Now it's getting interesting...

Accepted at the University of Wisconsin - Madison!!! I am still a bit shocked. This was one of the higher ranked schools I applied to. I had already come to terms with the fact that my chances were slim to none. I was pleasantly surprised.

For those who may not know, University of Wisconsin is ranked 32nd by the USNews. I don't want to be a rankings whore, but the reality is that in the end, they do merit attention. Rankings matter to firms, and firms have high salaries. Considering that I will have over $120k of debt after I graduate (not including my undergrad debt), this matters to me. Now this isn't to say that rankings/prestige are the most important factors. Clearly, if a school was ranked 30th and another school was ranked 35th, I think the difference is pretty inconsequential. However, the disparity between a 32nd school (UW) vs a 58th school (Temple) may be too much for me to take lightly.

After asking around and doing some more research, Ive learned a bit more about UW. Wisconsin is also one of the top public research universities in the country and supposedly has a gorgeous campus...in the summers. Winters are pretty rough. But more importantly, it seems as if UW grads stay in WI, primarily due to the fact that grads get admitted to the WI Bar (I dont know if this is good or bad - seems as if it would just breed laziness). It doesn't seem like WI grads go to the east coast firms much, most likely due to self-selection. However, they seem to be recruited highly by Chicago law firms.

But the question becomes - Am I ready/willing to drop everything and relocate to the mid-west? This is going to be very difficult decision to make in the next few months.

Update...

I got dinged from Indiana-Bloomington and American University. Didn't really care about Indiana. Despite being highly ranked, it seems as if their grads don't really break into the Mid-Atlantic/North-East big-law legal markets - both of which (kind of job and region) will be the main factors in my decision.

I was a bit perplexed with American. I suppose it wasn't exactly a target or safety. In all honestly, it was prob a bit of a reach. But for some reason I felt I would at least get a waitlist.

Ah well. To every ying, there is a yang. I was accepted to Penn State, University of Baltimore (prob withdraw), and Temple University. I am very excited about Temple. They also awarded a $12k/yr scholarship contingent on a 2.5 gpa (Temple has a 2.85 curve). This is almost the exact offer Pitt awarded, but with a conditional GPA. I am continuing to research everything about each school, their programs, legal markets, placement, cost of living, etc. It's going to be a tough decision, for sure.

I'm still waiting to hear from my top choices as I fill out FAFSA stuff and get my taxes in order. Gluck to all.

Anatomy of a 24 Season

A terrorist organization attacks the country and sends the President and his administration off in a wild panic. Civil rights and the Constitution are on the brink of becoming totally destroyed in the name of national security. These dilemmas usually turn up being false dichotomies, brought about by the shortsightedness of the President, his advisors, and usually everyone else in his entourage.

CTU - once again - slacks off on their screening practices and is infiltrated by a terrorist or some other antagonist. The avenue for this security leak is usually due to personal relationships of lonely CTU analysts (Seems as if everyone knows that Chloe is a pretty desperate girl who needs attention, especially from traitors.). This double agent usually ends up fucking them over – hard.

Jack Bauer is needed to make things better. He comes back out of retirement/hiding/being tortured by the Chinese for 2 years, to get the job done. He does not ask questions. He is a Patriot and does what he is told. Usually.

Jack finds the terrorist and ultimately discovers their plan. This plan usually comes to Jack totally unsolicited. When it does not, Jack uses his persuasive skills to obtain this information. This usually involves knives, various acids, and car batteries. We see that ultimately, the ends justify the means and that sometimes cruelty is necessary. And lets face it – torture gets better ratings. Machiavelli would love this shit.

And in law school news, I got a very nice reject letter from “The” Ohio State University. It was pretty much expected, being a non-Ohio resident and being below their medians and all. Oh well, at least I’m still waiting to hear back from “The” University of Florida. Not quite sure why I applied to these schools as I have no intention of attending either of them. I suppose it was because at the time, I was in the “crap, I better hedge my bets and apply to every damn school I can” mode.

Well, time to go watch the second half of the season premiere.