOWN
UCB
The point @DadTwoGirls is making is that today, you can borrow $200k for law and medical, $100k for other majors. This includes undergrad (which you have no plan to borrow).
So the point is - let’s say you are a resident of X state - you would potentially be smarter to go to your State U or a U you got into for $30k or $40k and save the delta for grad school. If you have no money saved for grad school or are unwilling to cash flow it, you might be eliminating grad school possibilities later by choosing a high priced school today.
The reality is, today, that families need to budget for the entire possible educational path and not just the four years.
If the true goal is law or medical, it’s unlikely UCB or Gtown will provide any advantage over - name your state flagship or any other school.
Not trying to pivot your discussion - but this is something all families should be aware of.
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Planning to borrow the full cost of either law school or medical school is risky. It is not even clear this far in advance whether this will be possible.
I was indeed wondering whether there were more affordable options available.
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I would also let your kid choose based on which school fits them best. These schools are sufficiently different in vibe, culture, academics, etc that I would be surprised if the choice isn’t obvious to your kid. Are they leaning a certain way right now? What are the most important factors to them?
Regarding paying for law or med school, I wouldn’t necessarily make the choice based on the reduction of federal student loans at this point. There are too many unknowns including whether your kid will even pursue one of those paths.
FWIW, it is widely expected that med schools and law schools will offer institutional loans to close the gap that federal loans leave. Many schools already offer institutional loans to these students, many also have programs already in place that allows forgiveness of these loans if a student take a low paying public interest job post-graduation. And surely more will offer these options. It is also widely expected that the banks/other student loan companies are not going to ignore this large market that is opening up, so also expect some innovation in that world over the next couple of years. We just don’t know how things are going to shake out.
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Both Georgetown and Berkeley are excellent choices…this comes down to a matter of personal preference for the student. And maybe cost.
Federally funded loans are now limited to $200,000 including any undergrad federally funded loans. And the max per year in law school is $50,000…which likely won’t cover the total cost per year. Same with medical school. So…if family funds are limited, and law or medical school is possible, you might want to conserve some funds to help with law or medical school.
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Both excellent, but different. Cal is a big, public institution in a warm weather state. Even OOS Cal will be slightly cheaper vs full price at Georgetown. Georgetown is smaller, Jesuit (though not nearly as Catholic as ND or BC - all the kids I know that have gone there aren’t Catholic) private and colder. It really just depends on what your student wants in terms of vibe. Either school will prepare them well for law or medicine.
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I would encourage you to listen to your gut on this. Without going too into the weeds, our D22 is at Berkeley, and there’s no escaping the fact that it’s a big school. For our 2025 twins, we strongly encouraged a smaller (mid-size) program, and they’re having a far more personal and connected experience at William & Mary (similar in many ways to the undergrad experience at Georgetown).
As others have said in this thread, different students will be drawn to different schools, but if you have a feeling that a mid-size school might be the better fit, that’s a good thing to pay attention to.
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What’s interesting and honestly surprising to me is both show over half they’re classes 19 students or less.
GTown a higher % at a tad less than 2/3 but both over half. We don’t know the major but given UCB is a large public, I found that impressive.
If the student plans to attend law school, Georgetown University is the easy choice given equal COA. Georgetown University is a top (#2) feeder to law schools (behind Fordham)(Berkeley is #75), and it is the fourth (#4) best feeder into the Top 14 law schools behind Yale, Amherst, & Harvard (Berkeley is #22).
For med school, the lowest cost option usually deserves serious consideration.
Regarding student loans to attend law school: Other than the top 3 ranked law schools (Yale, Stanford, & Harvard), most law schools offer merit scholarships to the top applicants to that particular school.
For law, Georgetown; for medical school, lowest cost option.
Also, Georgetown places well in the areas of finance & consulting.
I assume you are using per capita stats. GT is more aligned to kids/majors that seek law school from the get go, especially vs a STEM oriented school like UCB is. And the reality is your top law schools are feeding from a crazy amount of colleges - so your odds aren’t zero anywhere. Same with all the T14.
Yes, some law schools offer merit. I know a Rutgers student who chose U Miami full tuition (ranked low) vs Vandy full pay.
But while one may be a top applicant from hs, it may be very different when it gets to law school.
I’m just saying - and it’s never wrong to bet on yourself - but your odds of gaining merit at a top school statistically won’t be great.
We don’t know that OP is spending all their educational dollars. But if they are, they are risking professional school possibilities, is simply the point I was making.
Why ?
A strong applicant to college presumably has a very high GPA & strong standardized test scores; these are the two main factors for getting an offer of admission to a top law school and for merit scholarship consideration from law schools.
Bcuz the class they are competing against in college is likely stronger than in hs - unless they are a top private. LSAT - I agree. A student in at GT will do very well. UCB is, of course, test blind so didn’t look at the score.
I actually attended both! They are two different worlds. Both great schools, but the experience and vibe of each is like night and day, so it just depends on what you prefer. Honestly, with apologies to my beloved Cal, I preferred the Georgetown experience overall. But it really is personal preference based on the kind of college experience you’re looking for. You can’t go wrong with either choice
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Obviously these are both excellent institutions and viable choices, but I am in a mood to be opinionated, so personally, I would vote for Georgetown in this case. I think the core corriculum approach is a good fit for preparing for law or med school, and DC is a great place for anyone with a possible legal interest to explore those interests and do some networking.
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