Student/Alumnus Reviews of Schools for This Career and State
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Gonzaga University School Of Law • Spokane, WA
Studying Law (completion in 1980)
• 9/23/2011
"I felt that upon graduating and passing the Bar I was prepared to to handle any reasonable challenge that came my way. Many years have passed but I still have that feeling that I gained from my education."
Ratings are on a 1-10 scale
| Characteristic | Rating | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| Would Recommend? | yes | This is a small school and is expensive, but the quality of legal education is unmatched in my opinion. I have worked with (and against) attorneys from many other schools and I firmly believe that the quality of my education is at least as good as, if not better than, any other school. |
| Program Reputation | 8 | Despite the fact that it is a small private school in an out-of-the way corner of the country, my school has a pretty good reputation. It cannot compete with large, prestigious schools, but my feeling has always been that this sort of competition is not the goal. |
| Program Quality | 8 | Gonzaga University is a Jesuit institution and, as such, has very high standards. The requirement to constantly strive, and to understand thoroughly rather than learn by rote, were very helpful to me. I place a high value on the quality of my education. |
| Instruction | 9 | The standards of my law school were quite high and the faculty constantly encouraged students to strive for excellence. The atmosphere was always one that encourage students to go beyond the mere letter of the law to a true understanding of philosophy. |
| How Difficult | 8 | Jesuits are tough taskmasters. They have very high expectations and little tolerance for sloth. |
| Hands-On vs. Bookish | Students were encouraged to obtain hands on experience through employment or work at the school's low income legal clinic. I was working myself as a paralegal most of the time, so I didn't have much contact with these programs. | |
| Schedule Flexibility | 9 | The school offers both day and evening classes as well as a summer program. Students are allowed to "mix and match" day and evening classes to suit their schedules. |
| Academic Facilities | 9 | I must answer in two parts. When I attended the school it was located in an old Catholic high school just of the Gonzaga University campus. It was adequate and did have a great deal of space for the library. Some years ago the university built a new, large, state of the art law school that is absolutely marvelous and has just about every facility one could desire. |
| Social Life | 4 | I'm not a real party person. Also, I was married and working while I attended school, so, although I made some lifelong friends there, I did not participate in social activities that often. |
| Placement Services | 5 | I assume it is average. I secured employment on my own before I graduated and never availed myself of placement assistance. |
| Alumni Network | 7 | My school has an active alumni network. On the downside, they are always after me for money. |
Seattle University School Of Law • Seattle, WA
Studying Law (completion in 2011)
• 10/19/2011
"The professors are approachable and helpful. The student body also worked together, rather than against each other, to make the law school experience a quality one."
Ratings are on a 1-10 scale
| Characteristic | Rating | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| Would Recommend? | yes | For students who wish to stay in Washington or relocate to the pacific northwest, I would highly recommend SU. SU has a large number of alumni in the area, creating amazing networking opportunities and is overall an exceptional legal institution. |
| Program Reputation | 7 | The school is nationally ranked in the top 100 law schools in the nation. The writing program is one of the top in the country. Unfortunately, SU's strengths are overshadowed by the UW law school, also in Seattle. |
| Program Quality | 9 | Seattle University provided a diverse learning atmosphere. The students and professors worked together for the benefit of the legal community. |
| Instruction | 8 | A large focus was placed on practical experience. Many of the instructors had practical, rather than educational backgrounds which added richness to the material. |
| How Difficult | 6 | The courses required large amounts of reading. Beyond that, the work was minimal and manageable. |
| Hands-On vs. Bookish | As at most law schools, the focus of the curriculum is on book learning. However, SU does provide a large number of clinical opportunities allowing students to gain practical experience in the community. | |
| Schedule Flexibility | 10 | The school offers a wide variety of classes. Due to the large part time program offered, there are opportunities for all students to take classes at all hours of the day. |
| Academic Facilities | 8 | The building is relatively new and modern. The library is spacious with plenty of study terminals and private study space. Additionally, there is food services and most importantly coffee services in the building! |
| Social Life | 9 | The clubs on campus are very active. Activities range from academic interests to community involvement. |
| Placement Services | 8 | The economy has led to a large number of unemployed graduates. However, the school provides a lot of services and opportunities to those alumni looking for work. |
| Alumni Network | 9 | The alumni community is fairly active in the area. Additionally, the school's alumni services office keeps in good contact with alumni. |
Gonzaga University School Of Law • Spokane, WA
Studying Law (completion in 2010)
• 2/4/2012
"I give as high of a score as I do for two reasons: 1) I got an almost full-ride scholarship which meant that unlike my classmates who graduated with $100k+ of student loans, I graduated with no debt. 2)The professors and librarians were, as a whole, very intelligent and knowledgeable. I learned plenty in law school to prepare me to pass the bar and to be a lawyer (as well as a legal researcher, which is what I do now). I think other people would probably have a very different review of their law school experience because of the poorness of the current job market."
