Focus

by PD

I’ve been in a dilemma for the past few days. I had applied to law school for this coming fall, and I had thought that I would be going to DePaul law in Chicago while working with Probity.

A few days ago, however, I received notice that I had been accepted into Santa Clara Law in the SF-San Jose area. When I found out, I was immediately frustrated–this was screwing up my certainty in my choice for the upcoming year. I had already turned down University of San Francisco’s acceptance due to a lower rank and no financial assistance, but Santa Clara’s offer was much more appealing…

DePaul’s tuition is $2,000 less per year than Santa Clara’s, and DePaul is offering a scholarship that is $5,000 more than Santa Clara’s, and it is renewable as long as I maintain a 2.3 GPA. Santa Clara’s scholarship is still significant, and it is renewable likely only if I am in the top 15-20% of my class. The scholarship is less guaranteed than DePaul’s, but it may provide an additional incentive towards higher performance.

Very high on my list of priorities are the employment prospects in California. I want to live in California as my permanent residence. Santa Clara and DePaul both have fantastic regional hiring rates. Santa Clara is great for California; DePaul has an extremely strong Chicago network. Santa Clara wouldn’t help me find legal work in Chicago, and DePaul wouldn’t put me in a position to find legal work in California.

Santa Clara has an average starting salary of $114,000; DePaul’s is in the mid $70,000s. Granted, the cost of living is slightly higher in California and the difference is probably due in part to the predominance of Santa Clara grads entering high tech or IP law, which generally carry higher starting salaries.

DePaul and Santa Clara are tied for #84 in the USNews rankings. Both have strong Intellectual Property programs (a field I am very interested in)–Santa Clara’s, however, is ranked #8 in the nation. DePaul also has a strong curriculum in Healthcare law, another potential field I’m interested in.

One of the biggest questions on my mind, however, is what happens to my involvement with Probity? Law school in general will afford me much less time than did my previous job. If I go to Santa Clara, I wouldn’t be able to attend many (if any) events in person–distance would certainly affect involvement. I would likely be able to do work remotely (I would certainly like to), but it would definitely cause a disconnect. If I go to DePaul, I would be able to be physically present for a fair number of Probity/Code Academy events, but I would have to make sure I was focusing on keeping my grades high. I want to be involved with Probity, but at the same time, I don’t want to sacrifice my ability to eventually work from and live in California. I think that learning in the heart of Silicon Valley could be very useful and applicable to Probity’s work, but I’m not sure how difficult I’m going to find it to maintain my work remotely.

Cost of living will be somewhat higher in Santa Clara than it would be in Chicago, and I would have to reestablish myself in a new environment. I don’t have as complete a network in Northern California as I do in Chicago. This could be detrimental, but it could potentially give me an opportunity to grow as I take the lessons learned from my first trip into the unknown (moving to Chicago for undergrad), and apply them towards developing a similarly strong network in Santa Clara. I think the exercise could be really good for me, but at the same time, it’s a daunting concept.

I’m still doing more research into both schools, but I haven’t made a final decision yet. Any thoughts on what other things I should consider?