Does undergraduate prestige matter

burghdad
Sat, 19 Feb 2022 15:38:02 +0000

Congratulations on your outstanding accomplishments. I think in light of many of the issues that have to be considered in your decision the best move is to go to state school.

My D21 went to Clemson and with AP classes, graduated in 3 years with a 4.0 BS economics degree. I tried to get her to stay for her 4th and get a masters or complete a second major. I also tried to get her to go get a masters at the London School of Economics as well. I also tried to get her to apply to a program at Vanderbilt that is a 6 year law degree and PhD in Economics which if accepted is tuition free plus a stipend. However she wanted to go to start law school. I only bring those up, similar to some ideas expressed by other posters, to highlight the types of incredible opportunities you might have with your early (age) graduation from college. And you will be able to do so without you or your parents being hindered by a great deal of debt from an undergraduate degree.

My D21 got multiple full tuition scholarships from top 20-30 law schools. She was waitlisted at multiple top 6-16 schools. My guess is if she road the wait lists she would likely have gotten into 1 of those but would have had to pay the full tuition. But similarly to your situation she would be graduating law school with 200-250K in debt from law school. Instead she decided to go to UF with full tuition scholarship and living stipend. Knowing that if she works in hard law school, graduated in top 5-10% of her class and makes law review she likely will be able to a good job or clerkship upon graduation and will do so debt free.

Good luck to you and your family with this decision.