Ratings are on a 1-10 scale
| Characteristic | Rating | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| Would Recommend? | no | I had a scholarship that I barely kept, but so many of my classmates lost theirs. One of the ways that lower-ranked schools get students with better stats (the stats increase the school's ranking for subsequent years) is by offering a lot of scholarship money and then saying that the student can keep the scholarship for all three years so long as they keep a 2.75. This sounds very easy, but when the curve is set at a 2.6-2.8, and your grade for an entire class is based on what you scored on one exam as compared to how your classmates scored, almost 1/2 of people are losing their scholarships. Then, once you lose your scholarship, your grades are too poor to transfer to another school, so you're stuck. Then you graduate from a school that is not highly regarded nationally, so it's really tough to get a job that pays enough for you to make a dent in your student loan debt. It's ridiculous. I got very lucky because even though I didn't understand what was going on, I still kept my scholarship and had the interest and drive to get another degree that made me marketable. Many will not be so lucky, so I tell everyone I can that if they can't get into a highly ranked school, do not bother. |
| Program Quality | 4 | It is not highly ranked and although the education was very good, it was incredibly expensive and gave my colleagues lots of student loan debt and bad chances at getting a high paying job. It is partially because of these job prospects that I continued my schooling and got a master's degree in library science. |
| Instruction | 7 | Most of the professors seemed to care very much whether students learned and engaged with the material. There were certainly a couple of not so excellent professors, but that is likely the same at many schools. |
| How Difficult | 9 | Gonzaga is trying to gain respect in the legal education field. It was many people's perceptions that one way in which the school did this was to make the curriculum very challenging and set the grade curve very low. 1L year was incredibly intense because of the amount of reading and preparing for class that everyone had to do to compete with their classmates for the final exam. It got significantly easier during 2L and 3L year. |
| Hands-On vs. Bookish | They're requiring some internship experience now, but not when I was a student. There is a legal clinic that many of the students worked at, including me, but it's hard to really put all of the work necessary into your clinic work when you're also balancing a large school workload. This is not really Gonzaga's fault; it's more a reflection of a system of schooling based on an old model. This does seem to be changing somewhat. | |
| Schedule Flexibility | 4 | There were no weekend classes. Core required classes were not offered in the evenings. It was nearly impossible to get a final exam rescheduled. |
| Academic Facilities | 7 | The library was a very nice facility and had a relatively good collection. Professors were very accessible and were always available outside of office hours. The computer lab was nice, most of the classrooms were quite nice, and the building was very nice. |
| Social Life | 8 | I met lots of awesome people who I am still friends with. There were plenty of school-sponsored social activities. Professors were generally very willing to participate in extracurricular events. |
| Placement Services | 2 | The career services when I was there were abysmal. The head of career services actually suggested to a friend of mine who wanted to move to Seattle after graduation that her chances of getting a legal job weren't very good, but that she should consider applying to Crate and Barrel because they "make nice stuff." They only seemed interested in helping the top 10% of students and everyone else was supposed to send resumes and cover letters en mass to any and all possible employers in order to get the "employed after graduation" stats up. |
| Alumni Network | 5 | I get a newsletter in the mail. I sometimes get stuff/emails from Gonzaga's main campus, but not from the law school. |
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